Category: Natural Values

The Impact of Severe, Landscape-Scale Wildfire on Small Mammals: Grampians National Park Case Study

As reported in the last newsletter, Mike Stevens Team Leader Natural Values has used study leave this year to research the effect of the Mt Lubra fire on small mammal populations. Here is the official abstract of his honours thesis. The full paper can be obtained from Mike. It is well worth reading as there are some serious implications about the decisions to be made about future burning regimes.

The Impact of Severe, Landscape-Scale Wildfire on Small Mammals: Grampians National Park Case Study
M. Stevens (Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia; Parks Victoria, Halls Gap, Australia)
Abstract

Small mammals were used to examine the impact of severe landscape-scale wildfire using the post 2006 wildfire landscape of the Grampians National Park, Victoria, Australia as a case study. Long-term research sites were established using a focal patch design in wildfire (burnt) and unburnt areas with 9620 trap nights across thirty-six sampling units. The influence

… Read the rest

Victorian Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby Newsletter

DSE publish a newsletter called "The Shadow" which is specifically focused on the recovery of the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby. The November 2008 issue (number20) feature story is on the trial reintroduction of ten Brush-tailed Rock Wallabies in the Grampians National Park.

You can get your copy here (in 2 parts):

_Halls Gap Primary School_… Read the rest

Happy Families

We are still following the progress of the brush-tailed rock-wallabies and all are still alive.  We are very glad.

They are not going very far from the release site and are staying with their families.  We think that they must like the site the team chose for them and that they want to stay there.  We sure hope so.

Some of the collars that were not working are working now so Tony is happy.

We think that the fox baiting program must have been pretty successful as they have not had any brush-tailed rock-wallabies to eat!!!

Halls Gap Primary School… Read the rest

Collar and Cameras

So far all of the brush-tailed rock wallabies are still alive and not going very far.

Three of the collars are not working but they still think that the wallabies are ok.

They are all still going down to the creek to drink.

The release team have put cameras out in the park to try and get some photos of the wallabies.

The cameras go off when something moves in front of them.  There are some photos of wallabies and we hope to have some to put on the website soon.

Halls Gap Primary School… Read the rest

Halls Gap Primary School and the BTRW

Hi everyone,

We are the prep, one, two class of Halls Gap Primary School and with our teacher Frau Stoffel we are going to write a daily update for everyone about the Brush tailed rock wallabies that have just been released into our National Park. 

Jack is in grade 2 and his dad is Tony Corrigan one of the release team.  Through Tony and Jack we will have daily updates that we will add to this website.

As of Saturday all of the wallabies were accounted for and moving around.  The Tidbinbilla family are not as active as our local lot.  We think that maybe they are tired after all of their travelling to get here. 

The wallabies have been moving to the creek to drink, but other than that, they are staying close to the release site.  We are all excited that so far everything is going extremely well … Read the rest

VOTE FOR THE BRUSH TAIL ROCK WALLABY

Vote for the Brush Tail rock wallaby
The Victorian government is having a competition on what endangered species they are going to put on the vehicle registration labels next year. Of course, the Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby is on the list and you all need to vote for it…..please!!!. Tell your friends, kids, schools, relatives etc etc etc to vote. Go to www.dse.vic.gov.au and follow the links to ‘Plants and Animals’,
‘Threatened Species Competition’ … Read the rest

SCIENCE SEEKS ANSWERS TO POST FIRE SURVIVAL

At the first Advisory Group meeting Mike Stevens (Natural Values Manager) talked to us about his studies. Mike is so determined to find out more about the impact of the Mt Lubra fire, that he has gone back part time to University to do this research. We congratulate him. It is so important to document and learn from an event like this. This is the report he prepared for Parks Vic for National Science Week.

A unique scientific experiment in Grampians National Park is studying the survival of small animals during and after major wildfires. The project is the only one of its kind in Australia; A specific long term project, set up after a major fire, to investigate the impact on small native mammals. Most previous post fire research has been limited to prescribed burns, where the scale and severity of fire is limited and controlled. Parks Victoria is … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd