Category: Natural Values

The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council recently released for public comment its draft proposals for future conservation and use of public land in the River Red Gum Forests area. VEAC has been investigating the River Red Gum Forests since April 2005 across an area in the Murray River corridor from Lake Hume to the South Australian border.

The draft proposals include five new national parks (Barmah, Gunbower, Lower Goulburn, Warby Range-Ovens River, Leaghur-Koorangie and a significant addition to Murray-Sunset) and five new regional or other parks. It is proposed that the Murray River Reserve and a number of existing regional parks including Echuca, Tocumwal, Cobram, Yarrawonga and Wodonga be consolidated into a new Murray River Park. The total area of national and state parks is proposed to increase from 62,000 hectares to 152,000 hectares. There are also significant proposals for increasing the environmental water allocation along the Murray, increasing Indigenous involvement … Read the rest

*…you study it, we will report it.*

Study of our ecology in Australia began in the fifties.

The Grampians was declared a National Park in 1984, and what we don’t know about the area would fill several encyclopaedias. What we don’t know about we cannot manage or protect. So it is very, extremely, HUGELY, important that we develop a database of information on what is there, what should be there, what needs protecting, and how.

We will endeavour to promote this by publicising in Nat Notes what ecologocial studies have been completed, what are currently being done, and what should be done. It is aimed at you, the interested reader, and also we hope as an exchange medium between people working in the field, who often work very hard in remote areas, and who may benefit from reading what is going on elsewhere.

When (not IF) we miss something, or … Read the rest

h4. THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN THE GROUND LAYER AND THE OVERSTOREY?

Alan L. Yen, Museum of Victoria, GPO Box 666E, Melbourne, Vic 3001

*INTRODUCTION*
Invertebrates are the animals without backbones – they range in size from microscopic mites to giant spiders, snails and crustaceans that have body weights greater than some species of mammals and birds, yet most are lumped into the category of ‘bugs.’ The involvement of these ‘bugs’ in a diverse range of essential ecological functions does raise the question of what would happen to biological systems if the invertebrates ceased to function.

In Australia, there are some 6,000 species of vertebrates, nearly 100,000 species of described non-marine species of invertebrates, and an estimated further 200,000 undescribed species of non-marine invertebrates (Yen & Butcher 1997). These invertebrates are involved in key ecological functions such as (Yen & Butcher 1997; Majer & Nichols 1998):
* Soil aeration and drainage … Read the rest

*Small Mammal Survey*

The story so far: Friends Of Grampians-Gariwerd have a grant to involve the public in research, and to educate them as to its importance. We did a substantial survey using the ‘Hair Sampling Tube’ method, and we have written it all up in a set of A3 books, one of which will be on a table in the Visitor Centre and the others will be loaned around to people interested in what we have done as a community research programme.
Our final activity was to invite Hans Brunner up for a public lecture on hair tubing, which was greatly appreciated.

Hans takes three views of any hair samples supplied, (refer pictures above (bandicoot) and below (tiger quoll).

FIRST: a cross section, shown in the upper left of the picture, this is usually the most easily identified.
SECOND, a whole hair view, shown on the far right of … Read the rest

*BLACK (SWAMP) WALLABIES*

Matthew Wood did his PhD study at Deakin University of the Red-Neck and the Black Wallabies in the Grampians. Project Title: Habitat use and potential for competition in sympathetic populations of Red-necked Wallabies and Black Wallabies.

The Black Wallaby, Wallabia bicolor, was first reported in the Grampians in March 1979 and has since established populations to become widespread throughout most of the Park. The presence of the Black Wallaby in the Grampians may have some serious implications for existing populations of Red-necked Wallabies, Macropus rufogriseus, through interspecific competition.

In the Winter 1998 edition of the FOGG Newsletter, readers will recall the article by Matt Wood, Deakin University PhD student, setting out his plans to research the “Habitat use and potential for competition in sympathetic populations of Red-necked and Black Wallabies.” Hard pressed as he was with his project, Matt gave us the following report on his progress.… Read the rest

Lindy Lumsden some years ago came to the conclusion that almost nothing was known about the Australian Bats, and she decided that she would try to do her bit to improve on that. We had the good fortune to be able spend an evening with her while she explained to us about bats, while doing a survey of what bats were present.

We held this evening in the vicinity of a fire dam, some 5 km from Halls Gap. We had about 20 people there, mainly FOGS members, with some visitors who had seen our notices. Lindy uses a number of devices. In the pictures we are watching her assembling a Harp Net, which consists of fine fishing lines stretched vertically over an aluminium frame. This is put up about half a metre above the ground, and when a bat hits the lines it slides down the lines and come … Read the rest