Category: Articles

Mike Stevens’ Talk – April 13

When we had asked Mike to update us on environmental issues in the park, particularly on the overgrazing issue, he was not yet acting as Ranger in Charge, so in the end we got some of each.

Sallow wattle: The aim is to control as much as possible, using a mix of handpulling and mechanical mulching. We really have to do as much as we can as it potentially could cause huge problems. In Wilsons Promontory a weed teatree has spread and spread. We asked about the sallow wattle monitoring that some of us had volunteered to do while Ryan was in the position. Mike was not very familiar with it and asked each of us to collate what we had done so far and show him, so he could see what use could be made of it.

Predators: We have both foxes and cats. Fox baiting has … Read the rest

Parkconnect

As reported in the last newsletter, Parks Vic is encouraging us all to  register to become an official Parks Victoria volunteer by creating a user account and volunteer profile with details about your interests, skills, and contact information.

It is a way of registering special skills, interests and qualifications so they can contact us for activities etc and keeps track of paperwork such as accredited chainsaw training and working with children checks.

We can use it too to look for volunteer activities in other parks. Should be useful when on holidays.

It’s quite easy to register. You need to create a profile and a password of course.

Register now at Parks Victoria

… Read the rest

Advisory Group Report

The Advisory Group met on March 16 with Mike Stevens (Team Leader, Environment and Heritage)  as acting Ranger in Charge as Dave R is on secondment to the North East part of the state. We had two main topics to discuss with three visitors from Melbourne, plus of course a list of local ongoing issues.

Our first visitors were Tony Varcoe (Community Engagement and Inclusion) and Young Soo Kwon, an exchange ranger from South Korea who were  both interested to observe how an AG works as ours is one of the very few parks to have one. We introduced ourselves, the history of the AG and our own backgrounds and they then listened in as we discussed:

Community partnerships. There are 17 of these groups and the park benefits hugely eg the partnership with Deakin University costs $5000 but delivers $100,000 worth of projects.

Grampians Peaks Trail Progress:  Some … Read the rest

Snippets from Here and There

Cavendish RED GUM Festival

Three of us manned a stand at the festival featuring our FOGG Red Gum walk in the Victoria valley with posters, an A3 book on the history of our walk, and copies of the new Park booklet on walks for the less-abled . Despite the appalling weather and our subsequent relocation to the fringe of town we had quite a bit of interest. There were quite a few other environmental groups also involved and the day was a real success. Fogg member Jacqueline Ridler performed a poem celebrating red gums which I have permission to show.

Brothers in Arms

Old Man Redgum, if tales that you could tell,
Of a time before the white man, where thousands of you dwelled,
When your limbs reached out beside you and caressed your brothers’ hands.

Now you look so lonely, yet still strong, robust and grand,
The story tells … Read the rest

From the Editor

Welcome to our summer newsletter.

Please note that our first activity for the year is on February 24th at 4pm in the Mural Room in the Parks Office at Brambuk. Hear about the research done by two of our members Ben Gunn and Bill Gardner.

Then on Saturday March 3 we are having our annual cleanup activity followed by a BBQ lunch. Because a replacement for Caity has not yet been appointed we have been asked to take on more responsibility. If you are able to help please contact us asap so we can work out sites and activities. See below.

April 13 Friday at 5pm Mike Stevens will catch us up to date on what is happening re environmental issues in our park. Some of us will then be heading to Cavendish’s Red Gum Festival the next morning to put up a display on the history of our Red … Read the rest

2018 February Prez Sez

Hello foggies and welcome to 2018!

We are kicking off another year and I hope it can be an impressive one. As always we will be doing a cleanup day this year in March, and I hope we can see some PhD presentations from some of our esteemed membership. A working bee or two, some educational sessions too. A picnic on the mount… no wait wrong song! Our usual mix, sprinkled with some time outdoors enjoying the park.

Online stuff- this may be a year of technology for FOGGs.

Parks Victoria have launched a website called ParkConnect, to help people find and join volunteer groups and organisations. The idea being it will allow people new to an area, or travelling through to find a local group or activity to be part of. Three members of our committee attended a workshop to learn its operation, from the team that developed the … Read the rest

From the Parks Desk Feb 2018

It has been a busy summer holiday period in Grampians National Park. According to the latest figures the Halls Gap area saw a 1774% increase in population – from 316 permanent residents to a peak of 5500 people! This was the largest percentage increase across the state of Victoria and evident by the sheer volume of people visiting the national park.
However, the impact on the park has been both positive and negative. It is fantastic seeing so many people out enjoying this landscape, however disappointingly we have noticed an increasing number of people failing to take responsibility for their own rubbish. Please help spread the message of taking your rubbish with you. The photo below was taken by one of our rangers at Silverband Falls Carpark.

STAFF MOVEMENTS: After 3 years in the Grampians as a Volunteer Coordinator and Project Firefighter, Caity O’Reilly has accepted a new marine focused … Read the rest

Feral Cats

News from Mike Stevens

The Victorian Government has indicated it will officially move to declare cats as pest animals on public land in mid-2018 paving the way for feral cat control.

The important next step will involve community engagement to consult on the types of control techniques that will be allowed. Being able to complement large-scale fox 1080 poison baiting with large-scale cat poison baiting could be the next evolution of the Grampians Ark project. Data is indicating that aerial baiting for feral cats is extremely effective during the colder, winter months when natural food resources are scarce and feral cats are under a higher metabolic requirement, thus, less fussy and more willing to eat a bait. It is the type of sophisticated “once-per-year” program the Grampians could deliver, complementing the long-term fox poison baiting efforts.

The Western Quoll reintroduction project in the Flinders Ranges continues to get excellent results … Read the rest

Grasses Day

Leigh Douglas

SEDGES HAVE EDGES
RUSHES ARE ROUND
GRASSES HAVE KNEES (nodes) THAT POINT TO THE GROUND

Amphibromus, Lachnagrostis, Austrostipa, Chloris, Themeda, Neurachne ….. or, Wallaby Grass, Blown Grass, Spear Grass, Windmill Grass, Kangaroo Grass, Fox-tailed Mulga Grass – just some of the native grasses identified by Alan Bedggood at our home near Lake Lonsdale, as he led about 20 of us on a fascinating tour of discovery on our November activity. Ask Alan if you think I’ve got some names wrong …. because it’s quite likely ….. a new learning curve, and definitely a new passion.

Alan brought along samples of grass for us to handle and look at closely, with and without using little powerful illuminated magnifiers for studying the finer points of grasses, such as their awns, lemmas, and glumes, the only way in which to speciate many grasses; the more closely we could look, the more … Read the rest

Mt Difficult Drive and Walk (14 Oct 2017)

Geoff Stratford

As members gathered at the Boroka Lookout mid-morning in mid-October the lookout was shrouded in cloud giving very limited possibility of catching a glimpse of a view. No matter to FOGG’s, a dozen of us pooled vehicles to tackle the gravel road which had claimed a Parks vehicle, bogged, earlier in the week.

With some hastily arranged road repairs by Parks Vic our group encountered no hint of a problem. In fact the amount of interesting plants and interactions between those present meant we travelled only a small distance compared to that which had potentially been planned. Rodney and Margo had mapped out perhaps five to seven locations which we might stop and observe the flora and environment.

Our first stop seemed less than two kilometres along the Mt Difficult track and it became obvious that we were blessed to have the company of Neil Marriot for … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd