There will be some changes to our website over the next few months. Frank is introducing a new way of entering material which will make it easier for us to update it and use differing fonts etc. We are also contemplating a change of name to give it an Australian address. But you will still be able to find it easily.
In the meantime, it is still generating mail and enquiries. School assignments, articles for this newsletter, and assorted enquiries. One recent interesting one was a woman researching family history who came across an article we had about the wildflower paintings of Henrietta D’Alton. We were able to put her in contact with the Halls Gap Historical Society, who could provide her with the information, and copies of the paintings. … Read the rest
Category: Articles
Grampians National Park Roundtable
FOGGS have been invited to be part of this group, and Wendy Bedggood will be our representative. The first meeting will be in July when these draft ideas will be discussed and membership confirmed.
Below are parts of the draft aims and objectives.
A roundtable is an independently facilitated meeting that allows groups with an interest in a topic to come together and collectively consider the issues. It helps participants build an understanding of each other’s perspective and where possible identify solutions or pathways forward on challenging and contentious issues.
The Grampians National Park roundtable has been formed to provide a forum for dialogue between land management agencies and the community.
The geographical area that the roundtable will cover is the Grampians National Park and its surrounds, including the Black Range State Park and contiguous areas of public land and state forest in the Greater Grampians and public land areas … Read the rest
THREATENED SPECIES GROUP MEETING.
The TSG held a most interesting planning meeting recently. Volunteers from FOGG and Stawell Field Naturalists met together with Pauline Rudolph, Dave Pitts and Noushke Reiter and two new recruits from DSE, Neville Walsh from the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, Dave Handscombe from GNP’s fire team (also wearing his plant knowledge cap), Neil Marriott (Australian Plant Society and botanist), Jacinta Williamson also from GNP, with Ryan Duffy and Dave Roberts there too for part of the day. We discussed the status and known locations of the plants we’ve been monitoring ( Daviesia laevis, Pimelea pagophila, Senecio macrocarpus, Eriocaulon australascium, Asterolasia phebalioides , Borya mirabilis, and Callistemon wimmerensis), the threats each is facing, what research is taking place and what actions should be taken. With Dave Roberts we also discussed the new fire zones, and the recommendations that came out of the Royal Commission into Black Saturday. (I won’t go into the … Read the rest
ADVISORY GROUP REPORT
The AG met in April. Once again much of our time was spent on discussion of the flood and landslides. As well as the obvious work needed on tracks, bridges, roads and other infrastructure, there’s going to be a lot of work needed on the environmental impacts. For instance, weeds have just loved this weather – blackberry seedlings are everywhere. And as you’ll read elsewhere, fox numbers have exploded, with serious results. Fox baiting had to be suspended while roads were closed, then there has been plenty of food around, but unfortunately they seem to prefer our fauna to the rabbits! On the positive side, funding for the Grampians Ark project is now ongoing, rather than needing to be reapplied for each four years and fox control will be able to be extended to more of the Park.
We also discussed the first stage of the long distance Grampians Peak … Read the rest
MORE ON FOXES
Daryl Panther, who has managed to catch eight foxes on the fence line between Kathy McDonald and me, has put the following notice in our local Halls Gap newsletter.
Expressions of Interest
Around six properties are required in Halls Gap to trap foxes; these animals are a great threat to our wonderful native wildlife.
A local licensed professional fox trapper would like to help reduce the number of foxes living in the Halls Gap area without using any poisons or guns. The traps used would be soft jaw restraining traps that hold the fox by the leg without causing injury or excess pain.
The properties required can be from large house blocks to acres, and need to have permanent human residents living on or next door to the site. They would have to be pet free properties and not rented holiday houses.
The trapper would set the trap, maintain the … Read the rest
FROM OUR TEAM LEADER, NATURAL VALUES 2011
During the past 2 months DSE and parks staff have unfortunately detected 3 mortalities at the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (BTRW) site. One mortality could be directly attributed to fox predation; as a result we have temporarily employed our fox baiting guru, Daryl Panther, to invest more effort baiting and monitoring fox activity around and within the BTRW site.
· Flood recovery funds will not only be devoted to reinstating walking tracks, roads and visitor sites. Soon staff will find out about the allocation of flood recovery funds for biodiversity projects. Projects nominated for funding include an assessment of the condition of significant natural values within flood affected areas (e.g. riparian vegetation, aquatic fauna) and continued effort eradicating and monitoring emerging weed populations, amongst other projects.
·The new State Government has committed to ongoing funding for introduced species programs on public land. Locally this means the ‘Grampians Ark’ program is likely … Read the rest
From The Ranger In Charge Desk June 2011
The Grampians National Park continues to implement post flood recovery works across all areas of the business including Assets, Natural Values, Cultural Values and Tourism. To date much of our effort and energy has been spent in maintaining the areas of the Park remaining accessible to a safe and appropriate standard for the increased and concentrated visitor numbers. A great example of this is the Mt Zero Rd (Bolte Hwy) which has had unprecedented attention over the past 4 months. Credit must go to the roading crew including Graeme Scherger, John Rudolph and Nick Scott who have spent their fair share of time on the road since the initial event.
During the months of June and July 2011, our focus will be on re-opening the public road network within the Victoria Valley and Victoria Range, with traffic restrictions in place due to ongoing maintenance needs. This will allow local and … Read the rest
PRESIDENT’S REPORT June 2011
guess most members have heard by now that the Premier did visit and promise $5.5 million to the Grampians. This, with the money to be paid by insurance should help to cover much of the cost of rehabilitation of the Park.
It is still difficult to access many places in the Park, but members of FOGG’s have been lucky to walk into Venus Baths with Dave Roberts and see the very damaging land slips from the Northern Grampians Road. This gave us a sense of the amazing water flows down the creek.
We also had a fascinating talk and walk with Ross Cayley and learnt more about the processes involved in land slips. There may be a chance of a second visit from Ross and I highly recommend it to members as his enthusiasm for geology is really infectious.
Vic Roads also organised bus tours so the community would have … Read the rest
FROM THE EDITOR JUNE 2011
Welcome to the winter edition of our newsletter.
You will not be surprised that much of our energy, and that of the Park staff, is still solidly on flood recovery, and that is going to continue for some months – actually years. In addition, the interesting work of monitoring the effects of drought and fire followed by flood and landslide will continue on for some years too.
The two major through roads are still blocked, although it is hoped that shortly the road from Halls Gap to Dunkeld will open as far as the Mirranatwa Gap road, giving access through Victoria Valley to the south. The road from Wartook is open as far as the Boroka Lookout turn off, but the slip above Venus Baths cuts the Wonderland area off from Halls Gap. VICROADS are working as hard as they can and we just have to learn to be patient. … Read the rest
Ross Cayley visit Friday 3 June 9:00 – 11:30
As promised, FOGG members are invited to learn more about the geology of landslides. We are able to join in with his presentation to staff.
Please RSVP to Jacinta at 5361 4001.
Agenda:
9:00 – 9:30 Visitor Safety Induction (Fulton Hogan / VicRoads)
To be conducted by Jacinta Williamson prior to entering Silverband Road worksite (beyond gate)
9:30am – 10:30:
Presentation and discussion on landslides – world-wide examples and Grampians specific
10:30am – 11:30:
Field trip along Silverband Road to discuss the newly exposed rock and mineral profiles / and to look at an on ground example of a landslide
I suggest we car pool up Silverband Road to the old Silverband Falls car park and walk up from there. For anyone who may not be able to walk up hill can go in a Parks Victoria car to the site.
There is a possibility that the talk will be … Read the rest