Category: 2014 Autumn Newsletter

ACTIVITIES CALENDAR

 

PROVISIONAL CALENDAR

Please bear in mind that changes may need to be made, and some dates couldn’t be settled before going to print. Changes will be emailed to those who have provided us with a current address and also put up on the website. But please also ring the listed contact person to find when it is on and to let them know you are coming.

MAY Tuesday 27th at 12 noon: We are having a joint tree planting at Zumsteins with the Stawell Secondary College. Katherine Dyson has arranged for our ‘Healthy Parks Healthy Peoples’ grant money to be shifted to works at Zumsteins, since the McKenzie Falls area was so badly burnt. Contact or further information from Wendy Bedggood phone 53825830 or 0429932065 or Katherine Dyson 53614063 or 0428553040

JUNE 6 – 9 Long Weekend Fauna survey. This replaces the activities which were planned for the Australia … Read the rest

Grampians Wildflower Show Returns 2014

GRAMPIANS WILDFLOWER SHOW WILL RETURN TO HALLS GAP THIS YEAR – WITH RADICAL CHANGES.

This year’s show will be a weekend only event and will focus on getting people out to look at the flowers, rather than bringing the flowers to the people. To emphasise this change we will be operating out of a marquee in the Botanic Garden rather than in the hall. We will still have some named specimens at participating venues along a “wildflower trail” of paintings, photographs, workshops through the town. We still will need help from FOGGIES. OCTOBER (Same weekend as Pomonal’s native garden show).… Read the rest

A WILDLIFE ART MUSEUM FOR HALLS GAP?

Have you heard about the ambitious scheme to build a world class museum and botanic garden in Halls Gap to celebrate wildlife art? “WAMA is a visionary concept. It is a project of national importance that will recognise the works of outstanding Australian wildlife and natural history artists. Their artistic work will be displayed in an iconic purpose built gallery set in native botanical gardens and wetlands in the foothills of the spectacular Grampian ranges in Victoria.”

They have a large site on the Halls Gap Pomonal Rd, an energetic committee of artists, conservationists and business people seeking more funding and support. Work has already started on planning the garden, with Master’s students from the University of Melbourne working on concept plans for the site under the supervision of their professors. More information is available from http://www.wama.net.au/ or email .

 

FOGGS have not been asked for support, but … Read the rest

PROJECT PLATYPUS NEWS

This year will celebrate 20 years of operation with a tour of past works and a celebratory dinner to be held in early October.

This years Plantout will involve four community plantings, four schools plantings and one corporate/group plantings. The community plantings will again be held through the months of July, where local and visiting volunteers will be encouraged to come along and lend a hand. The planting activities will again be themed with the aim of involving a wide range of volunteers in this important work. The first to kick off will be a site near Pomonal on Saturday 5th of July, where volunteers will plant 2,500 plants. With assistance from Jallukar Landcare Group in hosting the planting day, backpackers and other visitors to Halls Gap will be encouraged to come along and help, with a minibus running from the YHA.

 

The Grampians to Pyrenees Biolink Project continues … Read the rest

HISTORY: Final installment of NATURE IN THE SERRA RANGE.

By J. W. AUDAS, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., Assistant, National Herbarium, Melbourne.

 

(Read before the Field Naturalist’s Club of Victoria, 15th Jan., 1919.)

 

In our last few issues we have been publishing Audas’s description of a Spring excursion to Halls Gap. We conclude his story as they do the last leg of their 2 day walk. Please note that the botanical names are sometimes hard to decipher. The library who have made this available on the web has used character recognition software to get into a text document and it has not always coped with Latin vocabulary. And of course some plant names have changed as well.

 

Having reached a large, swiftly-flowing creek containing good water, we decided to boil the billy and have lunch, and enjoy a short respite from travelling. Feeling refreshed, we

 

pushed on and negotiated a high ridge, from the top of which a … Read the rest

ROUND TABLE REPORT

 

The agenda items for the roundtable all focused on the January fires. DEPI, CFA, Parks and Local government perspectives were all discussed.

January 15 was the 3rd day of temperatures above 400 C and thunderstorms had been predicted so all available crews and plant were in full readiness to deal with fires from lightening strikes. The thunderstorms started in the late afternoon. Predictions for 16th were for extreme weather conditions and although 10 aircraft and the aircrane were attacking several fires by 10 am in the morning, they were not having a great impact because of the already extreme weather conditions. Two fires in the southern Grampians and one of the northern fires were put out by ground crews but a couple of the northern ones in more remote locations were unable to be put out and it was unsafe to drop crews in to fight … Read the rest

NATURAL VALUES NEWS

Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby

        The Moora Creek colony population has been stable for almost a year (touch wood), the last mortality was in April last year. The population is currently 7 animals. Images are retrieved weekly from a series of remote cameras that have been deployed through the release site. Image attached, female 82 who is our longest surviving wallaby (close to 8 years old!). Individual wallabies can be identified from the colour or pattern of their radio-tracking collar antennae and ear-tag.

 Quoll

      Further remote camera images have been obtained of a spotted-tail quoll. The quoll has now been detected on four separate occasions, all at the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby colony location. Parks Victoria is attempting to gain a hair-follicle sample from the quoll in order to determine where it has come from. To achieve this rangers have established cage-traps adjacent to the rock-wallaby colony and will trap periodically, will establish hair-tubes within … Read the rest

ADVISORY GROUP REPORT Monday 18th March 2014

 

 

Advisory Group Meeting Minutes

 

Much of our meeting was of course fire related as we came to terms with the intensity of the fire and the damage done. But we first had a few items of business arising from the December meeting.

 

1. Recruitment process for Advisory Group:advertisements will go in local papers very soon, calling for expressions of interest. Procedures for forming a Traditional Owner Reference Group are nearing completion.

 

2. Camping:Asbestos at Staplyton campground is being cleaned up this week. Staplyton will be included in the Online booking system being rolled out. However Staplyton campground doesn’t easily align with the Grampians Peak Trail. A second campground in the Northern part of the Park would be desirable. Coppermine could be changed from an informal campground into a formal one or a private sector could run a campground on the edge of the Park whether … Read the rest

APRIL 3: Meeting at Parks Office

 

 

About a dozen people met in the Mural room and Mike Stevens and Ryan Duffy gave us an update on park activities.

 

Mike explained in much detail the events of the January Northern Grampians Complex fire. On Jan 15 several lightening strikes started fires across the Grampians, Parks, CFA and DEPI staff worked hard to put these fires out, but inaccessibility and bad weather lead to a couple of fires in the Wartook area not being able to be controlled. Mike described to us how events unfolded and showed us a program called Phoenix Rapidfire which illustrated how the fire progressed. The program had been used during the fire to predict the fire behaviour and to give people warning of the likely path it would affect. Phoenix Rapidfire was developed after the 2006 bushfires and has been improved each year as more information from each fire season … Read the rest

MARCH 4th FOGGs Working Bee – Our contribution to Keep Australia Beautiful

IMG_1244

Have you heard of Therma-Gel? Thanks to David Thompson’s foresight and planning, including research into this product, and Judith and Rodney’s hard work, their house was saved from the Wartook fires; a thorough spraying with Therma-Gel kept it from burning, even though unsprayed objects on the verandah were melted and burnt.

Once on, it has to come off! 6 of us met to remove the dried coating from windows, door frames and whatever, and to help in any way possible. To remove the Therma-Gel from windows, it was found easiest to wet it first with a broom, then scrape it off with a window-cleaner squeegee. Lots of rehydrated gooey stuff was disposed of around the garden. Thanks to Will and Proo bringing a tank of water this was achieved, to the welcome accompaniment of birdsong from the considerable number that have returned to the area.

Unfortunately there was nothing we … Read the rest