Category: Newsletters

News From The Advisory Group And The Round Table

The AG met in July, and the Round Table in August.

AG meeting. We heard updates on the flood and fire recoveries. All work on the flood recovery should be finished by the end of August. The walking track crew, who have done such a good job, finished at the end of the financial year. This work was relatively well-funded, in contrast to the fire recovery work, which received no extra funding. They have some insurance money for built assets, and some for rehabilitation of fire lines and damaged roads, but almost nothing for the cultural heritage surveys needed, and other important work.

We also had an update on the staff situation. PV is still cutting staff state wide. Long term ranger here, Geoff Pitt has decided to take one of the redundancy offers and will finish up in August. We thanked him for his work and wish him well … Read the rest

Park Report – Dave Roberts, Ranger in Charge

A wet July and August in the Grampians has restored good flows to our creeks, rivers and wetlands and recharging an otherwise dry system.

Up until this time, park staffs were engaged in trial winter burning operations in the Wannon River heath, an area of the park long unburnt and known to house significant small mammal populations including Long Nose Potoroos & Southern Brown Bandicoots.  The objective of this experimental burning is to introduce fire at small scales into this landscape over a long period of time to help protect the old growth river frontage vegetation from large scale intense fire impacts. The results achieved to date have been mixed which is exactly what we need, some hot, some cool. Prior to the burn we undertook both fauna and flora monitoring to ensure we could assess and interpret the outcomes. It has been interesting to note the amount of diggings … Read the rest

Nature In The Serra Range 1919

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 March edition we left the botanising group on the top of Mt Rosea on the first day of their two day trip in early November.]

As the country began to dip towards the Victoria Valley a fine patch of Melaleuca squamea in full bloom was met with, and in the gullies below Bauera sessiliflora was a magnificent sight. Grevillea rosmarinifolia, with its pretty rose-coloured blooms, and Trymalium Daltonii were also growing in the gullies ; the latter is a very early blooming shrub, and is at its best in July. The four Brachylomas native to Victoria were also found growing in this locality ; they were B. ericoides, B. daphnoides, B. ciliatum, and B. depressum. Following the creek which flows towards the Victoria Valley, we passed large … Read the rest

Historic Orchid Planting

It was a delight to see an article in the Stawell Times news of July 12, recognising the work of three octogenarian members of the Stawell Field Naturalists (and FOGG members). They were taking part in a history making project, the reintroduction of the threatened Brilliant Sun-orchid (Thelymitra mackibbinii), of which only 30 exist in the world, to an area near Stawell where there are just a few left. It’s a project of the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority, led by Dr. Noushka Reiter through the Horsham laboratory. After research into propagation and the mycorrhizal associations necessary (ie fungi in the soil), plus good rains in 2009-2011, some of the plants flowered. Then they were able to be hand pollinated and now new plants have been put back into the forest. There was a lovely photo of Lesley, Thelma and Win rejoicing after so many years of monitoring these rare plants.… Read the rest

McKenzie Falls Garden Project

After the floods FOGGs had been asked if we could help plant up a small area near the kiosk at McKenzie Falls. In December last year we put in a grant application to the Healthy Parks Healthy People Grants for Community Groups. We asked for $2800 and in May this year received word we had been successful in obtaining $425 so we will be modifying our original plans a bit and intend to plant the area next autumn. The plant out will be advertised in future newsletters.… Read the rest

Ryan’s Talk On The Bioscan

Wendy Bedggood

On 4th July Ryan gave a talk on some of the results from Museum Victoria Bioscan which was carried out last November. The talk was held during the school holidays in the hope we would get more people along. This worked well as we had 27 attendees and ¾ were visitors to the park or non member locals. The bioscan was done in the Grampians because it was an opportunity to do a rapid fauna survey as well as collecting an oral history of the area.

A team from Museum Victoria spent 14 days in the park recording, photographing and collecting data. A lot of work had been done back in the 1970’s but with the changing landscape and climate there was a need to do a snapshot of where things are at today.

Herpatologists set up reptile traps and took DNA samples from trapped animals. They … Read the rest

Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby Update

2013 Ryan Duffy
Team Leader, Cultural And Natural Values

Since November 2012, the Grampians rock-wallaby reintroduction has experienced its share of highs and lows. November  saw the largest single release of wallabies to date, with 17 animals being released at Moora Creek. This was part of a new strategy to introduce greater genetic diversity into the population which was anticipated to alleviate depressed breeding. This was certainly a high for the diverse partners involved in the Victorian Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby recovery team.

Soon after the release the program experienced a steady succession of mortalities. Wallabies are radio-tracked on a regular basis, mortalities are retrieved as quickly as possible in order to aid post mortem investigation. Few post mortems delivered conclusive results, however it appears fox predation is still one process threatening the reintroduced colony. This is despite Parks Victoria’s Grampians Ark fox baiting program delivering a Rolls Royce fox control program … Read the rest

Celebrating 100 years of Zumsteins – 22 September

The 100 Year celebration of Zumsteins will be held on Sunday 22 September 2013 at Zumsteins Picnic Ground in the Grampians National Park. The day will be also a celebration for the restoration works that have happened since the 2011 flood and storm event.

A small group have come together from the local community, the Horsham Historical Society, Wartook Tourism Association and Parks Victoria to plan for this special day. They would like to invite anybody who has enjoyed or has a strong association to the area, to come and celebrate this much-loved place created over one hundred years ago by Walter Zumstein. The celebrations begin at 10.30am with a number of speakers and displays bringing to life the many memories of the area, and of Walter Zumstein and his family. There will also be many activities such as a community bike ride from Rosebrook, a community picnic and children’s … Read the rest

Sharing The Dilemmas: How And When And What Should We Burn?

Glenn Rudolph DEPI

Glenn started by showing photos of the experimental burn they did in the Wannon heathland mid July this year, which Dave R has alluded to in his piece. This area has not been burnt since the 60’s and is a very valuable small mammal habitat. It would be disastrous to have a large fire go through it so they wanted to see how a winter burn would help break it up. They used only 3 matches to light it, no accelerants. They waited till a day when the temperature was below 15, and the fuel moisture level was 16% and lit it in the afternoon. There was much dead grass. Flame heights reached 2 to 3 m. By 5.45 the edges were starting to self extinguish, by 6pm only small pockets were still alight, by 10 pm it was completely out. It reached 8 ha and were … Read the rest

Cultural Heritage Post 2013 Fire

Suzi Coates (DEPI Ballarat, cultural issues)
Suzi is herself indigenous and has worked on several interesting projects.

There are 99 known Aboriginal cultural sites in the Grampians of which 69 are rock art. All are very vulnerable to fire, as are scar trees and quarries. Damage is caused by ash, smoke, heat. And not just the fire, also the clean up and subsequent erosion. Damage to the art work (heat flaking etc), the surrounding infrastructure, and the subsurface archaeological deposits. The damage may not be apparent to casual inspection, as the micro climate has effects.

The post fire team had 3 requirements: assess and conserve, repair and replace infrastructure, assess control lines prior to remediation works.

Teams have so far gone to 23 known sites and have found 3 new ones. More are likely to be found. The teams have consisted of people from four traditional owner groups and 3 … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd