As we understand it, individual States are free to “manage” their own (protected) wildlife. However, the "management" of wildlife ends up evolving into a business of exponential commercial proportions, with momentum to keep supplying the meat and skins for domestic use and international export markets. (Photographs by Brett Clifton)
#D9EAF5;">Update, 27 June 2014: Added links to other stories, including more recent stories, about the Mitchell River Flying Foxes, in response to #comment-126189">more #comment-126190">comments: Flying Foxes hounded from their habitat (July 2013(?), Environment East Gippsland), Council keen to remove bat-attracting trees (23/1/14, ABC), Chester backs push for Bairnsdale bats removal (21/5/14, ABC), Flying foxes torment Bairnsdale community like bats out of hell (14/6/14, Herald Sun).
#D9EAF5;">Update, 27 June 2014: Other stories, including more recent stories, about the Mitchell River Flying Foxes: Chester backs push for Bairnsdale bats removal (21/5/14, ABC), Flying foxes torment Bairnsdale community like bats out of hell (14/6/14, Herald Sun), Council keen to remove bat-attracting trees (23/1/14, ABC), Flying Foxes hounded from their habitat (July 2013(?), Environment East Gippsland).
There is a breeding colony of grey headed flying foxes at Bairnsdale in poplar trees along the bank of the Mitchell River in Bairnsdale. It is now threatened by the East Gippsland Shire. This article, by Bob McDonald, contains a fascinating history of flying fox colonies in early Victoria, as well as some keen scientific observations. (Photos also by Bob McDonald.)
The Australian Wildlife Protection Council has taken unprecedented steps towards preparing a case for negligence against the Victorian Government and the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) for failing to protect Victorian Wildlife and failing to assign official 'Threatened Status' to species under threat. The Victorian Auditor General in 2009 warned that the Victorian government had failed to uphold their charter to fully implement the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 but the Government has since done nothing about this. There is at present no effective protection for wildlife in Victoria. The Department of Sustainability has declined into a kind of rubber stamp office-front for shooting licenses with an agenda mostly outsourced to corporate interests for massive urbanisation of the state.
Australian Wildlife Protection Council
September 16, 2012
Part One
A Case for Negligence by the Victorian Government and the Department of Sustainability and Environment, (DSE) for failing to protect Victorian wildlife. DSE fails to assign official "Threatened Status" to species under threat.
Former Executive Director Dr Ian Miles arranged for DSE Adrian Moorrees, Project Manager, Actions for Biodiversity Conservation (ABC), Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Division to demonstrate to AWPC the DSE Actions Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) Data Base system.
Conrad Annals, Acting Chief Ranger for Northern Melbourne district has advised that there is no kangaroo cull planned in Plenty Gorge next Monday and Wednesday nights, contradicting what published here on August 9. He could not comment on the lack of wildlife corridors to and from Plenty Gorge in the face of high human economic immigration numbers resulting in rapid population growth and infrastructure expansion in Melbourne and the rest of Australia.
In this article's original leading paragraph, of which this is a rewrite, we said that the growth lobby (of which the organisers and beneficiaries are mainly property developers) is both benefiting from and causing this unnecessary high human population growth. This remains uncontested. We also stand by the statement that Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) protects and advances the costly interests of the growth lobby whilst pretending to protect our wildlife. We maintain that the growth is unnecessary and so is culling - when it occurs. The AWPC promotes another way: Wildlife corridors and relocation as well as stopping high immigration.
Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and the Department of Primary Industries' (DPI) court cases against five duck rescuers falls apart. Rescuers found guilty of only one of five charges. Magistrate refuses to award the $18,000 court costs because of DSE wildlife heavy handedness in arresting rescuers final weekend last years' duck-shooting season and criticizes wildlife officers for refusing warmth to rescuer. Magistrate says legal for rescuers to be on the water, expresses surprise that DSE did not provide care for injured birds at the wetlands - that it was left to duck rescuers to do this. No rescuers convicted or fined. No court costs. Rescuers good behaviour bonds until October this year.
Following a six-day hearing [!] in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court in March this year, five duck rescuers were today each acquitted of four charges out of five. Each were found guilty of only one charge when rescuing waterbirds on wetlands near Kerang, in northern Victoria, during the final weekend of the 2011 duck shooting season.
No Surprise: The Department of Sustainability and municipal councils' positions on recycling have long been an insult to the intelligence of the population. The auditor general's report should also be used to expose "Green" groups that collude with government on this nonsense and to muzzle sustainable population voices. The audit found that the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Sustainability Victoria, the Environment Protection Authority, the Metropolitan Waste Management Group, one regional waste management group and four municipal councils have not effectively fulfilled their roles in implementing the strategy, resulting in ineffective planning, leadership, coordination, and oversight. And gee, we are not going to meet our so-called target of Towards Zero Waste Strategy by 2014.
There were reports from residents of shooting last night (Friday, as reported by Fiona Corke) and as kangaroos are very stress prone, there are reports of them fleeing in fright, and they could abandon joeys and get caught in fences. Injuries could result. This violence is horrifying. The DSE should be responsible in caring for wildlife, not the contrary!
EXCLUSIVE: Shots heard as Eden Park kangaroo cull begins
The Department of Sustainability and Environment late last year approved NMIT’s application to kill 300 kangaroos until October. and for the next three years.
According to the police, That is a matter between police and the permit holder. This is hardly true! The kangaroos are our iconic native animals and belong to everyone. The Council unanimously agreed to support them, and so do many residents. There are no valid reasons to kill them.
The DSE have employed shooters were in the Whittlesea area shooting kangaroos and causing mayhem and distress. Why is the State government department above the laws that protect native animals?
Is Portsea preparing for invasion? Yes, by sea. Much of the beach has disappeared and the overhang has been sandbagged to prevent businesses from following it. Where did that $38m given to Parks Victoria go? This article also looks at Ted Baillieu's plans to continue development plans (cost $9.4b?) where Brumby left off, plus some comments from the Ex-Ports Minister, Tim Pallas.
The Department of Sustainability (DSE) and the Office of Environmental Monitor (OEM) probably had hoped their problem of disappearing iconic Portsea beach might have gone away. Well their problem hasn’t gone, but the beach has!
Victoria's Auditor-General, Des Pearson, this morning tabled the "Environmental Management of Marine Protected Areas" report in the Victorian Parliament: This audit examined how effectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria, and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, in the environmental management of marine protected areas. Parks Victoria cannot show that marine biodiversity is being protected or that the related management obligations of applying resources as intended are being discharged. Little environmental management activity is evident across its marine protected areas.
Tabled: 2 March 2011
Marine protected areas, totalling 11.7 per cent of Victoria's marine environment, have been reserved to protect environmental, historical or cultural features. This audit examined how effectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria, and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, in the environmental management of marine protected areas.
In May, 2010, The Auditor General found that Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks was complicated, poorly coordinated, and poorly administered.
In May, 2010, The Auditor General also found that Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks was complicated, poorly coordinated, and poorly administered. Click here for more on this.
The report was tabled in Victorian Parliament on 26 May 2010
The audit examined the effectiveness of invasive species programs in national and state parks. In particular, it examined the governance arrangements, information systems, planning frameworks and on-ground activities targeting invasive species across the park network.
Among other things, it says,
"Several reports, including the State of the Environment report from the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, have made it clear that Victoria’s biodiversity is in poor condition and declining in most areas. Invasive plants and animals are a major contributor to that decline, and can have substantial economic, environmental and social impacts on parks."
A new you-tube film about the forest protectors' camp and community at Goongerah, South East Gippsland, near Brown Mountain. The long trial for the wildife on Brown Mountain has come to an end - all except the final decision by Justice Osborn, which all await with baited breath. This is a land-mark trial where real-life avatars have come out and opposed the 160 year old treatment of Victoria's forests and animals as colonial spoils for the taking and Victorians as mere servants to the State.
Read inside a fascinating summary of the arguments and evidence from either side: Vic Forests (for logging) and Environment East Gippsland Inc. (for nature). Revelatory of Department of Environment and Sustainability.
Late 2008 a school teacher helped worried children in Epping write to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Jennings, asking him to help kangaroos marooned by development and battered by traffic. Why did DSE allow Wildlife Victoria to spend time and money on a plan to relocate the 21 remaining kangaroos to safe territory, but then secretly kill the kangaroos in a unilateral decision in January this year? Why did DSE, which is also responsible for planning, allow development to trap the kangaroos? A memorial protest will be held for these kangaroos on Sunday 28 March at 2pm at Oleander Drive off McDonalds Rd in South Morang.We the People can do more about this - see inside! See also "Children in Epping tread where politicians fear to go" and "Our State government appears to be on a campaign to eradicate native wildlife from Victoria, especially kangaroos"
Levels of fluoride dust from a brick factory at Craigieburn and the Alcoa aluminium smelting plant near Portland are proving fatal to kangaroos. DSE was informed of the problem in 2008 and the EPA was told in 2005, but signs of fluoride-related symptoms in kangaroos were noted as early as 2001. We know we cannot rely on the DSE's wildlife statistics and most of us have heard that the EPA is a toothless tiger, but how many of us would have thought there was enough fluoride dust out there to kill herds of kangaroos? Where does that put humans, especially children?
"How thick can a political skin get?" writes Victorian wildlife ecologist, Hans Brunner.
Mr. Brumby's minister for the Environment, Gavin Jennings, turns a damning report by the Auditor-General on endangered species into receiving a “pat on the back”.
In a media report he welcomes the Auditor-General’s report and stating, “ The findings are a “pat on the back” as well as a remainder that we must continue working to protect Victoria’s unique plants and animals”, hence, nothing will change.
He has received this report with a poker face grin and treated it like water of a duck.
Photo by Brett CliftonText added by Sheila Newman
In a press release on
April Fools Day 2009,
Victoria's Minister for the Environment,
Gavin Jennings
interpreted as a 'pat on the back' a condemnatory report by the Auditor General on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.[1] Jennings' response seems like a crude damage-control exercise. The report said "the government's lack of baseline data or output performance measures means that it is not possible to conclude whether or not the Act has achieved its primary objectives. The available data, which is patchy, indicates that it has not," and notes failure to use the conservation and control measures in the Act, inadequate listing of threatened species, failure to develop action statements, to monitor implementation of these, or to assess their effectiveness, and that penalties for offences under the Act have not been reviewed or updated and therefore are not an effective deterrent." The Minister and the Government should resign; they are a sad joke.
Wildlife groups are calling for an inquiry into the slaughter of half a million kangaroos in Victoria by farmers since 1999.
According to the 1975 Wildlife Act, Eastern Grey Kangaroos are a "protected" species!
Landholders in Victoria are being given permits to kill tens of thousands of protected kangaroos every year, even in good seasons and in areas not affected by drought. This is despite research showing that kangaroos do not compete with stock for pasture.
Kangaroos are also being shot without proper assessment of population numbers, locally or regionally, putting them at risk of local and regional extinction.
In recent cases, local residents were devastated to discover that permits has been given to kill the equivalent of the total population of kangaroos in Colac, Gippsland, and Bendigo, causing a public outcry for the unjustified and brutal killing of protected native wildlife.
Colac resident Carola Anstis and East Gippsland resident Valerie Hickey, recently had to stand by and watch as their local kangaroos were shot by local farmers.
Through incompetence and neglect 110 ha which was recently added to the Pines Flora and Fauna reserve was mismanaged by Parks Victoria and Department of Sustainability Victoria to the point where nearly all the species it contained have become extinct. Now this land is due to be separated by a huge tollway from the rest of the reserve, despite many bitter protests and submissions from residents and other concerned people, whose hearts are nearly broken. See also related articles
Since Black Saturday - Feb 7, 2009 - when Australia's worst-ever bushfires on the hottest day in Victoria's recorded history completely destroyed all infrastructure at Wildhaven animal rescue and release center, Alan and Stella Reid have had a few visitors, including Steve Irwin's father, Bob Irwin, and Maryland Wilson of the AWPC, and four kangaroos that also escaped with their lives. Allan Reid tells an incredible story of his own survival as the place burned to the ground leaving him and perhaps four kangaroos alive. Please consider donating money for hay and rebuilding.See alsoImportant Wildhaven Shelter in St Andrews NE Victoria perished needs rebuilding and video.
Bob Irwin of the Australia Zoo between Alan and Stella Reid at Wildhaven 11 March 2009
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