[This article was first published on CanDoBetter.net 20091025 by Tigerquoll under the title ‘Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat – “destruction permits” issued in Sth Aust.’  It was sourced from the ABC  ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/01/2701495.htm?site=news]

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Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
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2009:

“Farmers are illegally slaughtering thousands of wombats in South Australia, a nature group says. Brigitte Stevens from the Wombat Awareness Organisation says burrows of southern hairy-nosed wombats are being bulldozed or blown up on Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas and in the Murraylands.

She says farmers can get permits to destroy a few wombats, but that it not a licence to wipe out the entire population.

“There’s not enough or not good enough regulations on what actually happens to the wombat if those numbers are being killed,” she said.  “Now I know it’s difficult because I know you need a lot of staff to be able to do that. But it’s really hard for us when we’re trying to stop people killing them illegally – if it’s allowed by the government through permits, how are we going to stop it?”

Ms Stevens wants the Department for Environment and Heritage (DEH) to act on evidence the group has gathered.

“We’ve also got evidence, photographic, and also I’ve kept all my correspondence with DEH, the RSPCA about places that we’ve reported that have ended up having destruction permits, but we’ve got evidence the animals are being buried alive, the entire population is being killed on that particular property,” she said.

Department for Environment and Heritage chief executive, Allan Holmes, says it will act when enough evidence is provided.  “You need to know where it’s occurred, when it occurred, it’s about providing evidence that will stand up in a court of law,” he said. “Again the issue for me is at the moment these claims are largely unsubstantiated.  “If the evidence is provided we will investigate them.”

Mr Holmes says mass killings with petrol bombs or bulldozing will not be tolerated.

“The only way that you can legally destroy a wombat is by shooting with a particular calibre rifle,” he said.  “And, as I said, given the evidence we will prosecute with the full force of the law.”

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2011:    ‘Hairy-nosed wombats feel farmers’ wrath‘

[Source:  ‘Hairy-nosed wombats feel farmers’ wrath’ , 20110420, ^http://www.cfzaustralia.com/2011/04/hairy-nosed-wombats-feel-farmers-wrath.html]

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They’ve always been uneasy bedfellows, but now Hairy-Nosed Wombats – a rare and protected marsupial – are being slaughtered in large numbers by South Australian farmers as their numbers boom thanks to abundant rain and plenty of food.

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Nearly 900 southern hairy-nosed wombats have been shot with South Australian Government sanction since 2006, and there are claims that many more have been slaughtered illegally.

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The Government also has rules which state that any young wombats found in the pouch of a shot wombat should be killed by decapitation, as this achieves “a sudden and painless death”.

Sickeningly, Parliament has been told that apart from the official deaths, hundreds more wombats are being killed illegally by landholders across the state.

As well as being the state’s animal emblem, the wombat is classed as a vulnerable species, but farmers claim its burrows destroy their land and damage farm machinery.

Like badgers in the United Kingdom, wombats are much maligned by the farming community and are seen as a menace, copping the blame for everything from soil erosion and breaking the legs of cattle (from falling into wombat burrows) to spreading disease.

Official figures show that between January 1, 2006, and December 22 last year, 139 permits were issued for destruction of South Australian wombats.

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Hairy-nosed Wombats?

The much rarer southern hairy-nosed wombat has larger ears than the common wombat, and its snout is coated with fine hairs, whereas the northern hairy-nosed wombat is presumed extinct in NSW.

The southern hairy-nosed wombat prefers dry, open country  bu have become very rare, and until recently were thought to be extinct in NSW.  They are currently listed as endangered.

A wombat can reproduce after it reaches two years of age. Mating occurs between September and December, and usually results in one offspring. The newborn wombat, which weighs only 1 g and is less than 3 cm long, has to crawl from the birth canal into the mother’s pouch. This pouch faces backwards, which stops dirt and twigs getting caught in it when the mother digs. The young wombat will stay in the pouch for between seven and 10 months.

Because of settlement and agriculture, wombats in most areas have been pushed into the rugged hills and mountains. As long as they remain in these areas, wild dogs and collisions with cars are more of a threat to these marsupials than landowners. However, because of their habit of wandering down to the flats to enjoy the tasty morsels growing there (knocking down fences on the way), they are sometimes killed by farmers.

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[Source: ^http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/npws.nsf/Content/Wombats]

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‘Wombat Awareness Organisation‘

 

‘The Wombat Awareness Organisation (WAO) is a non-profit organisation specialising in large scale rescue, rehabilitation and conservation of the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons).

The Wombat Awareness Organisation is playing an instrumental role in preventing unneccessary suffering of the wild population of Southern Hairy Nosed Wombats in hope to conserve this incredible little Aussie for future generations.

When WAO established itself in the Murraylands of South Australia in 2007 we were overwhelmed at the lack of services and protective rights offered to SA’s faunal emblem. Battling the effects of drought and global warming, Sarcoptic mange, habitat destruction, vehicular accidents and culling both legal and illegal it was obvious that this species was in trouble. Getting back to basics and finding simple, productive alternatives of drought relief, mange management and coexistence strategies have become the main focus of the organisation by aiming to protect these beautiful wombats from suffering and minimise the need for them to come into care.’

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Read More:    ^http://www.wombatawareness.com/

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‘Going Khaki’:

Government wildlife protection has long been a joke and so much so that ‘Government wildlife protection‘ has become an oxymoron.  Community frustration is obviously a boiling point at learning about an endangered wildlife species being poached by selfish farmers for their own ends.

If there were a fund for taking out poachers of wildlife I would gladly donate to it.

If it were legal to shoot wildlife poachers I would be amongst the first to enlist.  It is legal to shoot wildlife poachers in parts of Africa where it is needed…

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‘Among Africa’s Eco-Mercenaries’

[Source: ‘Among Africa’s Eco-Mercenaries’, by Nicole Davis, National Geographic, 200210, ^ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0210/life.html]

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‘They’re trained to kill, with orders to shoot on sight. Could they be the saviors of Africa’s wildlife?

Writer Tom Clynes went deep into the Central African Republic to find out. Here he reveals the stories behind his new article, “They Shoot Poachers, Don’t They?”

This year Wyoming conservationists took their battle overseas into the savanna of the Central African Republic. With the permission of President Ange-Félix Patassé to shoot on sight, the group is raising a militia to patrol the eastern third of the African country for poachers.

Writer Tom Clynes spent nearly a month with the hired guns in this latest effort to stop the bush-meat trade, perhaps the pre-eminent threat to African wildlife today. The assignment was as complicated as it was fascinating.

“The good stories begin with intriguing questions. And in this case the questions were complicated and quite epic. You had a bunch of Americans who had basically convinced a leader of a Third World country to let them raise an army and take over a third of the country with shoot-on-sight authority,” says Clynes.  “I had a good idea how I felt about this kind of thing: Killing is wrong—end of argument.”

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‘They Shoot Poachers, Don’t They?‘

[Source: ‘‘They Shoot Poachers, Don’t They?”, by Tom Clynes, National Geographic, 200210, ^http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0210/story.html#story_1]

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In the heart of central Africa, marauding bands of bush-meat hunters are terrorizing villages and slaughtering wildlife to the brink of extinction. Now a family practitioner from Wyoming has decided to recruit his own army to stop them.

The story, as I first heard it, had the zing of a Hollywood pitch: Led by a soft-spoken doctor, a band of American conservationists had persuaded the president of the Central African Republic to let them raise a militia and take over the eastern third of the Texas-size country. Their mission was to drive out the marauding gangs of Sudanese poachers who were rapidly wiping out the region’s elephants and other animals.

Their authority:    ‘Shoot on sight’

No one had been killed yet when I arrived in Bangui in early March. Throughout the dilapidated capital, signs of a November coup attempt were still fresh: Bullet divots scored the bricks of the Tropicana Club, and a curfew remained in effect. A detachment of Libyan paratroopers hulked in front of the mansion of President Ange-Félix Patassé, who had been bailed out, again, by his friend Muammar Qaddafi.

Most of the fighting had taken place in the northern reaches of town, where the American group, Africa Rainforest and River Conservation (ARRC), had rented a gated compound. As I approached the large whitewashed porch, it struck me that ARRC was well prepared for another flare-up. Scattered among the wicker furniture were several men in fatigues, a couple of AK-47s, a grenade launcher, and a very excited chimpanzee.

Dave Bryant, a 49-year-old South African who had been hired in August to lead the militia, extended his hand. “Welcome to bloody paradise,” he said. He introduced a slight, 26-year-old Iowan named Michelle Wieland, who was in charge of ARRC’s community-development component, and a thin 35-year-old named Richard Hagen, who had flown up from South Africa to help with security.

“And the little fellow jumping up and down is Commando,” said Bryant. “We rescued him from a Sudanese trader, and to show his appreciation he’s been crapping all over our floors.”

Bryant’s face seemed custom-assembled for bad-ass impact. Beneath a clean-shaven scalp, a towering forehead descended into a deep ravine of a scowl line, bridged by wraparound sunglasses. An expansive Fu Manchu mustache arched around a loaded cigarette holder, which dangled expertly from one side of his mouth.

“I guess you’ve heard that we’re in a bit of a cock-up,” he said. “We’ve been stuck in this shit-hole for five months now, trying to get out into the bush to do a reccy [reconnaissance] before the rains hit. We’re waiting for gear, we’re waiting for money, and we’re waiting for vehicles. And we’re waiting for people in this zoo they call a government to do something other than put their bloody hands out.”

The three were eager to hear about my meeting that day with the American ambassador, Mattie Sharpless. Sharpless had recently arrived in Bangui, and I had asked her what she knew about ARRC.

“The rumor is that they’re hiring South African mercenaries and diverting funds into diamond ventures,” Sharpless had answered.

Wieland winced when I relayed the quote, but Bryant smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, well. We South Africans don’t usually like to use the term ‘mercenary.’ We prefer to say ‘playing at soldiers on a privately employed basis.'”

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This article was initially published by Tigerquoll on Candobetter.net on 20090625 under the title ‘Shooters Party – fanatical red necks pushing for open season in National Parks’.

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An infamous licensed shooter

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Since May 2009, Robert Brown MP of the Shooters Party has been pushing for the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009 to be passed into legislation in New South Wales, Australia.   The spin of this Bill is so feral animals can be controlled in National Parks. But in reality the proposed changes would mean the following main changes:

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1. Many of Australia’s native fauna across NSW would be condemned as ‘game animals’ just like in colonial times, when Australian native animals were despised as ‘vermin’. Other native animals can be included in the shooters hit list so long as there is consultation with the Minister for National Parks (DECC).
2. It would be lawful for sporting shooters to hunt and shoot native fauna in all National Parks, State Forests, Crown Land and ‘private game reserves’ across NSW. Killing wildlife is to be branded as ‘conservation hunting’ and basically would be permissible through most natural landscapes outside built up areas.
3. The Game Council of NSW, which is a government body dominated by members of shooting and hunting clubs, and it would assume authority for granting shooting licences in National Parks.
4. Shooters and hunters in National Parks would be immune from protesters trying to protect native animals and birds – as it would become “an offence to approach persons (within 10 metres) who are lawfully hunting on declared public hunting land, or to interfere with persons lawfully hunting game animals”.
5. Any environmental protection legislation that impedes shooting and hunting of native animals is to be overriden by the new changes – such as under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
6. Hunting of native game animals can be done by non-commercial shooters – i.e weekend sports shooters. Using spot lights is optional and it is ok to leave the dead, dying and injured prey where they fall.
7. In the case of native waterfowl, licensed game hunters will be required to pass an official identification test of native waterfowl. The record of shooters killing protected bird species is woeful, yet the proposed legislation won’t make any difference.

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(Source: New South Wales Legislative Council, Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009, Second Reading in Parliament)

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Professional safari hunters, recreational hunters, sports shooters, or weekend warriors?

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This Bill would overturn all environmental legislation protecting our remaining wildlife in NSW. It is repugnant. This proposal is nothing to do with noble gesture of taking on the task of the government’s culling feral animals in National Parks.

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The Game Council in this self-interested set of demands, simply wants to give its weekend warrior member base open slather access to shoot almost anything and everything in the bush. It would be 24/7 open season on wildlife perpetually across NSW every day of the year. Every weekend would be weekend warrior party time in the ute with the spotties and the beers and the guns – just like in the good old days eh? In doing so, The Game Council and the Shooters Party have shown their true colours. The Game Council’s objective is to provide for the effective management of ‘introduced species’ of game animals. By advocating the hunting and shooting of native animals and birds is outside its ‘introduced species’ charter.

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According to Greens MP Ian Cohen, if feral animals are to be culled then:

“it should be managed by trained Livestock Health and Protection Authority officers.” “Recreational hunters are not helping when it comes to feral species – the reality is that hunters, with their dogs, are often a cause of pest species dispersal, driving feral animals into national parks.”

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Fortunately, NSW Cabinet yesterday backed away from supporting the Bill.

 

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‘Ivan Milat was a licensed competition shooter. In police interviews he referred to a shooting range in the Belangalo State Forest he knew well.‘

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(Source: ^http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2004/s1239470.htm)

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Milat was probably a member of a local shooting club, perhaps the Bowral Pistol Club situated in the Belangalo State Forest or with the Southern Highlands Rifle Club. As such, Milat would have been eligible to have been one of the licensed shooters/hunters under this Bill before being convicted of his crimes. This example of a licensed competition shooter does not engender public confidence in the shooting and hunting fraternity to be trusted to self-regulate itself and attract law abiding citizens and carte blache access to National Parks for shooting!

Message:

Exclude all native animals as ‘game’ and prohibit the use of dogs in all hunting and shooting and you will have me starting to listen to proposals by The Shooters Party to control feral animals. But as for controlling feral animals in National Parks in NSW, this is an ecological management matter for DECC to be held accountable for.

To be genuine about feral control, this Bill must specifically exclude:

1. Native animals
2. National Parks
3. Recreational shooters

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The intent then of The Shooters Party to help control ferals will starts becoming more genuine.

1. If the Bill is one of targeting ferals, why does it include native animals in National Parks?
2. If the Bill is one of targeting ferals, why is it limited to shooting and not other control means?
3. Why are the government authorities most qualified to control feral animals not granted the delegated responsibility for this Bill?
4. Where in this Bill does it specify controls on the time of day that shooting can take place? (i.e. it is 24/7)
5. Where in this Bill does it specify how shooting is to be independently policed? It doesn’t.
6. Where in this Bill does it specify that only qualified marksman trained in species identification will be permitted to engage in feral hunting in national parks? Why are recreational hunters permitted without the high standards of marksmanship and species recognition training?
7. Where in the Bill are inexperienced recreational hunters prohibited from such shooting? These are the ‘weekend warriors’ that give the contract professionals a bad name, yet the The Game Council is not going out of its way to distinguish these two extremes.
8. Who will be monitor, police and breath test the shooters?
9. Who will watchdog those monitoring the shooters to ensure that all legal, environmental and ethical standards are properly complied with?

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Under The (NSW) Fireams Act 1996 Part 2, Division 1, Clause 10 ‘Applications for Licences, all that is required to be granted a firearms licence is:

• Be over 18
• Show proof of ID
• Be someone who has not been convicted of an offence within the past 10 years
• Not subject to an apprehended violence order
• Not subject to a good behaviour bond
• Not deemed not a risk to public safety
• Pay the license fee.

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Convicted backbacker murderer, Ivan Milat, was a legally licenced shooter and got through these stringent ‘elite’ tests and he owned multiple longarm firearms.
How does this reflect upon the test standards for firearm owners?

Since 18 August 2008, the Firearms Amendment Act 2008 has required unlicenced persons seeking a licence for longarms undertake and pass an approved Firearms Safety Qualification (Long-arms) Course. This is admittedly a step in the right direction.

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(Source: NSW Shooting Centre)

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Lack of professional controls for shooters

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Under Firearms Regulation 2006 (NSW) clause 28 ‘Recreational hunting/vermin control—persons who are not members of approved hunting clubs’, an applicant can obtain a firearm licence without being a member of an approved hunting club in order to engage in recreational hunting/vermin control so long as they obtain and hold written proof of permission to shoot on rural land by the landholder which must describe the land to which the permission relates and the type of game to be shot.

But there is nothing in the legislation to enable a firearm holder to have a licence suspended or revoked as a result of shooting protected wildlife.

The NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, not the Game Council should be the prescribed authority for all vertebrate pest animal control.

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Poor Species identification training

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It is quite obvious that a feral animal is not synonymous with a native animal. One would hope that a shooter can distinguish a rabbit from a wombat, but what training exists to ensure natives are not mistakenly shot. Where is the policing to ensure that natives are not shot intentionally?

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‘Conservation Hunters’?

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Surely, this conjured term is oxymoronic spin.  Instead, the designation ‘professional contract shooter‘ needs to be distinguished from ‘recreational shooter‘. If this Bill is to genuinely seek a professional approach to feral animal control it must specifically exclude recreational shooters and the weekend warrior element.

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‘Ancestral & cultural right to hunt’?

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The loose premise of some “ancestral & cultural right to hunt” – may apply to traditional Aborigines using traditional methods on traditional lands away from populated areas, but to quote the Game Council’s NSW Hunter eduication Handbook.. “in today’s world, hunting is no longer a necessity for most of us, but is something we are never the less driven to the associations with our past.” (p4.1.5). So this rather dubious argument says hunting is justified by some nostalgic notion of being connected to early colonists.

Airguns to teens are a catalysts for psychopaths.  The book ‘Sins of the Brother: The Definitive Story of Ivan Milat and the Backpacker Murders‘ is an eye opener into a case of a hard rural lifestyle controlled by hardline paternal corporal punishment, when guns are part of life and temper tolerated.

Publisher:  ^http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/

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“Guns are power” as confirmed by Ivan Milat’s brother Boris.  Untempered power leads to consequences only limited to the discretion of the person in control.

Gun laws in Australia fuel criminal opportunity, yet gun laws don’t test for criminality.  A cocktail of a gun acceptance culture, killing of animals from an early age, an insular rural upbringing, a penchant for control, an uncontrolled aggression, and opportunity are a recipe for incubating deviancy and how Ivan Milats and Martin Bryants are made.  Milat’s upbringing featured a tolerance of incest, which fueled sexual depravity.

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It starts with children being given airguns (or similar). Airguns inculcate shooting living things as acceptable.

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Kangaroo survives arrow shot through head

Melbourne (2009): 

‘A kangaroo survived for about a week after being shot through the head with an arrow, wildlife officials said, and is expected to make a full recovery.  Wildlife Australia has posted a A$10,000 dollar (£5,032) reward to find the person responsible for shooting the kangaroo, which was found in parkland near Melbourne’s outer suburbs on Thursday.

Veterinary surgeons from Melbourne Zoo operated on the stricken animal over the weekend and were optimistic about his chances.

“This was a big injury, but because the arrow didn’t seem to have been in there for a long time, and the injury was fresh, hopefully he’ll be okay,” said Michael Lynch, a vet at Melbourne Zoo.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about the kangaroo’s prospects for a full recovery.”

The marsupial was rescued just days after another kangaroo was found with an arrow in its rump in the same location, said Fiona Corke, a Wildlife Victoria spokesman. She said her organisation wanted to catch those responsible.

“It’s just unbelievable, I just can’t believe that anybody would do something so cruel. It must be a very cold-hearted person to do that,” she told national news agency AAP.

Miss Corke said the kangaroo was believed to have survived for up to a week before it was discovered and taken to an animal hospital.

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(Source: ‘Kangaroo survives arrow shot through head‘, Telegraph (UK), 20090511, ^http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/5309242/Kangaroo-survives-arrow-shot-through-head.html)

This is not Ethiopia…it is Mataranka Cattle Station in 2010

Northern Territory, Australia

[Source: ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMX7fAMSkXA]

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This Editor recalls travelling as an impressionable backpacker by chance through Mataranka some years ago in 1983, then again on a career mission in 1990.  The first trip was a ‘gap year‘.  The second trip was a personal mission driving from Melbourne via Adelaide, up the Stuart Highway, stopping at Victoria River Downs Station and ultimately arriving at Kununurra.  My ambition was to acquire a commercial helicopter license, low-level endorsement and associated cattle mustering experience.  It was secured through locally connected ‘Golden West Helicopters’ (Slingsby Helicopters) offering an ‘introductory‘ advantage to a parochial profession closed to outsiders.  This was the aviation career lure, albeit achieved after $45,000 dispersed, licence acquired but leading into the 1991 recession then Prime Minister Paul Keating said ‘we had to have‘.

The benefits of hindsight they say, or life’s lesson.

It is an extremely hot place in inland northern Australia about 400 km south of Darwin characterised by grassy woodland savannah.  Toward the end of the Dry Season, temperatures can exceed 50 degrees celsius in the sun.  While the Brahman cattle breed has been long bred across northern Australia because of the breed’s adaptability to hotter climates, no animals can withstand such extreme heat.  But worse, no animal can withstand starvation and abuse at the captive hand of cruel sadistic handlers.

At Mataranka Cattle Station, a 77,000 hectare commercial cattle station, between 2008 and 2010, hundreds of cattle as well as horses were cruelly treated, allowed to suffer and die from criminal neglect and starvation.  Station Manager Ian Gray was in charge at the time.  He was let off by the Northern Territory Government as part of a government cover up to protect the reputation of the cattle industry and of Charles Darwin University which controlled the cattle station.  The instances of animal cruelty are perhaps the worst in Australia’s history.  They came a time when many Australians become horrified by the footage of inhumane treatment of cattle in Indonesian abattoirs after being exported live from northern Australia.

The Australian beef cattle industry is promoted by the Northern Territory Government as one of Australia’s ‘premium export industries.’

At what cost?

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“In northern Australia, beef cattle are raised on very large properties (stations) where they graze on native pastures and bush.”

~ CDU website

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Not only is cattle farming in northern Australia treating northern Australian wilderness as one big cattle paddock and trampling the last remnants of savannah ecosystems, the cattle industry in northern Australia is savagely cruel, immoral and should be shut down.  It is no surprise that the main buyer of cattle in northern Australia, Indonesia, is winding down the export trade. Indonesia has been very open about it becoming self-sufficient for years.    Those involved in the live cattle export trade have worked themselves into a dead end industry.  Based on the following account at Mataranka, the live cattle  trade can’t end soon enough.

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Update (20120103):

It has come to the editor’s attention through a reliable party that the station manager of Mataranka at the time, Ian Gray, has formally rebutted the NT Ombudsman’s report saying that he never maltreated cattle at Mataranka Station.  It is anticipated that further insight into this matter will serve to provide a more balanced account of what happened.  This article essentially reproduces already reported material from other sources, including the NT Ombudsman and the ABC, which are widely regarded as reliable sources, as well as video footage of the condition of the cattle.

The aim of the article is to raise general awareness of the particular animal cruelty reported at Mataranka Station over several years, plus more broadly of the unethical nature of the cattle industry in northern Australia.   We are interested not just in raising awareness of animal cruelty and injustice against wildlife, but changing human behaviour and culture to eradicate cruel and harmful practices.  We would like to pursue this subject with an aim of contributing to constructively change to the animal handling culture, harmful farming practices, policies, practices, laws and funding of government, industry and university so as to improve the triple bottom line standards of agriculture across northern Australia.  We will be pleased to publish information that helps achieve these ends.

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Mataranka Death Campl

“At Mataranka Station from about August 2009 to December 2009 animals died from malnutrition, lack of water and others were destroyed. In many cases, livestock were tick infested, emaciated, thirsty, dehydrated, victims of attack from wild animals and meat ants. Some would have died an agonising death and those that survived were distressed, probably for months.”

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[Source: Executive Summary, p.4, Volume 1, REPORT OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE TREATMENT OF CATTLE & HORSES AT CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY MATARANKA STATION, by NT Ombudsman, 2010]

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Northern Territory’s Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) teaching facility at Mataranka Station has been found to have condoned and ignored widespread animal cruelty, mistreatment, neglect, suffering and starvation of the Station’s 4500-strong herdover a three year period from 2008-2010.

Worse than that, Charles Darwin University in cahoots with the Labor Northern Territory Government have tried to excuse the treatment and sweep the matter under the carpet. The CDU website on 1st February 2010 tried to suggest excuses such as the photos being ‘taken toward the end of the Northern Territory dry season‘, that ‘only a small proportion were in extremely poor condition‘, that cows were ‘calving out of season‘ – the cows fault, and dismissing the abuse simply as ‘poor herd management‘.

It claims CDU acted as soon as it became aware of the problem in September 2009.  Crap!

[Source:  ^http://ext.cdu.edu.au/newsroom/a/2010/Pages/100201-Mataranka-Station-claims.aspx]

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Charles Darwin University students exposed to the cruel animal treatment were disgusted, took photos, formally complained to the authorities (which did stuff all) and resigned from the university in disgust.  University students training to work in the pastoral industry said they were distressed after seeing animals suffering and dying.

One witness observed carcasses being bulldozed into a mass grave and set alight after animals were starved and left to die on a university-run cattle station.  Some of the animals were so weak they were eaten by meat ants or ripped apart by dingoes, wild dogs and feral pigs. Cattle were tick-infested, emaciated and dehydrated while others were too weak to stand and may have spent days on the ground before dying.  Still-alive cattle were seen with their bowels ripped out by dingoes, unable to stand. The hoof of one horse fell off, which only occurs after a long period of neglect and months of suffering.

“Some [animals] would have died an agonising death and those that survived were distressed, probably for months,” Ms Richards said.

[Source: ‘Witness tells of mass animal grave‘, Lindsay Murdoch, Mataranka, Northern Territory, 20110425, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/witness-tells-of-mass-animal-grave-20110424-1dt35.html]

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Charles Darwin University’s Katherine Campus still offers a ‘Certificate III in Agriculture (Beef Production)‘ mainly out of Mataranka Station.  The campus focuses on agricultural training for Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses, Australian Apprenticeships and traineeships in agriculture. Programs include the nationally-accredited Agriculture & Rural Production VET / TAFE Training Packages. Two-to-five day workshops in rural production skill areas including welding, vehicle maintenance, operating tractors, ride-ons and 4WD driving are also offered by the Katherine campus.

‘Do you want to work in an exciting, challenging industry that involves handling animals and machinery with extensive out-of-doors work? the beef cattle industry may be for you.‘… it promotes.

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[Source: ^http://www.comparecourses.com.au/Course/certificate-iii-in-agriculture-beef-production-50670.htm]

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‘Sorry Saga’

 

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This article has been prompted by the re-running of the ABC TV’s Landline programme, ‘Sorry saga‘ which was first broadcasted 20110727, and reported by Prue Adams

 

[Watch Landline Video: ^http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2010/s3276556.htm] – still available at the time of publishing.

 

We’ve seen and heard a fair bit lately about animal welfare. With most of the outrage aimed at the handling of Australian cattle exported live to Indonesia. But today, we’ll show a shocking case of cruelty that occurred right under the noses of government and university authorities in the Northern Territory.

It’s a sorry saga of mismanagement and neglect that’s dragged on for nearly two years. And despite a high-level report recommending prosecution, no one has ever been charged.

Prue Adams prepared this special report for Landline and we should warn some viewers may find images in this story distressing.

TOBY GORRINGE (VOICEOVER): In case you’re unaware, I wish to draw your attention to the serious nature of the animal welfare state of the cattle at Mataranka Station.

PRU ADAMS, PRESENTER: Every journey starts with one small step.

Toby Gorringe could never have foreseen the destination of the journey he began almost two years ago. It’s changed the course of his career and that of a handful of others. It’s led to several high-level inquiries, a well regarded university losing face, and a government scrambling to make departmental and legislative changes.

But still, this stockman and teacher, is far from satisfied.

TOBY GORRINGE, FMR LECTURER CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: I’ve been in the cattle industry all my life, that’s all I’ve ever done. If I wasn’t mustering cattle and whatever in the bush, I was working in the meat works or shoeing horses or something. So I’ve been around animals all my life. But you don’t have to see what happened there, that was just cruel. Just no other way to describe it. And they got away with it, I can’t believe it.

PRU ADAMS: When Charles Darwin University came into being eight years ago, it inherited the lease on Mataranka Station. An hour’s drive south of Katharine, Mataranka covers 770 square kilometres.

The property and its largely Brahman herd, have provided a useful tool for training students who want to work on the land.

VOICEOVER: So it provides a real life opportunity for pastoral industry training in the Northern Territory, which is vital for a very substantial part of the Northern Territory’s economy.

PRU ADAMS: But in mid 2009, a picture started emerging that all was not well at Mataranka.

A former NT Brahman breeders chairman, Ian Gray, was the station manager at the time and is seen here in an earlier Landline story. Toby Gorringe worked under Ian Gray. He says he complained to his boss that cattle were starving. Photos were taken of some of the dead and dying animals.

TOBY GORRINGE: I’ve seen cows lying down and can’t get up. And their calves are waiting around for them to get up and they can’t. So I’ve seen dead cows and dead calves together and dingos have eaten them alive, ants, pigs, things like that.

This is a letter I wrote to the HR of CDU.

PRU ADAMS: A vocational trainer in beef cattle and horse management, Toby Gorringe took his complaints further up the line within Charles Darwin University, including to the vice chancellor.

Still not satisfied, in October of 2009 he wrote to several Members of Parliament and in January last year contacted the Office of the Ombudsman.

TOBY GORRINGE: I kept going right up until I got to the Ombudsman, and at that time I didn’t trust anybody. And it’s still hard to trust someone, because everywhere I went I was shut down.

JULIE CARLSEN, NT DEPUTY OMBUDSMAN: The complaints were certainly valid and it has been documented quite widely that this is one of the worst animal cruelty cases in Australia.

PRU ADAMS: Julie Carlsen, is the Northern Territory’s Deputy Ombudsman. A former Western Australian police officer, she was put in charge of investigating what had, by the beginning of last year, become a series of complaints from staff, students and teachers at Mataranka Station.

JULIE CARLSEN: The nub of the investigation found that inadequate food was being provided to the animals, if it was provided at all. That watering points had broken down but were not being repaired in an appropriate time frame.

PRU ADAMS: And how many cattle did you find had died in that period?

JULIE CARLSEN: Our estimate was up to 800, and that estimate is based on the information provided to us by the students, by the staff members themselves, by contractors who attended, an independent investigator by the name of Tom Stockwell, who was employed by the University to conduct an investigation.

WOMAN ONE: These black marks around its neck are actually flies.

WOMAN TWO: Oh!

PRU ADAMS: A history of poor record keeping at the station and the death of hundreds of stock the previous year due to a badly managed bushfire, means the exact number of cattle that died will never really be known. The University disputes the Ombudsman’s figure of 800, saying it was more likely to be just over 200, which the Auditor General confirmed based on the University’s own evidence.

Nevertheless between 5 per cent and 18 per cent of the station’s cattle, and at least two horses, perished. And the Ombudsman’s report, tabled in Parliament last October, makes for grim reading.

EXTRACT FROM OMBUDSMAN’S REPORT: Depriving cattle and horses of food and water to the extent that they become so weak that they drop to the ground, is in my view, neglect as defined in the Animal Welfare Act. In one case neglect was so severe that hoof of a horse fell off. This only occurs when there has been months of suffering by the horse.

PRU ADAMS: The ombudsman blamed CDU, Charles Darwin University and…

EXTRACT FROM OMBUDSMAN’S REPORT: Specifically the station manager, for failing to provide the fundamental necessities required to sustain life.

PRU ADAMS: And the Office firmly believed someone should have been prosecuted for animal cruelty. No one ever has been.

JULIE CARLSEN: I personally can’t see why this matter was not given the importance it deserved. That the amount of animals that died, whether it was 200, or whether it was up to 800 was not significant enough for some action to be taken.

PRU ADAMS: Hello Mr Glover, how are you, pleased to meet you too.

The University’s vice chancellor is Professor Barney Glover. We met at a tour of Mataranka Station late last month.

PROF BARNEY GLOVER, VICE-CHANCELLOR CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: The University accepts the view of the Ombudsman in relation to that matter is that very poor management at the station, primarily related to the station manager at the time, was a major cause of the difficulties that we faced. But on top of that I think it’s also fair to say that the response to the crisis at the time, and I’m on the public record in acknowledging that by the University, was not quick enough to get supplementary feed to the cattle that were in distress and we should have been able to do more, more quickly.

PRU ADAMS: So what went wrong? To begin to answer that question you have to go back a few years when it was decided Mataranka Station would not just act as an education and training site but would also be operated as a commercial venture. Cattle would be bred for sale.

In May 2009 the beginning of the six-month dry season, one of those sales fell through. Meaning the station had more stock than it was able to carry during the hot, dry weather.

TOBY GORRINGE: Well, I seen cattle locked in small paddocks, which are holding paddocks, but they were locked in there for, well they turned out to be in there for over four months. And the weaners that were taken off their mothers were locked in the yards for four months and you could see the condition falling off them on a daily basis.

Cattle that are locked in yards for that period of time don’t get the supplements they need because you can’t feed it to them, they’re not being cattle, they’re just – they can’t act like cattle because they can’t go and walk and have a feed and have a drink when it suits them.

PRU ADAMS: The Katherine Research Station is about an hour’s drive north of Mataranka Station. It was from there, in early September 2009, that government livestock officers were dispatched to check out Toby Gorringe’s complaints. The inspectors later told the Ombudsman they were “absolutely horrified”. They reported the animals were “tick infested and starving”. There were “insufficient water” troughs. A departmental vet read the manager, Ian Gray, his rights, because “serious charges would be laid”.

Another officer later told the Ombudsman that “after 28 years of conducting inspections this was the worst case of neglect he had seen on such a large scale”.

The inspectors said they distributed some feed themselves, and even shot cattle that had fallen and couldn’t get up. But when it was reported back to their own Department of Resources and to the University, the situation was hosed down.

Landline’s attempts to speak with the inspectors on camera have been unsuccessful. A departmental email apparently warned staff not to be involved with our program. Instead, we were referred to Fran Kilgariff, who is new to the role of Animal Welfare Authority in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional Services.

FRAN KILGARIFF, ANIMAL WELFARE AUTHORITY: Well, I think what went wrong was that the animal welfare branch, historically, had been focused on small companion animals, dogs and cats and people’s pets, and were largely unprepared for something on that scale and with large animals.

PRU ADAMS: She agrees with the Ombudsman that there was confusion as to which authorities were responsible for livestock welfare.

FRAN KILGARIFF: Look, I think it’s fair to say that in many areas people were not focused on what… perhaps not focused is not the right word, there was not a clarity about what people’s roles were or what the responsibilities of various bodies were, and it’s only when you get an incident as tragic as this that people actually are jolted to think that they actually need to actually be really clear about what their roles and responsibilities are.

PRU ADAMS: In the Northern Territory, to teach with animals, the institution needs a licence. And also needs to establish an Animal Ethics Committee in line with the Animal Welfare Act. At Charles Darwin University, the same person who held the licence for Mataranka Station was also the chairperson of the ethics committee, as well as being Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University.

The Ombudsman called it “an irreconcilable conflict of interest”. That man is Professor Bob Wasson, who appeared before a parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.

(footage from the parliamentary inquiry)

PARLIAMENTARIAN: Were you part of the first inspection by the Animal Ethics Committee, of the station after the complaints were made?

PROFESSOR BOB WASSON: Yes, I was.

PARLIAMENTARIAN: And in that inspection, did you check the shed to see how much hay was in that shed?

BOB WASSON: Yes. There was zero.

PRU ADAMS: In his role on the ethics committee, Professor Wasson was notified very early on about the neglect at Mataranka Station.

Another AEC member reported “the professor would make excuses for the situation at Mataranka”.

(footage from the parliamentary inquiry)

BOB WASSON: I just want to make something very, very clear, and this is not an attempt at any way to shift responsibility. But the AEC was not the manager of Mataranka and I think some of this conversation has sort of blurred that boundary.

BARNEY GLOVER: When that conflict of interest was brought to his attention he immediately resigned to resolve the conflict of interest. Certainly my observations…

PRU ADAMS: From the committee but not from the university?

BARNEY GLOVER: No, but my observations of the Deputy Vice Chancellor’s role during the period of late 2009 and early 2010 was someone who was deeply concerned about the condition of the cattle at Mataranka and very committed to trying to address those difficulties.

PRU ADAMS: In October 2009 this man, Tom Stockwell, independent grazing consultant and owner of Sunday Creek Station was contacted by Professor Bob Wasson to investigate the situation at nearby Mataranka. His report backed up Toby Gorringe’s account of animal neglect and he recommended dismissal of station management.

VOICEOVER: A management system which starved animals to death and then left them for crows, dogs and ants to finish off is frankly distressing in the highest order.

PRU ADAMS: But Mr Stockwell’s recommendations were largely ignored.

Now it seems to me that it was quite apparent by late in 2009, October, November 2009, through Department of Resources reports and also the report by Tom Stockwell who was employed by the University to have a look at the situation…

BARNEY GLOVER: Contracted by the university.

PRU ADAMS: Contracted. It became very apparent that the management was somehow lacking here. Why wasn’t the manager, Ian Gray, sacked?

BARNEY GLOVER: We took into account, and the advice that was provided to me, the report from Tom Stockwell, which was a very comprehensive report. We also took into account the responses to that report by those who were named in the report adversely, in the context of natural justice. We took that into account, while the station manager was stood down. And the recommendation to me was to reinstate the station manager but with a series of conditions attached.

TOBY GORRINGE: So they put him back on; said he had no case to answer; he’s done nothing wrong. So Ian goes in there thinking he’s done nothing wrong. So CDU must be at fault there somewhere because they’ve already told him killing those cattle is not wrong. That’s how I look at it. They put him back on, you have no case to answer, that’s how it looks to me.

PRU ADAMS: Ian Gray was finally encouraged to leave Mataranka in June last year, almost a year after the first complaints were lodged and just as the Ombudsman’s findings were coming to light.

BARNEY GLOVER: The University negotiated a termination of employment contract of the station manager and he left the University.

I don’t believe it constitutes any sort of inducement.

PRU ADAMS: After a 30-year career, Mr Gray says he’s unable to get a cattle industry job and now works in mining. He’s bitter about being targeted by the University, the Ombudsman and the media and doesn’t want to appear on camera. His supervisor and the man who steadfastly supported Ian Gray, in the face of mounting criticism, was qualified university veterinarian, Dr Brian Hyme. He told the Ombudsman “Mataranka was being held to an impossible standard”. He’s also left the CDU to take up a job at a Queensland agricultural college. We spoke at length on the phone but he didn’t want to be quoted for fear of dragging his new employer into the saga.

In April this year, six months after the Ombudsman’s report was tabled in the Northern Territory Parliament, Minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, announced there would be no prosecutions. There’s just 12 months to bring a charge under the Animal Welfare Act and that time had expired.

MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY, NT LOCAL GOVT MININSTER: It is deeply disappointing that no one will be prosecuted and yes, clearly it is too little too late.

PRU ADAMS: The Minister released two legal advice documents, one from January warning, one from January, warning “the limitation for starting prosecution would expire in April”. And the Opposition claimed it proved the Government was well aware time was running out.

JOHN ELFERINK, NT OPPOSITION JUSTICE SPOKESMAN: The fact that the Government sat on the January report when they still could have brought a prosecution, demonstrates that they were never interested in a prosecution in the first place and I wonder why that might be.

TOBY GORRINGE (reading from email): In case you’re unaware I wish to draw your attention…

PRU ADAMS: In fact Toby Gorringe and his partner sent emails to several members of Parliament, including the Chief Minister, as far back as October 2009. And a freedom of information request lodged by Landline reveals Minister McCarthy was being kept informed of the situation from the middle of last year. The Deputy Ombudsman met with the Minister in late June and showed her the photos of dead and dying animals.

JULIE CARLSEN: I don’t agree that a prosecution was not warranted. My personal view is that had action been taken when it was first brought to the attention of the University, by us, and also the fact that the Minister was advised that a prosecution probably would have been successful.

PRU ADAMS: There have been allegations the Northern Territory Government has stalled any action to make someone responsible for the events at Mataranka, in order to protect its own departmental handling, and the reputations of both the university and the cattle industry. Despite my numerous attempts, the Minister responsible would not make herself available to answer those allegations.

(speaking to Barney Glover)

PRU ADAMS: When the Northern Territory Government came out in April and said that there would be no likelihood of a prosecution, did you, as an organisation, Charles Darwin, as an organisation, feel you’d dodged a bullet?

BARNEY GLOVER: If a prosecution should have occurred they should have occurred and if they didn’t, that was a mistake on the part of the relevant agencies, not to have prosecuted. That’s not a matter of dodging a bullet. My view, based on the wealth of information that’s available now as a result of the very detailed Ombudsman’s report, and the very significant investigations the University’s undertaken, I would be surprised if a prosecution should not have proceeded in 2009.

PRU ADAMS: CDU maintains it issued instructions to ‘keep stock alive,’ and hundreds of cattle were sold to reduce the load. The Vice Chancellor is adamant the University did not interfere in any way with the Government’s decision to not prosecute.

BARNEY GLOVER: But as far as I’m aware never, at any time, was any suggestion made that anyone should take it easy on the University. Our obligation was to fix the problem and to ensure it could never occur again. We were responsible and we needed to take action. So we did not ask for, we did not seek, and we certainly never covered up any suggestion of the Government taking it easy on the University.

PRU ADAMS: OK, and then …

BARNEY GLOVER: Is that clear enough?

PRU ADAMS: That is clear enough. That is clear as a bell, and thank you.

BARNEY GLOVER: Nothing exists.

PRU ADAMS: With many of its students coming from interstate, the University is at pains to point out that things have changed for the better here at Mataranka Station. Hundreds of thousands of dollars has been spent on infrastructure. The animals are well fed and a new manager is under contract until 2013.

(footage driving around the station)

BRAD WALKER: We’ll just go for a quick drive out. We’ll head up the laneways here.

PRU ADAMS: With experience running other cattle stations, Brad Walker has been in charge of making sure there’s better use of paddocks, that there’s appropriate feed and supplement and that breeding the Brahman and composite cattle, gets back on the right track.

BRAD WALKER: There you go, there’s one cow just had a calf, sitting on the ground there now.

PRU ADAMS: A large, new dam provides an inviting spot for a herd of heifers.

The University’s grievance handling procedures have been overhauled and there’s a body which meets regularly to discuss the workings at Mataranka.

ELAINE GARDINER, MATARANKA STATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE: I’m an independent chairman of the Mataranka Station Advisory Committee and that comprises of one person from the University, two industry people, and a person from the Department of Resources in Katherine. So we have a fairly independent view of what’s going on.

PRU ADAMS: And are you absolutely convinced that if you found some element here that was not up to scratch, that the University would take immediate notice?

ELAINE GARDINER: Yes. The Vice Chancellor, I report to the Vice Chancellor after every meeting and he’s very aware of any issues that may arise having had to deal with the issues in the past.

MAN TALKING TO STUDENT AT STATION: And I need to see you riding in this yard…

PRU ADAMS: Charles Darwin University is also considering getting out of the cattle business. Maintaining the training at Mataranka but relinquishing the herd.

BARNEY GLOVER: From certainly the perspective of the University Council, our view is we should be focused on our core business and our core business is really training and education. And so for us to be operating a working cattle station is risky; this is not our business.

PRU ADAMS: The saga at the station has also kicked off a series of changes within government, including the appointment of more animal welfare officers.

FRAN KILGARIFF: We now are in no doubt that the department, that our department, Animal Welfare Branch, is the lead agency in any prosecution. That wasn’t really clear before.

(footage from the parliamentary inquiry)

PRU ADAMS: With the results of a council of Territory cooperation inquiry, due next month, the Animal Welfare Act is also under scrutiny.

FRAN KILGARIFF: Currently the statute of limitations within that act is 12 months, we’re looking at that to see whether that needs to be extended. I think nobody wants to sweep this under the carpet. It’s been such a tragic and disastrous sort of issue that nobody wants to sweep it under the carpet. What we need to do is learn from it.

PRU ADAMS: Toby Gorringe resigned from Charles Darwin University last month and has embarked on the next phase of his life at a community a few hundred kilometres away on the Roper River.

He will be teaching Indigenous teenagers how to ride horses.

TOBY GORRINGE: Horses can teach kids to be anything they want to be.

PRU ADAMS: He’s been scarred by his experience, and believes amidst the current live export debate the case at Mataranka focuses attention on animal welfare in our own country.

TOBY GORRINGE: Australia wants to go and complain about what’s happening in Indonesia and rightly so, so they should, but they want to have a look at their own backyard first. This is a training organisation, has done as bad or worse than what’s happened in Indonesia. So the Government wants to have a look at their own backyard before they go over to Indonesia and tell them what to do.

PRU ADAMS: So it’s been two years now, is it time to move on?

TOBY GORRINGE: Yeah, it’s time to move on. I’ve moved on. I’ve gone to Nucca (phonetic) to work for the school, but it’s very hard to move on mentally because no one’s been charged for what has happened at Mataranka Station. They seem to have got away with animal cruelty which I don’t believe in. And how they got away with it I’ll never know.’

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NT Ombudsman Investigation – NT Government let everyone off scott free

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The Northern Territory Ombudsman completed a report on the cruelty and neglect in 2010, which was tabled in the NT Parliament in October 2010.last year. The Ombudsman’s office is a place of last resort….

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“Before making a complaint to us you are encouraged to take all possible steps to resolve your concerns directly with the relevant department. We will not normally investigate a complaint until you have exhausted all regular avenues of appeal or review available. We will assist you to make contact with the appropriate person within a department if needed.”

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The Northern Territory Ombudsman says Charles Darwin University has not explained how 800 cattle starved to death on its teaching and commercial cattle station.  The Ombudsman Carolyn Richards has released her report into the deaths that happened between September last year and May this year at Mataranka Station. The report has criticised the university and government departments for taking six months to properly respond to reports about the animal neglect.

 

‘Investigation into the Treatment of Cattle and Horses at Charles Darwin University Mataranka Station’

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This report is about an investigation into the manner in which Charles Darwin University (CDU) managed livestock and conducted operations at the University’s Mataranka Station.  The investigation was instigated on the Ombudsman’s Own Motion because of complaints made by people disturbed by the condition and treatment of cattle and horses at that property throughout 2009 and continuing into 2010.

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1. Investigation into the Treatment of Cattle, Horses at CDU Volume 1, 8MB    [>Read Report]
2. Volume 2 – Cover and Contents, 107KB   [>Read Report]
3. Volume 2 – pages 4-99, 12MB    [>Read Report]
4. Volume 2 – pages 100-169, 7MB   [>Read Report]
5. Volume 2 – pages 170-199, 3MB    [>Read Report]
6. Volume 2 – pages 200-end, 9MB   [>Read Report]

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Alternatively, download these report sections directly from the NT Ombudsman’s website:

[Source:  NT Ombudsmans Office, ^http://www.ombudsman.nt.gov.au/publications-reports/public-reports/]

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‘Ombudsman slams cattle cruelty‘

[Source: ‘Ombudsman slams cattle cruelty‘, by Lindsay Murdoch, Mataranka, 20110425, ^http://www.theage.com.au/national/ombudsman-slams-cattle-cruelty-20110424-1dszj.html]

Carcasses were bulldozed into a mass grave and set alight after animals were starved and left to die on a university-run cattle station, according to a new witness in one of Australia’s worst cases of animal cruelty.

Northern Territory Ombudsman Carolyn Richards said the witness told her office about the incident involving about 800 cattle and horses on Mataranka Station in the Northern Territory, run by Charles Darwin University.

Some of the animals were so weak they were eaten by meat ants or ripped apart by dingoes, wild dogs and feral pigs.
But the university disputes the number of cattle and horses that died, putting it at about 216.

Ms Richards told The Age the grave was on an isolated part of the station, explaining why her estimate differs from the university’s.

The witness, whose name has not been made public, came forward after the Ombudsman had completed a report on the cruelty and neglect which was tabled in the NT Parliament in October last year, Ms Richards said.

Barney Glover, the university’s vice-chancellor, said he had not been told about the new evidence and would contact the Ombudsman about it.

He said the university based its estimate on a study it commissioned last year and physical evidence on the property.

Ms Richards said she was devastated that the NT government had failed to prosecute anyone over offences that occurred on the 77,000-hectare station, 400 kilometres south of Darwin, in 2009 and last year.

In her report, Ms Richards said many cattle on the station were tick infested, emaciated and dehydrated while others were too weak to stand and may have spent days on the ground before dying.

Still-alive cattle were seen with their bowels ripped out by dingoes, unable to stand.

University students training to work in the pastoral industry said they were distressed after seeing animals suffering and dying.

The experience caused some to end their ambition to work in the industry.

Professor Glover denied that the university had played down the cruelty.

“It wouldn’t matter if there was one cow or 200 cows … it is unacceptable that a university would be put in a situation where animals under our care suffered unnecessarily,” he said.

Professor Glover said the university was looking to divest itself of management of the property and cattle while using the station as a base to train students.

The station has a new manager, the number of cattle has been reduced from 4124 in 2009 and the university has set up a Mataranka Advisory Committee.

Melina Tensen, RSPCA Australia’s scientific officer for farm animals, said regardless of how many animals perished “it was the state of the suffering that was horrific … This is up there among the worst cruelty cases Australia has seen,” she said.

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‘Mataranka Station cattle death questions remain‘

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[Source: ‘Mataranka Station cattle death questions remain‘, by Emma Masters, 20111027, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-27/20111027-mataranka-cattle-report-reaction/3604474]

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An investigation into the starvation of cattle at a Northern Territory property has been unable to determine how many animals died two years ago.

The final report of a parliamentary inquiry into animal welfare was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

The inquiry says it received conflicting estimates on the number of deaths at the Charles Darwin University training property at Mataranka station, which ranged from 200 to more than 1,000.

It concedes the number will never be known because of poorly kept records.

The Council of Territory Cooperation report has recommended a single agency be responsible for the Local Government Act and that animal welfare laws be strengthened.

Local Government Minister Malarndirri McCarthy says she and her department failed in their investigation of the case.
The report also found that Ms McCarthy failed to direct an investigation, let alone a prosecution, reflecting poor judgement.

She says she will be taking that on board and reporting back to Parliament during November sittings.

“What I have said from the outset is this was an absolute disgrace,” she said.

Ms McCarthy says she and her agency were not blameless in the case.

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‘Department boss regrets cattle deaths’

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[Source: ‘Department boss regrets cattle deaths‘, ABC, by Eric Tlozek, 20110630, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-30/department-boss-regrets-cattle-deaths/2777674]

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The head of a Northern Territory Government department responsible for animal welfare inspections has told a parliamentary committee he wished his officers had investigated cattle deaths at Mataranka Station earlier.

In 2009, hundreds of cattle died from neglect at the station, 400 kilometres south-east of Darwin.

The Territory ombudsman asked the Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional Services to investigate the matter in June last year.  However, the department failed to act within the statutory time limit for animal welfare prosecutions, even though the ombudsman had provided officers with a detailed file of evidence against the station manager.

Department chief executive Ken Davies told the Council of Territory Cooperation today that he regrets that failure to act.

“With the benefit of hindsight, I wish we had, in a nutshell,” he said.

“There is no doubt, given what we now know and our investigative capacity in our Animal Welfare Branch, that a situation like has occurred there, would not happen again.”

Earlier, the vice-chancellor of Charles Darwin University (CDU), which operates Mataranka Station as a training facility, told the committee he does not know why efforts to stop the cattle starving to death were too slow.

Barney Glover says university management first received complaints about the condition of cattle on Mataranka Station in August 2009.

The Territory ombudsman, who investigated the cattle deaths, found that provable incidents of animal cruelty were still occurring in September 2009.

The ombudsman gave the government a detailed file last June containing evidence about animal cruelty.

The Animal Welfare Authority failed to act on her advice to prosecute.

A statutory deadline for prosecutions of those responsible expired in October.

The Ombudsman also said poor management by CDU was partially responsible for the deaths, and that systemic failings in three government departments allowed people to avoid penalty.

Mr Glover says he regrets the university’s attempts to save the cattle were not fast enough for many of them.

“I am on the record as being very concerned that our actions were not quick enough, that our actions were tardy,” he said.

“Whether that is because of inaction of individuals, or whether it is simply because getting feed and water to those animals was just not possible to be done quickly enough, I don’t know.”

A report into the Animal Welfare Act in 2007 recommended extending the statutory time limit for prosecutions and expanding the scope of animal cruelty offences.

Yesterday, Mr Davies told the committee he believes the Act could be improved.

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Recommended actions to restore NT moral leadership:

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It is clear that the following needs to happen to have a chance of restoring community trust in Northern Territory Government ‘moral leadership’:

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1. Mataranka Station Manager Ian Gray, along with colleagues Tim Biggs and Spud Thomas to be prosecuted with mass animal cruelty to the full extent of the law
2. Acting Station Manager of Mataranka Station from September 2008, Douglas Jenkins, to be prosecuted with mass animal cruelty to the full extent of the law
3. Charles Darwin University’s Katherine Campus Director of Science & Primary Industries, Dr Brian Heim, to be sacked
4. Mr Don Zoellner (Pro Vice-Chancellor VET) to be sacked
5. Chair of Charles Darwin University’s Animal Ethics Committee , Professor Robert Wasson, to be sacked
6. Charles Darwin University’s vice-chancellor, Barney Glover, to be sacked
7. NT Local Government Minister Malarndirri McCarthy to be sacked
8. Former NT Local Government Minister Rob Knight to be sacked
9. Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional Services, Ken Davies, to be sacked
10. Mataranka Station to close down
11. Charles Darwin University to be prohibited from running agricultural training for not less than 20 years, then to show cause why it may resume
12. The Northern Territory Livestock Act to be repealed and superseded with much stricter national legislation, modelled along the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act.

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Regrettably, yet more likely, is that the Northern Territory (NT) Government’s anachronistic business-as-usual culture has a reputation such that the NT community sees influential vested interest rural heavyweights in bed with NT government department management and so steering each successive Liberal and Labor government policy.

Is it any wonder that all sense of NT community trust in the political process is typically ridiculed as a corrupt.

The Mataranka Death Camp is yet another graphic instance of NT Gov’mnt anachronistic corruption – ‘out of sight out of mind‘.

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Legacy Video:   ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMX7fAMSkXA

(Click to play video, adjust volume as it includes audio)

 

This article was initially published by Tigerquoll 20090622 onCanDoBetter.net under the article title ‘Rees’ ‘red hot go’ hunting in our National Parks‘.  It has been modified somewhat.

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New South Wales Premier Rees is set to pass into law a ‘Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009‘ to permit recreational hunters shooting everything and anything in protected National Parks across NSW, including native wildlife.

Controlling feral animals is a science, not a sport. Rees’ passion for sport is compromised by influential cronies and naivety. Problem is: Rees has no knowledge, experience in or aptitude for science. His inaugural “red hot go” says it all and threatens to be his legacy.

Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata)

(a native species not protected)

©Photo by Ákos Lumnitzer (with permission), ^http://www.amatteroflight.com/

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Be clear, the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009, Schedule 3, Part 2 lists the following Australian native fauna as free ‘game‘, including:

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Native Ducks:

Australian Shelduck (or Mountain Duck) (Tadorna tadornoides)
Australian Wood Duck (or Maned Duck) (Chenonetta jubata)
Black Duck (or Pacific Black Duck) (Anas superciliosa)
Blue-winged Shoveler (or Australasian Shoveler) (Anas rhynchotis)
Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)
Grass Duck (or Plumed Whistling Duck) (Dendrocygna eytoni)
Grey Teal (Anas gibberifrons)
Hardhead Duck (or White-eyed Duck) (Aythya australia)
Pink-eared Duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus)
Water Whistling Duck (or Wandering Whistling Duck, Whistling or Wandering Tree Duck) (Dendrocygna arcuata)

Native Quails:

Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophora)
Stubble Quail (Coturnix pectoralis)

Native Birds:

Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
Common Bronzewing Pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera)
Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla)
Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea)
Long-billed Corella (Cacatua tenuirostris)
Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio)
Straw Necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis)
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)
Topknot Pigeon (Lopholaimus antarcticus)

Kangaroos:

Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
Euro (Macropus robustus)
Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus)
Western Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus)

Bennetts Wallaby (Red-Necked Wallaby) (Macropus rufogriseus)

is native to Tasmania, but is not protected

(© Photo Burrard-Lucas)  ^http://www.burrard-lucas.com/

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If the proposed legislation is genuinely and solely to control feral animals, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) as delegated custodian of National Parks in New South Wales, must first answer these questions:

1. Why are native animals included amongst the ferals?
2. What action in fact has the NPWS undertaken over the last 20 years to control ferals in National Parks across NSW?
3. Which measures have been successful at dealing with the target species and which have not?
4. Which measures have caused a detrimental impact on non-target species?
5. What interstate or overseas model/case study does NPWS rely upon to justify why shooting is the preferred method of control?
6. What standard of identification test is imposed on would be feral shooters?
7. What standard of marksmanship is required and what NPWS-approval system would be in place?
8. What monitoring is to be conducted of these shooters and by whom?
9. What happens to the carcasses to prevent disease?

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If NPWS was serious about controlling feral animals in National Parks, it would have a permanent programme to specifically deal with the key threatening processes that involve ferals, namely to target:

• Competition and grazing by the feral European rabbit
• Competition and habitat degradation by feral goats
• Environmental degradation caused by feral deer
• Predation by feral cats
• Predation by the European Red Fox
• Predation, habitat degradation, competition and disease transmission by feral pigs.

SOURCE: DEC, ^http://www.threatenedspecies.environment.nsw.gov.au/tsprofile/pas_ktp.aspx

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These feral species need to be the primary target of eradication. Professional contract shooting may be an option, but it is not for ‘weekend warrriors‘.  The solution must be science-based not sport-based.

According to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy:

“Australia has the worst mammal extinction record in the world – 27 mammals have become extinct in the last 200 years. No other country or continent has such a tragic record of mammal extinctions.”

 

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In June 2009 the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill was introduced into the NSW Upper House by Shooters Party MP Robert Brown, that would pave the way for hunting in national parks, private game reserves, the hunting of native species and the growth of recreational shooting on public and private lands (Sydney Morning Herald, page 6, 12 June 2009). Lee called on the Environment Minister Carmel Tebbutt to reject outright a new bill from the Shooters Party.

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The NSW Government has withdrawn its support for the bill, but it is still before the NSW Parliament!

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[Source:  Australian Greens Party Senator Lee Rhiannon, ^http://archive.leerhiannon.org.au/portfolios/firearms/firearms/atct_topic_view?b_start:int=10&-C=]

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Overview of the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009:

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The object of this Bill is to amend the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 (the Act) as follows:

• To enable the Minister responsible for national park estate land to make that land available for the hunting of game animals by licensed game hunters
• To expand the list of game animals that may be hunted in accordance with the Act and, in the case of any native game animals that are listed, to impose special requirements in relation to the hunting of those animals by licensed game hunters
• To provide for the operation of private game reserves under the authority of a licence granted by the (NSW) Game Council
• To make it an offence to approach persons who are lawfully hunting on declared public hunting land or to interfere with persons lawfully hunting game animals
• To make a number of other amendments of an administrative, minor or consequential nature..

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[Source:  ^http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/nswbills.nsf/1d4800a7a88cc2abca256e9800121f01/6dce0470707e4f4bca2575b4001bd3f1/$FILE/b2009-031-d10-House.pdf]

 

Support from the Coalition of Law Abiding Sporting Shooters Inc (CLASS):

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‘For too long large areas of bushland has been locked away (aka protected from exploitation) as National Parks, State Forests etc. In many of those parks and forests invasive plants, such as blackberries, bracken, lantana, etc have grown unchecked, resulting in a great unbalance among local flora leading to reduced biodiversity among fauna. Permitting conservation hunting in those areas will help restore the balance, while permitting controlled harvesting of native and introduced species for food, trophies or fur/leather….the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009 will go a long way to utilising the inherent value of sustainable resources which would otherwise be wasted.’

[Source:  ^http://www.c-l-a-s-s.net/game-bill.htm]

According to CLASS, wildlife in National Parks are wasted resources

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Selected background articles at the time:

‘Government deal to open national parks to shooters’

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[Source: Erik Jensen, 20091021, Sydney Morning Herald ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/government-deal-to-open-national-parks-to-shooters-20091020-h6yt.html]

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Hunters will be allowed to shoot animals in national parks for the first time under a deal offered to the Shooters’ Party by the NSW Government.  The Herald understands the deal would modify a private member’s bill introduced by a member of the Shooters’ Party, Robert Brown, to allow hunting in 13 national parks if the Shooters’ Party removed demands for enclosed game reserves or safari parks from its draft legislation.

”We have had discussions with senior Labor people,” Mr Brown said. ”I’m not going to confirm or deny that we’re any closer to a resolution … My bottom line is the whole bill must be passed or we continue to withdraw our support for the Government.”

The Shooters’ Party has been holding the Government to ransom since introducing the bill in June and yesterday voted against the Government on all legislation in the upper house.  Negotiations on the bill had broken down with the Premier’s chief of staff, Graeme Wedderburn – who Mr Brown described as ”tits on a bull” – but resumed in September, less than a week after John Robertson took over the environment portfolio. The Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, one of Mr Robertson’s factional allies, took part in negotiations.

According to Mr Brown, the pair offered a memorandum of understanding that would allow hunting in national parks along the Queensland and South Australian borders. But he said the proposed parks were too far away.

”The closest one to Sydney was 10 hours’ drive,” he said. ”That [offer] was there to f— us, as far as I’m concerned.”

The Greens’ spokeswoman on animal welfare, Lee Rhiannon, said the deal was intended to allow free passage of Government legislation through the upper house but may cost Labor seats at the next election – including that of the former environment minister Carmel Tebbutt.

”We’re about to come into the busiest legislation time of the year. They’re going to have to pass 30 bills in a week,” she said. ”If they don’t have the Shooters’ on side, they’ll actually have to talk to other people. [But] as well as being ethically wrong and environmentally damaging, they will be inflicting enormous pain and damage to their own party … For Tebbutt and [Verity] Firth, they could well be putting an expiry date on their political careers.”

The acting executive officer of the National Parks Association of NSW, Bev Smiles, said her office had received an overwhelming amount of correspondence criticising the bill.

”We were hoping the Shooters were having some other face-saving deals with 12-year-olds and airguns,” Ms Smiles said, with reference to another bill the party is introducing.

”[But] with a new Minister for the Environment having an upper house position rather than an electorate, it’s all political. This particular deal has probably created more response from a broader cross-section of the community than any other issue I’ve been involved in.”

Neither Mr Robertson nor Ms Tebbutt would comment on the deal. Mr Brown said he would continue to frustrate government policy until his bill was passed in its entirety.

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‘Greens oppose recreational hunting in national parks’

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[Source: Marian Wilkinson, Environment Editor, Sydney Morning Herald, 20090612, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/greens-oppose-recreational-hunting-in-national-parks-20090611-c508.html]

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A new bill that would open the state’s national parks and reserves to recreational hunters who could be licensed to shoot native animals and birds has been condemned by the NSW Greens, the Liberal Party and environmental groups.

The NSW Shooters Party has introduced the private members bill to Parliament. It allows for private game reserves to be set up for professional safari hunters, overturning NSW laws that prevent the enclosing of animals on land solely for hunting purposes.  A Shooters Party MP, Robert Brown, said the bill would not allow the hunting of threatened species and, in the case of native waterfowl, licensed game hunters would be required to pass an official identification test of the ducks.

But the Opposition’s environment spokeswoman, Catherine Cusack, attacked the bill, saying key elements were unacceptable. “We totally reject the idea of shooting in national parks and the concept of shooting native animals in national parks is repugnant to almost anyone.”

Among the birds and animals that could be hunted are the Australian wood duck, the chestnut teal and grey teal ducks, galahs, corellas and eastern grey, western grey and red kangaroos.  The Shooters Party hopes to gain the Government’s support for the bill but the Environment Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, is already signalling she will oppose key provisions in it, including allowing recreational hunters into national parks and the hunting of native animals.  Her spokeswoman said the Government would consider the bill’s merits but it did not support “the hunting of native animals or hunting in national parks“.

Mr Brown said the bill drew on many of the recommendations of a government-backed review of existing laws undertaken with staff from the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Game Council.

He said that under his bill, the environment minister would be responsible for declaring any national park or reserve open to hunters.  He told the Herald that opening national parks to recreational hunters to shoot feral animals would save the Government significant amounts of money and the hunting of native animals and birds in parks would require ministerial approval.

The Greens leader, Lee Rhiannon, called on Ms Tebbutt to reject the entire bill, not only the provisions concerning national parks. “Opposing shooting in national parks may well be a tactic Labor is using to divert attention from the fact it will support other equally regressive changes being pushed by the Shooters Party,” Ms Rhiannon said.

The Greens are also concerned about provisions in the bill that would make it an offence to approach anyone or interfere with anyone “lawfully hunting game animals” on any land that had been declared public hunting land.

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‘Shooting in national parks dead: Macdonald’

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[Source: AAP, 20090729, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/shooting-in-national-parks-dead-macdonald-20090729-e1an.html]

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A deal with the Shooters’ Party that would allow hunting in national parks is unlikely, the NSW Government says.  The Government withdrew its support for the proposal last month, prompting the Shooters to retract their support for legislation to privatise NSW Lotteries management.  Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said today the national parks proposal was all but dead in the water.

“The Government has been considering these issues for some time and has taken a policy position that they don’t want that type of shooting activity in national parks,” Mr Macdonald told reporters in Sydney.

“I wouldn’t say it is likely to change, but there again, there’s nothing in life that’s immutable.”

Kangaroos illegally shot through SE Forests National Park

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Game and Feral Animal Control Repeal Bill 2010 – lapsed

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On 23rd June 2010, then NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon introduced a private members bill to the NSW Parliament,  ‘Game and Feral Animal Control Repeal Bill 2010’, designed to repeal the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 and its regulations, to abolish the Game Council and to prohibit hunting for sporting or recreational purposes on national park estate land, Crown land and State forests.  However although the Repeal Bill reached a second reading stage, the then Labor Premier Kristine Keneally suspended (proroged (suspended) the sitting of the NSW Parliament ahead of an election, and the Bill lapsed on 2nd September 201o.

It needs to be reinstated forthwith!

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Overview of Bill

The objects of this Bill are as follows:

• To repeal the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 and the regulations made under that Act
• To expressly abolish the Game Council and provide for the transfer of its assets, rights and liabilities to the Crown
• To prohibit hunting for sporting or recreational purposes on national park estate land, Crown land and State forests

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‘Greens’ Bill abolishes Game Council, ends hunting in State Forests, NP‘

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[Source:  The Australian Greens, 20100624, ^http://greens.org.au/content/greens-bill-abolishes-game-council-ends-hunting-state-forests-np]

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Greens MP Lee Rhiannon was last night given urgent leave by the NSW Upper House to introduce her private members bill to abolish the NSW Game Council and prohibit recreational hunting in national parks, state forests and public land.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Repeal Bill 2010 is now available.

“Feral animals are a significant environmental problem in Australia but the Games Council, set up as a favour by the Labor Party to the Shooters Party to shore up their vote, is a bankrupt vehicle for managing invasive species,” Ms Rhiannon said.  “The more than $11 million in public funding and millions in loans spent propping up the Gaming Council since 2002 would be better spent developing an evidenced based, strategic plan using professionals to tackle invasive species.

“The Game Council was set up to be self funding, yet the Auditor General has noted its ongoing financial difficulties, with the government being forced to prop it up with loans and additional recurrent funding to manage ongoing debt problems.

 

“Former Premier Bob Carr’s establishment of the Game Council in 2002 was an act of unashamed capitulation to the gun and hunting lobbies, legitimising recreational animal cruelty while risking an increase in feral animal populations.

 

“The Greens Bill also prohibits recreational hunting in state forests, national parks and Crown Land.

 

“As part of the deal making between Labor and the Shooters Party, NSW’s state forests have been lately opened up to recreational shooters, risking public safety.  “There is still currently a Shooters Party private members bill before parliament which if passed would broaden where recreational shooters can hunt to include national parks.

 

“The NSW government has agreed to various demands by the Shooters Party for changes to gun ownership laws in recent years and there is no guarantee that shooting in national parks will not be next on the list.  “In the interests of the environment and good government NSW Labor should support the Greens’ bill to abolish the Game Council and ensure the professional and scientific management of invasive species in NSW,” Ms Rhiannon said.

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It’s 2011 and we’re still killing Tigers!

[‘Police Seize Firearms Used by Wildlife Officials to Fight Off Poachers‘ by Sarah Pappin, Bushwarriors, 20100716,

^http://bushwarriors.wordpress.com/tag/south-china-tiger/]

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In only the last eight years, the Bengal Tiger population has decreased by over 61% and is now frighteningly close to extinction with only 1,400 of the cats left.  Habitat loss and poaching are to blame for their decline.  Nagarhole Tiger Reserve is home to the highest density of these tigers in all of India, attracting a heavy and constant flow of poachers.  Forest officers tasked with protecting the National Park’s tiger population (and other wildlife) from the poachers are now impeded by a devastating combination of muddy monsoon conditions and a complete lack of defense.

Comments:

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Arvind Telkar (20100717):  “Poaching is one of the heinous crimes, which must be dealt with a very severe punishment. The law should be changed in such a manner, that he must think hundred times before aiming any wild animal.”

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Franklin Joel (20100717):   “Thank you very much for sharing,I am sharing this on my wall. Please do something to Stop Poaching, My eyes are wet seeing these pictures..The Hon. court should pronounce the highest punishment to these people….”

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Anne Maher (20100719):     “Absolute tragedy. Decisions made by idiots. They must be in on the corrupt poaching activities to leave the Wildlife rangers and the Tigers so unprotected.  Spare us from brainless individuals.”

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Amay (20100903):    “What cruel people they are the biggest criminals i hav ever seen in my life how badly these people hav cut the tigers they truly deserve a capital punishment.”

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Zachary  (20101118):    “What the hell is wrong with these people?! why don’t they do something to stop this? I don’t give a damn if they think that certain parts have special healing or good luck charms, this is wrong!  This is just digusting.”

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An effective tool against poachers

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An effective but under-resourced force against poachers

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The following article by Tigerquoll was initially published on CandoBetter.net on 20090312

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During Victoria’s devastating 2009 bushfires, few will be aware that the Victorian Government’s so-called Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) allowed nearly all of the natural ecology of the northern half of Wilsons Promontory National Park (‘The Prom’) to burn at will.

Indeed  ‘DSE’ has long been colloquially denigrated by rural Victorians as an acronym for ‘Department of Sparks and Embers‘ for such very reason.

Out of control, lack of resources?, or has The Prom Fire (now having destroyed 24,800 hectares of native habitat) in fact been deliberately left to burn?

DSE in collaboration with the Victorian Government’s CFA (Country Fire Authority) have protected private property at Tidal River and Yanakie.

Perhaps ‘CFA’ has similarly become an acronym for…’Culpable Fire Arsonists‘.

• What really has been going on at The Prom behind the fire barricade out of public view?
• Why was the small fire north of Sealers Cove not extinguished on Friday 13th February 2009, when it was nearly out?
• Why after three weeks with mild weather conditions has this wildfire not been put out?
• Why, ahead of more forecast hot winds, has DSE risked this fire continuing?

…government silence is deafening!

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Is this really an opportunistic prescribed burn…thanks to lightning? Is it in fact because the DSE doesn’t want the fire out..not until its prescribed burn area is burnt?

A DSE operational fire planning document sourced from the Yarram Fire Distict (which includes The Prom) shows that most of The Prom that has now been burnt is in fact part of DSE’s ‘Planned Burns’ for 2009, 2010 and 2011 anyway. The DSE map (click link below) shows no fires history for the northern half of The Prom.

 

…’so quick let’s burn it, lest it burns!’

[CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE]

Yarram Fire Operations Plan 2008/09 – 2010/11 – showing most of Wilsons Promontory colour coded for planned burning.

© Firemap Tue 14th Oct 2008

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On this DSE planned burn map of The Prom, no areas are off limits from burning save the few villages and small pockets of private property and what the DSE has mapped as Zone 5 ‘Exclusion of Prescribed Burning’.

All other natural bushland areas of The Prom have been targeted by DSE for burning anyway.

This prescribed burning culture labels all bush hazardous ‘fuel’ and a demonic threat. Instead of putting out the fires in bushland they let the bush burn and all the native animals burn alive in the process.
They brag… ‘we save houses, the bush will grow back so what’s the problem?’

The ‘Department for Sparks and Embers’ is living up to its name.
But who’s responsible for the fauna?

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Comments:

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Is DSE helping developers get at the Prom??

March 4th, 2009 by ‘Prudence C’:

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I would go further.

Are the developers that are driving this country to ruin actually after the Prom???

Does DSE, which is removing all rights from citizens to object to development, purposefully causing extinctions through burning so that soon it will be able to say, “Oh, all that land is degraded, it may as well be developed”?

I would put NOTHING past this government.

It should not be allowed to get away with what it has already done to Wilson’s PRom.

DSE is really just an old wood-feller’s hang-out. It should be closed down and something that cares about animals put in its place.

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Vic DSE’s handling of Wilson’s Promontory fire defended

March 22nd, 2009 by ‘callum’:

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You people have no idea what DSE try to do to get that fire out as so as they could!  Where it was burn is very thick bushland and very high country you couldn’t get fire trucks in there. they tried droppin strike teams in but with the water bomber not make making a difference there was no point keep it going to without the water bomber the strike teams weren’t allow to stay on the fire front. so they had to wait until the fire got to where they could attack it. so before you start having a go at dse get the facts right. because the DSE did a great of protecting as much of the prom as they could. if they wanted the whole thing to burn they would have sat at the enterance to the prom and watched it burn!       (Abuse removed – JS (Can DoBetter.net editor))

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DSE’s prom effort was opportunistic prescribed burning

March 25th, 2009 by Tigerquoll:

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Callum (above comment) claims the remote fire on Wilsons Promontory could not be put out.
The evidence is that on 13th March 2009 it was almost out due to rain, according to a timely online NASA satellite photograph. A fire truck approach for remote ignitions is obviously not going to work. It’s a bit like trying to connect up to the nearest fire hydrant in the bush. Such an urban fire fighting approach to remote ignitions is clearly flawed. The fact is that the Victorian government grossly under-resources remote fire fighting. This results in stuff all effective ignition detection (delegated volunteers rely on a goodwilled member of the public to ring 000 before fire trucks roll) and stuff all in effective response and suppression – if the truck hoses can’t reach the remote ignition, let’s sit and wait -it’s only bush. The resourcing of serious standby airborne Canadairs and Aircranes is beyond Brumby’s mindset, the let the bush burn culture is stuffed.

Questions to Callum, assuming he is duly informed about the actual fire response operation:

1. Why did the “water bomber” not make making a difference to controlling the fire – especially on or before the 13th, before the wind speed picked up?
2. Why were not extra water bombers including dedicated aircranes deployed immediately?
3. Why weren’t the strike teams allowed to stay on the fire front and extra strike teams deployed, if necessary from interstate?
4. Why did DSE have to wait until the fire got to where they could attack it?
5. Why doesn’t DSE have an effective response strategy to remote fires?
   (This was one ignition in favourable weaher conditions leading up to the 13th March).
6. Was not most of the northern Prom burnt consistent with the 2009-11 fire plan of the Yarram Fire District?
7. A lot of Victoria has thick bushland and very high country, moreso than the comparatively accessible (by air) coastal landscape of The Prom.
8. How is DSE measured on its performance – by the minimal amount of area burnt due to fast and effective suppression? If so it has failed Victorians and their forests big time.

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If DSE can be demonstrated to not have used every resource possible to quell this fire, the the presumption of opportunistic prscribed burning remains and the organisation deserves to be disbanded.

What’s the bet that Brumby’s Royal Commission ignores the Prom and the plight of ground dwelling fauna?

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A large number of native

April 14th, 2009 by ‘Anonymous’:

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A large number of native plant species in the Prom (and indeed, across Victoria) require fire to persist. There are however many species that will not survive fire (including animals obviously). The problem is that the species that require fire to disperse their seeds, sprout from epicormic shoots, flower like the native grass tree and for dormant seeds in the soil to be stimulated by fire do not survive the type of fire that spread through the Prom on the 13th March. Controlled fires are only lit when they can be managed and are either hot quick burns or slow not so hot burns. There are many ecologists that would give you this same view point. If you are correct and the DSE allowed this fire to burn then they should be held accountable but I seriously doubt that this was their conscious decision. They would be fully aware that many species would be lost.

While I understand your arguements, I think that you are being unreasonably harsh. The Prom fires were not immediately endangering property or person, of course the government would deploy all efforts in areas such as Healesville and Marysville where this was the danger before protecting native bushland. I think that this fire season was a unique situation and had there not been immediate danger to human life then I’m sure the management of the Prom fires would have been handled differently.

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Let the DSE publicly justify its actions

April 14th, 2009 by Tigerquoll:

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The desperately dependent myth that a few native plants require fire to survive is perpetuated to the extent that encourages DSE and CFA to incinerate all Victoria within cooee of a Eucalypt. Latching on to epicorimic growth seems to justfy incinerating ground dwelling mammalian habitat. Since when did a Potoroo sprout epicotic paws? DSE, to have any legitimacy beyond myth must provide independent ecological authority of the mandatory requirement for fire for species survival. I challenge the conspicuously ignored fact that any species of Australian fauna require fire to survive. Try lighting fire to you hand or house and see the reaction!

The bushphobic myth is defeatist! Burn the bush in case it burns!

Isn’t the real problem the fact that rural fire authorities are denied the right resources to instantly detect, respond to and suppress remote ignitions. Relying on calls to 000 and sitting in fire trucks is useless in quelling ignitions in rugged and remote country. It must be immensely frustrating to watch a fire grow into an uncontrollable monster because one is denied by government the right resources to deal with it while it is controllable. The considerable investment needed and asked for from government to fight fires while they are controllable, pale compared to the massive tragedy of letting a wildfire rip lives, property, wildlife and heritage to cinders because of government cost savings.

Then what a cheek to hear government thank the charities for picking up the tab and then to target mass burning of the natural environment just because government does not want to fund State of the Art fire fighting – which would instantly detect, respond to and suppress remote ignitions with military precision – saving lives, property, the rural way of life and our wildlife like genuine heroes.

The wildfire problem is likely to get worse with drought and arsonists more prevalent. Waiting for a remote ignition to reach a control line is what they in the 1940s. The risk and cost is too great to rely on a dad’s army response in the 21st Century, unless you have a mantra to destroy the Aussie landscape and create a neo-colonial parkland.

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Your comments appear only half-educated

July 20th, 2009 by ‘artemis’:

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No offence, but your comments appear only half-educated. A prescribed burn is done in pockets, so that an entire area is not burned off all at one time. This allows animals to continue to flourish in the wider area. This is what is called a “mosaic” effect. Which is why you see the DSE have burnt a little each year over the last few years. This is not “bush phobic” but takes into account the fact that the Australian bush has a complex and necessary relationship with fire for propagation and the DSE tries to work with the bush to encourage it at its natural state as best as possible without injuring or harming the humans that now inhabit it so profusely. In fact you will find that when prescribed burns as the Aboriginals carried them out stopped, certain species of animals that thrived and lived in the edges of them became extinct.

As fire is the natural state of the Australian bush, you will never stop it, the best we can do in our situation, is learn to harmoniously work with the land and manage it. If you understand it from this angle you will understand that prescribed burns cause no where near the damage to flora, fauna, the environment and humans as the huge deadly wildfires that occur if we don’t prescribe burn.

The DSE and the CFA are both committed to working to save the environment as much as possible, unfortunately too many people see them as the enemy – humans love to have a tangible enemy to attack, even if that means turning on one another when convenient. It will be nice when people finally realize that prescribed burns are much more green than they first understood.

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Prescribed burning is based on unsupported myths

July 21st, 2009 by Tigerquoll:

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Mosaic prescribed burns immediately around built assets (aka Asset Protection Zones) would seem sustainable. Building approvals only in low bushfire risk areas would seem sustainable. Permitting building construction out of non-combustible and fire retardant material would seem sustainable.

But the ‘bushphobic’ culture has pushed the boundaries and scale well beyond immediate protection of buildings. The scale of bush burning into remote wild parts of Victoria by DSE and the CFA is broadscale and massive and causing local faunal extinctions. Take a look at the DSE site

Take also one small example of a CFA fire district in Victoria. The Yarram Fire District in South Gippsland in its DSE Approved Fire Operations Plan [2008/09 to 2010/11] for 2500 hectares of bush to be deliberately burned.

The issue of burning the bush is indeed complex, yet the ecological complexity and impact is not understood or appreciated by DSE or CFA. How do you know that “DSE activities “allows animals to continue to flourish in the wider area”
Where are your statistics Artemis? Why are not independent zoologists with experts in Australia’s native fauna providing independent public reports supporting each Proposed Plan Burn by the DSE and CFA across Victoria? Too embarrassing, especially when these get out of control 1 in every 2? It is because the DSE and CFA have cumulatively destroyed more native habitat that any other threatened process? Look at Wilsons Promontory in 2009 and 2005! Default prescribed burning from the convenience of lightning. No building threatened so let the bastard – saves us the work anyway on the Fire Plan and we can always argue the old “it was burning in inaccessible country” excuse – works every time, guaranteed!

Controlled limited ‘mosaic’ burning that excludes flora species and ecological systems vulnerable or intolerant to fire is the PR spin. But on the ground prescribed burning is not an exact science. It is not undertaken scientifically nor supervised scientifically or able to be independently verified as compliant. The DSE or CFA have no independent public watchdog. They are a law under themselves and they know it. Weekend warriors end up torching most of the prescribed burns – “this’ll do!” If it gets out of control, we’ll deal with it but actually it will save us bother next time and minimise the fire risk next summer.

The Aboriginal firestick burning is another excuse used to justify deliberate arson of wild landscapes remote from buildings is another old school fire management myth, lacking scientific merit. Since when did ancient Aborigines drop aerial incendiaries over vast inaccessible areas every year?

The Armageddon myth is another bushphobic alarmist excuse to try to justify slashing and burning as much bush as possible ‘before it burns’ every seven years or so. This way no bush is ever allowed to live beyond seven years. The main reason huge deadly wildfires occur is because the fire authorities take too long to detect the ignitions take too long to respond, don’t have the right tools to suppress remote ignitions fast and effectively.

The DSE and the CFA are both committed to perpetuating the status quo, let alone give a toss about the natural environment.

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Logging is drying our forests!

July 20th, 2009 by ‘Anonymous’:…

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By “managing” our forests and clearing native vegetation, along with the conditions of drought and climate change, we are actually making them drier and less dense, and thus adding to the risk of mega-fires.

While our State government continues to permit the logging and thinning of our native forests and water catchment areas, the public can do little to prevent further mega fires.

The dry conditions means that trees suffer and compete for water. They lose their leaves, or die, thus exacerbating the dry undergrowth problem. Instead of moisture, forests continue to become more vulnerable. It is then a cycle downwards to damaged ecosystems, and thus more fire dangers.

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Broadscale frequent prescribed burning is a threatening process

July 21st, 2009 by Tigerquoll:

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Indeed, logging, thinning and frequent burning (forest practices) over Australia’s 220 year colonial history have and continue to destroy the integrity of our native forests and force our native fauna closer to extinction. Colonial ‘clearing’ for agriculture and building materials destroyed most of south eastern Australia’s natural landscape. Neo-colonial practices including unchecked urban invasion and prescribed burning continue to do destroy what’s left.

Australia’s original natural landscape is characterised by varied topography and varied mosaics of different vegetation types. Broad scale destruction of native vegetation across south eastern Australia has reduced the remnant forest and heath habitat into fragmented and isolated islands. Many specific habitat types are now threatened and endangered as a consequence. Wet schelophyll has being transformed into dry schlerophyll. Note the fire resistent species that return after a fire – Acacias (wattles), tea tree and Eucalypts. These then dominate the new growth and when the next fire occurs they burn more intensely and exacerbate the wildfire. Frequent prescribed burning makes our remnant forests more susceptible to wildfire. Frequent prescribed burning and uncontrolled broadscale bushfire are by area and impact are responsible for the loss of our remaining biodiversity and ecological values across south eastern Australia.

This is even though prescribed burning has been found not to prevent ember attack – the main cause of wildfire spread in extreme bushfire weather conditions! Frequent broadacre burning policies have limited effectiveness at mitigating wildfire risk (its intended aim). The previous “NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Phil Koperberg, echoed similar sentiments when faced with criticism after the 2002 fires: ‘Unless you’re going to keep all of New South Wales hazard reduced to a point where there is no fuel on the ground…we’re going to have fires’ (McKey 2002).” SOURCE: http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2003/02/brandes.html

ACB Submission to the Teague Commission on Victoria’s 2009 Bushfires

The Australian Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) at Monash University has made a submission to Teague Commission on Victoria’s 2009 Bushfires, and addresses the fundamental question: ‘Can fire and land management practices and policies be modified to minimise the future risk of similarly catastrophic bushfires without compromising Victoria’s native ecosystems and the biodiversity that they support?’

ACB in its submission, has offered the following warnings of how broadscale frequent burning threatens our native forests:

“Natural fire is a complex physical process that affects organisms, communities, and landscapes in various ways. The spatial and temporal variability of these impacts depends on the intensity and frequency of fires in an area, that is, the fire regime.”

“Inevitably, after a major bushfire, there are calls to increase the amount and frequency of fuel reduction burns. However, increasing the rate of fuel-reduction burns is, in effect, changing the fire regime in an ecosystem and may have substantial ecological implications.

“The application of fuel-reduction burning to mitigate fire risk, therefore, needs to be critically questioned on two fronts.
First, will increasing the frequency and amount of prescribed burning reduce fire risks at the landscape scale?
Second, how will changing the fire regime through increased fuel-reduction burning impact on native ecosystems? Will increasing fuel-reduction burning lower fire risks?

“Theoretical studies have also shown that fuel-reduction burning at the landscape scale can reduce the risk of large, catastrophic fires. However, these studies make important assumptions about the other point of the fire triangle: climate. Under most reasonable climatic conditions, fuel reduction burns done sufficiently frequently may reduce the risk of large fires. However, under extreme climatic conditions, such as those that preceded Black Saturday, this may not hold. As of Friday, 6 February 2009, approximately one-third of Victoria’s public lands had been subjected to fuel-reduction burns since 2003; that is, ~5% of public lands were subjected to fuel-reduction burns each year. This was the target set in an earlier Parliamentary Enquiry and clearly did not prevent the Black Saturday fires. Modeling studies suggest that the amount of fuel reduction burns would need to be doubled, at least, to have any potential for avoiding similarly catastrophic fires if conditions of such extreme fire danger re-occur in the future.”

“Increasing fuel-reduction burning to proposed levels (10-15% of public lands per year) would reduce habitat diversity by homogenizing the regional fire regime. The diversity of habitats and their mosaic distribution across the Victorian landscape is a critical component in maintaining local and regional biodiversity. The interdigitation of sites differing in their susceptibility to fire provides temporary refuges for animals that can move away from fires and later recolonise their original sites. More frequent fuel-reduction burning will change the structure and composition of the understorey vegetation. While many animals may be better able to survive the low-intensity fuelreduction, the resultant vegetation may be poor-quality habitat.”

“Applying a single prescribed burning policy to Victoria’s public lands will disadvantage a large proportion of the native biodiversity and reduce local and regional habitat diversity. Shifting
toward more homogeneous landscapes through increased prescribed burning will be detrimental to the long-term conservation of biodiversity in Victoria.”

“Increased prescribed burning may reduce fire risks in some years, but is unlikely to have any effect in those years with extreme climatic conditions similar to those of 2009.”

“A uniform and widespread increase in fuel-reduction burning across Victoria’s public lands will likely have negative long-term impacts on the native flora and fauna.”

ACB’s recommendation:

“We recommend that the State government consider a more nuanced policy that acknowledges the spatial complexity of Victoria’s landscapes and the values associated with them. We recommend that increased prescribed burning be focused in high-risk areas directly surrounding towns to minimize threats to people and property. However, for more remote, unpopulated areas, where the primary values are biodiversity and timber, we believe that fire management plans should be based on the best available science, that they should be consistent with the appropriate historical fire regimes, and that they provide an integrated, long-term vision for Victoria’s natural heritage.”

SOURCE: www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/research/acb/docs/teague-commission.pdf

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Conservation biologist disputes that burn-offs harm ecology

May 1st, 2010 by ‘Anonymous’:

[Subject was: Myth? are you serious? – JS]

Myth? Are you serious? Perhaps you should learn the basics of Australian ecology and the critical role of fire for the majority of Australian flora before you go and bad mouth the authorities who do their best to save your homes. I know there is a lot of debate but you can’t base your arguments from what you hear in the media. I am a studying ecologist and conservation biologist, you need to hear the real truth from the experts – not the damn reporter who gets paid to write what ever will sell papers. without fire the prom will disintegrate. sure you feel sorry for the cute and fluffy animals that may be caught in these fires but if you had any decent knowledge you would know that our native wildlife have evolved with fire and they wont all perish, They have adapted the most interesting adaptations and behaviours that allow them to escape or rebuild their populations at amazing rates after fire. For most, if not all, of the Australian biota, fire is beneficial!

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Feeling “sorry” for the “cute and fluffy animals” is sickening

May 1st, 2010 by Milly:

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Feeling “sorry” for the “cute and fluffy animals” is sickeningly patronising and degrades our wonderful and diverse wildlife. How could you be studying ecology and not have some appreciation of our stunning and awesome range of unique species in Australia, and their tragic decline? It is ecologist like you who, without peer support and without having a shred of compassion or empathy with living creatures, become paid to “manage’ wildlife with fire-arms! (Such as Canberra’s kangaroo managers[1]).

There was no capacity for fires to be as large or as intense as what we are seeing today. Land clearing and logging have made soils and undergrowth drier and more open for oxygen, increasing fire risks.

Since European settlement, the landscape has changed dramatically. Trying to replicate Aboriginal fire practices in southern Australia would unfortunately now be a risky experiment. European land management has seemingly done everything necessary to turn the Australian landscape into a moonscape. The argument that we should engage in widespread and regular burning of the forest because that’s what Aboriginal people did for years is, as the 2003 bushfire inquiry put it, “a highly attractive philosophy”. However, we simply do not know enough about traditional burning in southern Australia to be able to re-create an Aboriginal burning regime.

Firstly, in most parts of Australia, we don’t know how Aboriginal people used fire. Secondly, since European occupation, ecosystems have been changed so much that Aboriginal burning would no longer be possible. The native animals that ate and buried plant material have largely disappeared, so there is a lot more flammable vegetation in the bush now than there was before Europeans arrived.

Many wildlife have traits that enable them to survive fire. Often they are adapted to specific fire regimes, determined by intensity, frequency, season and scale. However, inappropriate fire regimes may have undesirable consequences including declines or local extinctions of biodiversity.

Footnotes

See:

^Roo culls lead to tourism boycott calls of 6 Jul 09

^RSPCA rubber-stamp in Majura Kangaroo kills unworthy of this organisation’s aims of 17 Jun 09

^Fitzgibbon’s Massacre – 9th May 2009 of 14 May 09

^It is clear that the government is interested in “managing” wildlife such as kangaroos out of existence of 13 May 09

^ACT Environment Commissioner unqualified to condemn kangaroos of 16 Apr 09

^Majura kangaroo killings: Another Belconnen Cover-Up? of 15 Apr 09.

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Bushfire authorities: underfunded dad’s armies playing with fire

May 2nd, 2010 by Tigerquoll:

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In response to comment above: “Authorities who do their best to save your homes.”

What is the latest excuse for these ‘bushfire authorities’ failing to save homes in Victorian in February 2009?
The simplistic strategy applied to rural fire fighting across Australia is to burn the bush before it burns. Get rid of the bush (fuel), with no thought to the impact to wildlife of burning and to the sterile ground cover landscape such practice leaves.

Bushfore authorities do this to hide the blatant fact that they are incompetent at suppression fires before they cause serious damage. By the time the detect the fire and get to it, it is too late.
As for bush being a natural asset would even occur to them. Only houses matter because they are the only thing they know how to defend, and they can’t even get that right. It is not the volunteers at fault, it is the Government dependent on volunteers and token funding that is at fault. Try taking that approach with the police?

Brumby and Rudd were ultimately responsible for the 17 Victorian deaths. They simply avoid funding a serious emergency force to prepare for and to mitigate such natural disasters and bush arson. A pre-1939 Black Saturday approach to bushfire fighting is gross public negligence. I hope those affected take up a class action and sue the pants of the government authorities. Only then will the billions needed to to do a proper fire fighting job be invested by Australian governments rather than paid out after the tragedy and rely on volunteer charities.

Fire is beneficial is only beneficial for those with a penchant for lighting fires. If it isn’t doing too little too late to put wild fires out, the rest of the year is spent lighting new ones. If there is no fire there is nothing to do, so we better light a fire and look busy. Drip torches and airborn incendiary – burn the lot seem to be the Neanderthal thinking!

Didn’t learn much from Ash Wednesday 1983 or the hundreds of fires since. Bloodly uselfess lot these dad’s army. No I don’t expect a fire truck to turn up outside my house if there is a fire. I know here I stand and it’s every man for himself.

‘Fire ecology’ what a farcical term for State-sanctioned arson. Well name one species of flora or fauna made extinct due to lack of fire? – there’s a good one for your so called ‘ecology’ course.

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Article by Tigerquoll initially posted on CanDoBetter.net on 20090226:

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The Fire was nearly out..so why was it abandoned by bushfire management?

The 2009 Wilsons Promontory bushfire was reportedly sparked by lightning striking the remote Cathedral Range on the east coast just north of Sealers Cove on Sunday 8th February 2009.

Witnesses say that by the following Friday 13th, the fire was still localised on the Range and all but out. This is confirmed by the following satellite photo taken by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team on the 13th. The satellite takes high-resolution images of visible, shortwave and near-infrared light of Victoria twice daily.

Wilsons Promontory on 13th Feb 2009

showing scattered cloud over the Prom and on the east coast (right side) a small red (burnt) patch with only a single column of smoke noticeable.

© NASA 13-Feb-09

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Daily updates of this fire can be found at the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/world/australiafire_20090223.html

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The Prom was left to burn

Over the subsequent days the fire continued to burn then the winds increased. Now, more than two weeks later most of the northern half of ‘the Prom’ has been burnt. The vegetation has gone. The Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) website today reports 23,800 hectares burnt out. The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) website shows the following map of the burn (shaded area below).

© DSE Wilsons Promontory Media Map 24 Feb 09 12:30pm

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The fire has burnt the Cathedral Range, along the east coastline right across and along the Corner Inlet shoreline to Millers Landing. Affected sites are Vereker Creek, Whiskey Bay, Tongue Point, Monkey Point, Three Mile Point, Mt Roundback, Three Mile Beach, Mt Margaret, Lighthouse Point Lighthouse, Mt Hunter and parts of Darby Swamp. Wilsons Promontory National Park is just one of the many important natural and wilderness areas of Victoria devastated by these current bushfires.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hectares have been burnt

© Photo. John Woudstra 18-Feb-09

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Frequent Fire History

In the case of the Prom, this is the second time in four years that fire has burnt through this northern region. On 21 March 2005, a twenty hectare prescribed burn was lit east of Tidal River. It escaped three times over a period of twelve days and burnt out 6,000 hectares of native bushland in the National Park.

A key investigative report was undertaken by Commissioner, Emergency Services, Bruce Esplin, (the Esplin 2005 Report) into a number of fires over previous years. In the case of this DSE prescribed burn in the Prom, the investigations found that the prescribed burn was poorly planned and after ignition, was not patrolled properly.

A notable finding of the report was that: “There remains considerable community uncertainty about the effectiveness of the prescribed burning program, and what changes, if any have occurred in the amount of prescribed burning undertaken since 2003”.( para 33)

Yet prescribed burning continues each year across Australia, not in the small mosaics, but on a grand scale and with a record of frequently getting out of control. On top of the 6,000 hectares four years ago, just a few days ago we hear of over 23,000 hectares of the Prom has now been burnt. Fires in the Prom also occurred in 2001.

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Impacts on Flora and Fauna

The Prom has diverse vegetation communities including warm temperate and cool temperate rainforest, tall open forests, woodlands, heathlands, and swamp and coastal communities. There are rare stands of White Mangrove, being the most southerly stands of mangroves in the world.

The Prom is rich its diversity of native mammals with over thirty species having been recorded, many of which are either rare or threatened. These include the Long-nosed Potoroo, Swamp Antechinus, White-footed Dunnart, Broad-toothed Rat, Feather-tailed Glider and Eastern Pygmy-possum. “One of the most significant habitats of the New Holland Mouse also occurs within the park, and a number of species of whale have been sighted in the waters off its coastline.” The Prom also provides habitat to populations of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, koalas, wombats and emus.

The heathlands, influenced by the frequency and intensity of fire, are rich in species and provide habitats for a variety of fauna, including many threatened species. [Source: Parks Victoria website]

However, bushfire research across Australia has shown that while some native flora are fire tolerant and/or can recover and in some case thrive in the immediate years following a fire, other species have not adapted and so they become displaced and can die out. (DSE website).

While the Victorian Royal Commission is focusing on the fire management measures to protect life and private and public property associated with the 2009 Victorian Bushfires, the impacts on flora and fauna seem to have been overlooked. Some species may not survive if fires are too frequent, as the plants are unable to reach maturity and produce sufficient seed before the next fire episode. (DSE website).

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Threatening Process

Little is known about the recovery of fauna diversity as a consequence of such widespread bushfires, be they caused by lightning, intentionally or otherwise. But given the scale of these current fires across the Prom crossing from shore to shore, it is probable than many native animals, as in many other parts of Victoria, will have been burnt alive in the fires and that their already rare populations will now have declined substantially and be at risk of local extinction.

In respect to Australia’s fauna, given that there we now have a fraction of the intact native habitat compared with pre-1788, how can anyone argue that allowing bushfires to get out of control is not a threatening process?

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Eastern side of Wilson’s Promontory (coastal Victoria)  near where
the fire started. Photo: John Woudstra

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I have been monitoring the Jan-Feb 2009 Victorian bushfires from NSW and have turned my attention to the bushfire management in a natural area – Wilsons Promontory.

I note satellite observations of the fire with concern showing the lighting ignition on the east coast started 9th February, but had almost extinguished itself by the 13th. Then a wind change drove it out of control. A week later it has burnt out 22,000 hectares (almost 50% of our precious 50,000ha Prom)!

While the Country Fire Authority (CFA) has paid special attention to non-imminent bushfire risks to rather distant private property. The CFA says “the fire does not currently pose a threat to the Yanakie community.” Backburning the Prom is given as the only bushfire response strategy. So do we interpret this as a noncommittal response by the CFA for the Prom – that is since no human lives or private property are at threat, the CFA’s bushfire response is to just ‘monitor’ the fire and put out the spot fires threatening private property to the north?

The CFA reports read as though CFA policy for active and damaging bushfires in important conservation areas is to wait for rain, but otherwise ‘let it burn’.

And yet the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts hot and windy conditions for tomorrow Monday, 23 Feb 2009.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hecteres have been burnt.
Photo: John Woudstra

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I interpret this bushfire management by Victoria’s CFA as one that respects only human life and property, but does not rate the natural asset values of fauna and flora habitat of the Prom with any respect. It seems at best an opportunity for de-facto hazard reduction that it would normally not get permission to do, and at worst an inconvenient distraction for CFA crews.

If this is the prevailing attitude of rural firefighting then clearly the CFA has no interest in natural assets, and no mandate to protect them from fire in the same passionate way it does private property? There seems no difference in approach or skill set by the CFA to that that would be exercised by urban fire brigades.

So why do we have a Country Fire Authority?   Because professional fire brigades are expensive.

Whereas luring local volunteers is cheap for government, so long as the propaganda is correctly instilled – ‘locals protecting local assets…’

Government has a bet each way.  If the local volunteers put out the fire and save lives and property, they are heros and the organisation is justified.  If the local volunteers fail and people die, governments defend the local volunteers for doing their best and reject criticism of fire fighting as criticism of local volunteers, and pleads the unAustralian line.

With this premeditated social strategy, successive governments have got off scott free when people die in bushfires.  Government bushfire fighting strategy is this to have a bet each way and when catastrophe eventuates to hide behind the ‘Volunteer Firefighter Facade…

Such has become the politics of negligent government.  For decades hiding behind the ‘Volunteer Firefighter Facade  has proven effective in persuading a gullible media, so the policy and practice perpetuates in absence of an independent public watchdog.

Public class action for damages is long overdue.

On this basis, it is overdue for the CFA to be incorporated within the urban fire brigade structure. While this initial structural change won’t save Victoria’s vast tracts of wildlife habitat in the short term, it will sure will remove the false premise to the community that the CFA respects and defends natural wildlife habitats.

What does Victorian Government’s Department of Sustainability and Environment have to say for itself? It is charged with the Promontory’s protection.

See also: “Crews unable to slow Wilsons Promontory blaze” on ABC online on 17 Feb 09, “Huge blaze threatens the very heart of the Prom” in the Age of 19 Feb 09.