Did you know that foxes are a major pest in our bushland area? So too are deer. However, there is quite a lot of 'friendly'wildlife as well.
Honours student Kirsty Pappalardo has conducted a survey of the wildlife corridor between the bushland on
Horizon Drive, opposite Peter Lightfoot Oval, the McLeod Golf Course and the Mount Ommaney Bushland Reserve.
Don't forget too our forthcoming meeting on Thursday 28 February with guest speaker Dr John Hall.
His topic: Can weeds save a rainforest? Fragmentation, Restoration and Succession.
Although seldom talked about, habitat fragmentation is one of the fundamental issues of our age. Secondary regrowth - where vegetation regrows naturally and spontaneously following a history of habitat loss, without human intervention or management - can restore much needed biodiversity and connectivity to fragmented landscapes. However, such "passive restoration" may be degraded in the sense of having reduced species diversity, and a dominance of exotic weeds. Intuitively, such "weed forests" seem a poor outcome, but in this talk he presents some surprising results from the Camphor Laurel forests that dominate regrowth on former rainforest lands in northern New South Wales.
Although these forests are indeed dominated by the exotic weed camphor laurel today, they already harbour a surprising diversity of native species, and - what is more exciting - there is clear evidence that over time they are likely to transition into a vegetation that increasingly resembles native rainforest. Far from being an ecological disaster-area, in this instance the weed-dominated regrowth may in fact represent an important conservation asset in the landscape.
Save the trees from deer damage with knitted tree protectors !
Feral deer often strip the bark off native trees in urban bushland and also off street trees around Brisbane.
Jindalee Bushcare Group, which restores large areas of the Mount Ommaney Bushland Reserve, is putting
knitted protectors around trees whose trunks have been partially stripped by feeding deer. This is to
prevent further damage to the trees and to save them from being completely ringbarked which would kill
them. So far, this experiment has been successful!
There are so many affected trees, that the group would appreciate some help in knitting the protectors.
Get out your yarn left over from knitting winter and start knitting! Or you can crochet…
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For further information and to download the simple knitting pattern, please click here.
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