10 December 2024
In mid October we delivered our spring demonstration day as part of the "Guarding Gariwerd: Partnerships Against Pests" program, funded by Agriculture Victoria. The goal of these sessions was to provide our community with practical information and hands on demonstrations of how to undertake best practice control of plant and animal pests on their properties.
To help direct the information shared at these sessions, we drew on the work recently done with our Landcare groups to create local 'top 10 most wanted' lists for plant pests. These lists were created by working through an objective prioritization process, which you can read more about here. Our field crew carefully collected specimens of several of the top 10 priority species of Halls Gap and Pomonal, for a show and tell session. Attendees had a chance to practice their skills identifying weeds from natives, and got to see up close some of the biological characteristics, such as abundant tubers on bridal creeper, that make these plants such a problem. All specimens were carefully disposed of after the session.
The spring demonstration days also had a special expert guest who flew in from Tasmania - Gillian Basnett from the Cat and Fox task force. Gillian gave an extremely informative session on how to control foxes and cats in Victoria, including all the ins and outs of what methods are and aren't approved in Victoria. Gillian's talk on the impact of cats on our local environment, farms, and communities was facinating, in particular her discussion of the cat-borne disease toxoplasmosis, which can spread to both sheep (causing spontaneous abortions) and humans (and is now linked to several mental health disorders).
Gillian shared how we have significantly more control options available to us for fox control than cat control. One of the fox control techniques she shared was the use of a Canid Pest Ejector. Canid Pest Ejectors are a stationery device that deliver liquid 1080 when a wild dog or fox bites or pulls on the bait head. Known as CPEs they are considered safe for most non-target species because a certain pull force is required to activate them. Then during our afternoon session, she and Lachlan whipped one out showed us how to bait, prime and place it (using a non toxic cornstarch demo cannister).
Watch some clips of the demo below!
Lachlan McIntyre, our Project Platypus IPA team lead, also shared excellent information on rabbits, and deer before we headed out for the afternoon field component. The rabbit management video series he shared was well received, and you can find them linked at the bottom of this article, along with other great resources.
After lunch we went outside for our field demonstrations! First Lachlan and Lee, of our field crew, showed participants how to effectively fumigate a rabbit warren. We gathered round a waren that was made under and around a small shed. To ensure success of fumigation, it is very important to block up all warren entrances before placing the fumigant tablets down a warren entrance, to ensure the fumigant doesn't simply leak out another warren entrance. To help find and block all warren entrances, the crew showed us how to use a smoker to pipe smoke down into one of the warren entrances. This allowed us to walk around and spot all warren entrances where smoke was leaking out. Each of these entrances was filled in until no more smoke could be seen escaping. At that point the crew showed us how to correctly place the fumigant tab down the main entrance, and finally fill in that last entrance.
Following the fumigation demonstration, we walked a bit further down the hill to a second warren for a warren ripping demonstration. The team emphasized the importance of not just ripping the warren, but of smoothing and compacting the ground again after. Without this important step, the rabbits will quickly and easily start burrowing again in the rip lines. Local Landcare member Michael was up on the tractor showing us his tried and true technique for getting good compaction after ripping, by pushing down with the bucket until the front two tires of the tractor were just lifting off the ground.
Our attendees very much enjoyed this practical session, with everyone reporting that they learned something new! We also teamed up with Yarrilinks Landcare Network to run a sister session in Minyip the following day.
Below is a list of some of the great resources recommended by Lachlan during the workshop:
https://pestsmart.org.au/ (One stop shop!!)
https://weeds.org.au/ (Best collection of weed information)
Example – bridal-creeper-veil
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity (Weeds/Animals/Pests/Insects/Diseases/etc.)
Community Pest Management Groups (State CPMGs):
https://vicgorsetaskforce.com.au/ All things gorse (CPMG)
https://vicblackberrytaskforce.com.au/ All things blackberry (CPMG)
https://vran.com.au/ All things rabbits
https://serratedtussock.com/ All things Serrated Tussock
DEECA Weeds at the Early Stage of Intervention (WESI)
Elia Pirtle
Landcare Facilitator and Communications Officer