NGT Out and about – Photos from the field in October

Portland Landcare groups (Southwest Environment Alliance) visited NGT’s reserve Mount Vandyke recently. Kristy Brewer, their landcare facilitator, organised the visit, to show them what is happening at Mount Vandyke, and introduce them to NGT staff. Here (photos below) they are taking a walk around the outside of the predator proof fence with NGT’s John Bradford & Rosemary Wilson. They toured the reserve, with small hand hoes at the ready to chip out weeds as they went. We are so grateful for their help!

NGT’s Justine Latton and Bec Sheldon got to explore a new wetland complex on Bruny Island in Tasmania recently (photos below). It’s an interesting landscape which has been altered for agricultural purposes, leaving us plenty of challenges to try to nut out! And, some of the swamps are still intact. It’s a gorgeous area, which we will report more on soon. 

One from the archives… did you know that a children’s book was written about the Murray Hardyhead? Authored in collaboration between the following authors and illustrators: students and staff of 2012 from Cardross Primary School, The Lake Primary School, Koorlong Primary School; SuniTAFE art and design department; staff from the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries, the Mallee Catchment Management Authority and The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre. A photo of NGT’s Scott Huntley doing an aquatic survey features in the book, and we still survey this site today.

We’ve been working on this species for a few years now (with cross-border partners), but this year we’ve started a new project to protect the few remaining wild populations and establish backup populations in surrogate dams. Read more here in our recently summary of recent threatened species work. Education is such an important part of threatened species conservation work, and children are our future champions of conservation.

Following on for our August photos from the field, Bryan has sent in an update on the flowering 2 year old Xanthorrhoea minor which we planted in a Mt Gambier City Council tourist stop/car park. This is generally very slow-growing species, and is threatened in SA and in the Limestone Coast region. Isn’t it looking great!