NGT Out and About – Photos from the field in November

Ayesha recently caught up with John and Greg at the Woorndoo Community Day, about 75km north of Warrnambool. Hosted by the Woorndoo Chatsworth Landscare Group, the theme for the day was ‘Iconic species of Victoria’s Western plains’. Greg and Ayesha presented and John heckled from the crowd. Greg gave a talk on the shingleback and Ayesha, aquatic invertebrates.

NGT staff recently got to see the lifecycle of the mighty Murray Cod during our annual workshop at Mildura. North West Aquaculture partner with NGT and make our surrogate breeding ponds for threatened small native fish possible, which we breed for later wild releases. We visited the North West Aquaculture site during our workshop, and NGT’s Mildura team (Scott and Taylar) showed us around the surrogate breeding ponds. North West Aquaculture also have a facility in Mildura for breeding the iconic Murray Cod, the largest exclusively freshwater fish in Australia. We got to see them in different life stages: as tiny eggs, and larvae just a few millimetres long, up to HUGE adults, able to grow over 1 metre long! It was very interesting to learn about the life stages. Thanks North West Aquaculture for the tour and the ongoing support for our native fish work.

This is Rosemary & Andy (first photo below). They are at Long Point surveying their amazing weed control work – all done by themselves on such a steep site.  It’s for Patterson’s Curse, and it’s on-going, as the little devils (plants) keep on germinating! There must be a massive seed bank in the soil.

Then also at Long Point, year 9 students from Kilvington Grammar recently stayed at the Grampians Retreat (which luckily is just over the Wannon River, at the bottom of the photo). They wanted to do some environmental work, helping others, so they helped NGT weed the trees that Friends of Forgotten Woodlands have planted, and they also tie-wired the guards to the steel posts, as the kangaroos & sheep were lifting the guards to get to the juicy trees (especially the sheoaks!).  We were extremely thankful for their help – a large job was made easy by many helping hands, and the weather was beautiful too!