Hey Sam,

I agree. I know that for us at Frankston what little we have done in
the past has been very adhoc. We do have an integrated pest animal
management plan for one of our reserves that was written up a couple
of years ago and could easily adapt for our other reserves but
funding has been hit-and-miss each year.

We have done the training and have purchased quite a bit of gear but
have to get serious now about implementation. I don't think we will
achieve anything without employing someone to co-ordinate our
efforts. In other words; have a dedicated position to organise it and
run it because such a task needs 100% attention. For the existing
staff to try and cope with the 'normal' work as well as something
like pest animal control gets too distracting and then nothing gets
done properly.

I've always thought that we are basically restricted to trapping and
den fumigation (and possibly feral proof fencing, but this is
expensive and would not suit all reserves)in such a suburban setting.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, if anyone has any comments?

Even these two activities will attract public attention,good or bad,
mostly bad I would assume.

Judging by the negative feedback we get from herbicide spraying, I
can only assume that using 1080 would create a massive backlash in
the community, I certainly wouldn't want the headache!

What about sterilization? not sure on the efficacy of this. Must do
some more research on the matter.

I know I haven't been of much help Sam, but just thought your email
came at an interesting time after having just come back from the VRA
workshop at Phillip Island and basically coming away fustrated at not
being able to utilise the full range of 'weapons' against such
formidable predators.

One thing that may be of interest to you regarding rabbit control is
the use of nets in conjuction with dogs, this apparently is quite
successful but of course you would be relying on the contractor with
his trained dogs do much of the work, possibly raising costs? I can't
remember the name of the guy that got mentioned when I did the course
last but could probably try and find it in my notes if you are
interested in pursuing this further.

Ricardo


--- In LGBRVIC@..., "sam_mornpen" <handsj@...> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I'm wanting to hear from anyone who conducts, or has conducted any
> sort of feral animal control in small or large bushland reserves in
> residential areas. We have been doing bits and pieces of feral
> animal control (foxes, cats, rabbits, rats etc) on the Mornington
> Peninsula for a number of years for a variety of reasons, from
> protecting rare orchids from rabbit grazing to fox control for
small
> mammal protection. Most of this work up until now has only been
> conducted in larger reserves generally away from heavilly populated
> residential areas, but taking into account that the majority of our
> Bushland Reserves are within residential areas, we have been fairly
> limited in what we can do.
>
> It would be interesting to hear from others who have been involved
in
> these kind of works, in particular the sort of response you have
had
> in regards to the feral populations, involvement from the
community,
> other successes and failures and generally anything else that you
> think could be worth sharing. Feral animal control is an important
> factor in biodiversity conservation, and something that can often
be
> put on the back shelf for bush regenerators.
>
> I look forward to hearing your experiences and views.
>
> Cheers
>
> Sam Hand
> Conservation Officer
> Mornington Peninsula Shire
>