A big welcome and thank you to our two student interns, Sophie Williams and Harry Hogden, who have been working hard over the summer university break to remove woody weeds such as tree of heaven, wild tobacco, and box elder from Turtle Island.

Turtle Island is part of our ‘Restoring Roosting Refuges’ project, which is a four-year project targeting the removal of woody weeds on both Turtle and Browns Islands in preparation for planting of native trees that will provide food and shelter for grey-headed flying-foxes. You can read more about this project and how to be involved here.

Turtles Albury Wodonga is also working on Turtle Island to eradicate foxes and protect turtle nests.

Sophie and Harry have been busy, joining Rangers to launch the canoe at the Doctors Point boat ramp at sunrise to paddle across the Murray River to the Turtle Island project site. Woody weeds were ‘cut and pasted’ or ‘drilled and filled’ which is a weed control technique that does not disturb the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A massive 7000 stems of woody weeds were treated!!  But why we are removing thousands of box elder and tree of heaven? Sadly, the only nests found in these trees have been the occasional paper wasp. This is indicative of how important it is to replace this monoculture with a diversity of native plants that provide a mix of habitat for our many native species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of our native species are adaptive to the changing climate, such as cicadas who spend their days hanging off any trees, native or non-native, such as these wild tobacco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, not all native birds and native fauna are as adaptive to the changing climate, such as our grey-headed flying-fox, which is why they are at risk of extinction if we don’t step in and help improve their foraging habitat.

This project is funded by the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust under the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program.