The Victorian government should have concluded its aerial counting of the burgeoning kangaroo population that is wreaking havoc in pastoral and cropping areas.
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Time will tell how accurately it is possible to count kangaroos from a helicopter. By nature, kangaroos have an ability to blend in with the background which would surely make counting in heavily timbered areas probable at the least.
Ask anyone living with a kangaroo “problem” and they will tell you the situation is out of control. This is diametrically opposed to conservationists who continually run the line that the species is threatened. It is well documented how the kangaroo adapts reproduction to seasonal conditions, however, advanced farming practices ensure an abundant food source. Add to that the provision of water for stock the kangaroos can utilise and you have a breeding paradise.
Culling, as distasteful as it is to many, seems to be the only solution.
- David Everist
Also not assisting is the dams built in forest and park areas for bushfire control. Compare that to days past where rivers ran dry, and even a dry Murray River, resulted in the deaths of kangaroos in the many tens of thousands. Culling, as distasteful as it is to many, seems to be the only solution.
Water
Seems the Victorian water minister Lisa Neville became tongue-tied last week during a parliamentary sitting when it came to a question on whether water had been taken from the Murray Darling Basin, via the Goulburn River, to Melbourne in tankers.
Well, the argument is tenuous but many in Yea believe that in 2010 water was pumped into tankers from the Goulburn River and pumped into the north south pipeline on the top of a hill, or it was test water in the pipeline, for a publicity stunt carried out by the then premier John Brumby. Water cascaded into Sugarloaf Reservoir. Amazing, as it has been alleged the pumps at Yea were silent. Records show that the level of Sugarloaf never rose.
The Brumby government decreed that the water stored in Lake Eildon for Melbourne could only be used in times of critical human need. This would occur when Melbourne’s total water storage levels were below 30 per cent of capacity at November 30 of any year. Under the Labor government, the Lake Eildon allocation was known as Melbourne’s ‘critical water reserve’, and was not included in the total water storage figure.
A very good yarn, Ms Neville. Maybe it is not “rot and piffle.” Which leaves the burning question for Ms Neville, “Has water from the Murray Darling basin catchment been taken to Melbourne?”
