Time flies, and before we knew it, another AGM was upon us. Held in the now traditional spot of the Euroa Arboretum shelter, the final meeting of the year was welcomed by fine weather.
Our guest speaker for the day was James from Barbaloot sanctuary in Avenel. Barbaloot (formerly Widgewah) Sanctuary came about from a partnership between Odonata and LRX to create a fox and cat free habitat for animals such as the critically endangered Southern Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby. These wallabies are being shipped from Mt Rothwell Sanctuary to Barbaloot with the aim of establishing another thriving colony to shore up their dwindling number.
Barbaloot is currently 80Ha, with plans to expand to 400Ha in the near future. Since the predator proof fences were installed, both native flora and fauna have flourished within the reserve, with chocolate lillies, blue sun orchids, lemon scented orchids, fringe lillies and snake orchids being spotted within the reserve.
The predator proof fence stands 2m tall with an overhang to prevent cats from scaling it, and hotwires to deter wombats. Wombats aren’t so easily deterred though, so a compromise was made to install 15 wombat gates to allow them free passage in and out of the reserve whilst excluding smaller animals that aren’t able to push through the heave metal gates.
Total eradication of pests within the reserve, namely foxes, has been a difficult task. Baiting, shooting and drones have all been employed to find and dispatch the introduced predators, but catching the last few is always the hard part.
Thankyou to the Euroa Arboretum for again allowing us to hold our AGM at their shelter, to James from Barbaloot for taking time from his busy Saturday to tell us about his good work, and to everyone who attended.
