General News
14 August, 2024
Editorial: Great corella mystery
MYSTERY surrounding the great corella exodus from Bridgewater may have been solved - the pesky river gum strippers have headed north for a sugar fix from sprouting wheat crops around Glenalbyn. Having exhausted energy zapping the Loddon River trees...
MYSTERY surrounding the great corella exodus from Bridgewater may have been solved - the pesky river gum strippers have headed north for a sugar fix from sprouting wheat crops around Glenalbyn.
Having exhausted energy zapping the Loddon River trees, farmers further up the Calder Highway are this week reporting potential harvest havoc in their fledgling crops.
One corella mystery sounds solved but there remains a veil over just which programs the State Government has funded to manage Victoria’s corella problem.
Enquiries have confirmed that 10 projects will share in $250,000. What the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action has declined to reveal at this time is who are the organisations, what are the projects and how these “initiatives” will help communities tackle a corella problem that Loddon residents say returns more often and more destructively than at any time in the past decade.
To put a measly $250,000 on the table could be described as a tokenistic approach by government to tackling a growing problem and one that is again impacting agricultural productivity.
To delay announcement of details about programs to be rolled out - bearing in mind the department had originally planned to share the news five weeks ago - is equally disappointing.
When country communities are deemed ready to be given such information, one would trust that the list is decluttered of more studies and assessments - time-wasting, money-wasting endeavours at a time when real action is needed in tackling, controlling, managing the corella menace.
Sadly, we may be left deflated when the department talks about evaluations and reviews. It says the strategy “promotes a living with wildlife approach to encourage positive attitudes to corellas, as part of a broader strategy for management of human/wildlife conflict in Victoria”. All phrases to give power to the pests? Surely not?