I have just returned from a late afternoon visit to Cox Scrub on the Fleurieu Peninsula an hour from Adelaide. This was flagged by others as the site most likely to produce CRHW as per my request from last week (thanks to all who replied) — though I didn’t harbour any expectations of finding one at that time of day or at this time of year, it was more a recce since I had never been before.
I was horrified to find that what looked like about 2/3 of the entire area (or at least from what I could see on from the eastern boundary) has been burnt out. It is very recent, probably in the last week — the smell of charcoal is still in the air. Though most of the ground is now cold, in one or two places I could see smoking logs, and in one place there were still small flames. I covered them with sand as best I could and hope it rains tonight, though it looks like the damage has been done.
The burnt area goes from the firebreak adjacent to the Asbourne Rd up the hill as far as I walked (not quite to the top of the hill), and much of the way south. There is an unburnt area in the SE corner. The understory is completely gone in all but a few isolated pacthes.
The birds I did see well were all concentrated in the area close to the carpark where there was less damage: dozens of New Holland and Brown Honeyeaters, Several Red-rumped Parrots, Musk and Purple-crown Lorikeets, Grey Shrike-thrush, and a few parties of Superb Fairywren.
Probably bad news for the dense heath dwellers though :-(.
regards, Ian
I sincerely hope you are wrong about writing them off, Peter, though fear you are not. Having read more about it since I saw the info about the burnoff, the figures are worse than I reported, and worse than in Peter’s msg above. As TerryG noted, the park is 544 ha, so 90% has been burnt.
Apparently the same problem — reignition of a “controlled burn” — occurred in Deep Creek in 2012. Perhaps someone in DEWNR has it in for Chestnut-rumped Heathwren and Southern Em-wren :-(.
More seriously, I find it deeply frustrating and wonder if anything can be done about this. Is anyone accountable? The answer from DEWNR/CFS seems to be that controlled burns are necessary to reduce fuel loads, and that fire is unpredictable so “these things happen”. There is also an apparent attitude that as long as life and property are protected, “it’s ok”. Furthermore, various comments from the public on the CFS facebook page (and other places) fail to understand the gravity for heath-dwelling fauna — comments about how well the land recovers, the value of fire and that the indiginous population conducted burning for millenia, etc. But that was in an environment where the native flora and fauna was not isolated in islands in a sea of agriculture. The flora in Cox Scrub will of course recover, and the larger more mobile fauna will also repopulate (some will even benefit in the short-term), but it is hard to see how sedentary heath-dwelling species can repopulate naturally when the nearest remaining suitable habitat is 30km or more away.
Agreed :-(.
Ian
Hi Ian & others, This is very sad indeed. Cox Scrub was one of SA’s last remaining strongholds of the endangered parkeri race of Chestnut-rumped Heathwren as well as the endangered intermedius race of Southern Emu-wren. The conservation park covers around 700 ha, 500 ha of which appear to have been destroyed. So it’d be fair to say there’s no hope left for these birds. Even more frustrating given that millions of $$ of funding are being poured into recovery efforts for both species on surrounding farms, while one poorly executed Department of Environment burn-off no doubt means that both subspecies can now be written off. That was one burn-off too many. Regards Peter *
Hi Ian and All,
Cox Scrub comprises 544 hectares and is one of the larger parks on the Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide.
From http://www.facebook.com/countryfireservice – Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR) conducted a controlled burn in the park on Wednesday 1st May that subsequently became uncontrolled and burnt out 500 hectares of the park on Friday.
I dearly hope the population of reintroduced endangered Southern Emu-wrens have survived !!
Regards TerryG
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