Abandoning my preference for first ascertaining a few facts, may
I offer the following?
1)
The car burning is just the latest of several and
highlights the various inappropriate uses the area is being put to. Trail-biking
and wheelies are others, not to mention the litter.
2)
The suggestion that police rather than rangers should take
action to enforce ‘nature park’ rules seems to me to be
disingenuous and surprising. Perhaps the police got the reference
because it was also a (minor) breach of a traffic regulation. Setting
aside whether rangers, if it came to the point, could arrest someone to prevent
a breach, they can certainly prosecute offenders or, simply, warn offenders
they will be prosecuted if they don’t desist. The police are
unlikely to rate such references highly in their own priorities.
3)
If I were administering the area in question and getting persistent
complaints, given impractical demands on staff I would consider closing the
area to vehicle traffic at particular times (perhaps most of the time) as has
happened at other reserves eg the parking area at Acacia Inlet. I
personally would find this inconvenient. It is all right for fit young
chaps like Martin to jog in daily from Carwoola, but elderly people like myself
have a limited range – perhaps 30 metres if carrying a small pair of
binoculars.
4)
Incidentally, the closure of the upper access to FSP looks
temporary to me in view of the road repairs. However a phone call should
settle whether that is the case.
From: martin butterfield
[
Sent: Thursday, 9 July 2009 4:57 PM
To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] Scenes with which all Canberras are becoming
familiar
This entry could be seen as relevant to Chris Davey's
announcement at the June COG Meeting about the Round Table on Kelly's Swamp
convened by the Chief Minister.
The attached image was taken in the car park at Kelly's Swamp this morning.
>From te amount of foam I'd guess the fire brigade had extinguished the blaze.
Had I been able to record sound as well you would also have heard two children
(ages about 10 and 15 by my guess) riding min-trail bikes along the bile path
past the hides. Judging by the tyre tracks they had been up and down the
track several times.
So I rang the Rangers at the number on the signboard outside the car park and
left a message. Some 10 minutes later I got a phone call from the police,
to whom my message had been forwarded by CNP and gave them a bunch of
details. It was at least logged as a complaint, but I didn't see or hear
any follow action. After a further 10 minutes I got another call from
Lisa one of the Southside Rangers for CNP to let me know she had passed the
message on to the police. When I advised that they'd already rung me she
explained that the Rangers can't actually remove people from the Nature Park:
that has to be done by the police.
Basically a brownie point for Lisa for passing the comment on so quickly.
I think unrelated to the above, but there were VERY few waterbirds around at
either the Swamp or the sewage ponds this morning. (Out of interest, the
road up to the Office and the (previously official) entry for birdwatchers has
been closed off, so one has to enter through the gate by the Swamp car park.
More interesting was a mixed finch flock by the entry to the cow paddocks (near
the Shoveller Pool). I saw at least 40 Double-barred finches, 10
Red-browed finches and 6 European Goldfinches in some leafless trees at this
point.
Martin
