Re: Re: [canberrabirds] Removal of street trees

Urban Parks people (everywhere) seem obsessed with the idea of people being being injured or killed by a falling branch. Has anyone ever, in fact, been injured or killed in this way?

(I know swagmen always refused to sleep under gum trees (despite 'Waltzing Matilda') and preferred to sleep in the shelter of wattles. I myself wouldn't ever camp under a eucalypt, but there's a difference between sleeping under one for 8 hours and passing under one for a few seconds).

John Leonard


On 03/10/2009 9:12am, Robin Hide <> wrote:
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> The
> old/diseased tree removal program, began last week in parts of Ainslie,
> including Corroboree
> Park, as described
> in the
> page 3 story in todays Canberra Times
> (that focuses on a single Eucalyptus
> mannifera). A further note may be of interest.
> 
> Five trees were in fact felled in the Corroboree Park
> plantings. Two of them were on the western, Toms Crescent, side of the
> park:
> one was a favourite perching site of the Australian Hobbies that
> frequent/nest
> in the Park (clearly visible from my back deck and a sad personal
> loss!), the other will
> be missed by numbers of galahs who were always at work on its bark (and
> who
> complained bitterly when it was being felled). When the
> felling/clearing/mulching
> was in progress, I told one of the work team about the nesting Tawny
> Frogmouths
> in a neighbouring tree, and suggested they be given as much space from
> noise/disturbance
> as possible. 
> 
> I don’t know about the immediate health status of the felled trees,
> however the notification sent out to (some?) immediate neighbours of
> the Park on
> 29 May by Scenic Landscape Architecture (who assessed the viability of
> the
> trees), gave the following reasons for the removal of the five trees:
> “Poor condition,
> hollows throughout tree”; “Poor condition dead on top, fungal wood
> decay”; “Serious
> Upper Trunk rot”; and “Extensive lower trunk damage”).  The
> next morning walking through the Park I
> encountered Stephen Ryan, the host of the ABC Gardening Australia
> program, with
> a camera crew who were filming another tree (not a mannifera)
> in the centre of the Park (near the basketball court) that
> Ryan told me was totally hollow and thus also should be removed. I
> think ducks had
> nested in that tree last year. Look out for a future segment on the
> program on
> the problems of elderly urban trees? Ryan was pushing the issue of
> public safety,
> especially in parks used by many including children. 
> 
> Replantings (14 E. mannifera are promised to fill in
> the
> gaps from the 5 now cut, and earlier gaps) are planned at Corroboree
> Park. But one wonders whether
> such replacements will be as successful and longlived as the existing
> trees,
> when one sees how damaging current park management practices appear to
> be (eg grasscutting
> by large sit-on mowers/tractor mowers that bump against unprotected
> lower trunks
> of young trees; use of the park for parking heavy equipment). 
> 
> 
> 
> Robin
> Hide
> 
> 
> Nick Payne wrote:
> I
> noticed a few days ago that TAMS have started chopping down trees on
> the median strip of Captain Cook Crescent near Manuka. In the past
> couple of weeks, in just the three blocks of Captain Cook Crescent
> between Stuart Street and Barallier Street, I have seen Eastern and
> Crimson Rosellas entering nesting hollows in two of the trees on the
> median strip. If TAMS feel it is necessary to remove these trees, they
> should not be doing it while native birds may be using the nesting
> hollows in the trees. I've put in feedback on the ACT Government web
> site suggesting this. If they get more feedback along the same lines
> from other people as well, more notice may be taken.
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