http://www.theage.com.au/comment/racing-carnival-poses-an-unexpected-environmental-threat-20161017
Racing carnival poses an unexpected environmental threat
BOB BROWN
As the world's best stayers thunder around the Flemington course during the
spring racing carnival, spare a thought for a tiny bird that is punting on its
ability to distract the predators which are driving it to extinction.
Along the Great Coast Road between Warrnambool and Port Fairy is the Belfast
Coastal Reserve: some 20 kilometres of beaches on the Bass Strait coast. This
year this special strip of Australia's shoreline is in uproar and, it seems, it
may have all come out of last year's Cup when trainer Darren Weir listed
"training Prince of Penzance on the beach sands" as part of the winning formula.
"I need the beach and dunes to be open," he has since said. "I can understand
they have to close the main beach at Warrnambool over the holidays but if
Killarney beach is closed, I'll be closing my Warrnambool operation.
"It would be totally unviable for me to train in Warrnambool if we could not
use the beach or the dunes for the full year. The beach and dunes have been the
key to my success and others."
So, suddenly, each morning there is a stream of semi-trailer-sized horse floats
arriving on the Belfast Reserve beachfront and from dawn to mid-morning the
beach is being pounded by the thunder of horses' hooves. It is a welter by the
water.
Local beach users, including bathers, fishers and the occasional pony rider,
have been squeezed out: no warning, no consultation, no payment, no thanks.
After a short period of astonishment, two nearby residents got together a
community group to defend their region's prize asset – its beaches. Bill Yates,
who lives near Killarney Beach at the centre of the invasion, joined
singer-songwriter Shane Howard to set up the Belfast Coastal Reserve Action
Group.
Yates explains: "I visit Killarney Beach most days. Nearly 12 months ago it
began to get harder and harder to find a park down at the beach. Horse
transport trucks started turning up in large numbers at the Killarney Beach
boat ramp. I couldn't get my boat in or out from the beach. Horse trainers were
turning up en masse on our beach and the impact to the environment and the
wildlife was immediate.
"In the past 18 months there has been an exponential, unregulated, increase in
the amount of commercial horse trainers accessing the dunes and beaches for
track work and exercise. This has largely been brought about by the success of
Darren Weir winning the Melbourne Cup in 2015 and his claims that using the
area has been part of the reason for that success. This has resulted in
conflict between horse trainers and other beach users and community groups that
care for the environment and protect the wildlife.
"In the past, small scale local trainers have used the beaches at times for
therapeutic work. That is, low impact, water's edge, wading. What is occurring
now is high impact, large volume, base of the dunes, in the dunes training at
Levys Point, Rutledges Cutting and Killarney Beach. There have been reports of
intimidation from trainers and riders towards other beach users and some are
now reluctant to use these areas."
Perhaps the most intimidated local is that tiny bird, the red-eyed,
black-headed Hooded Plover that darts about the sand trying to attract
attention. It is attempting to draw predators away from its eggs in its nest on
the sand. As it fails, so it is headed for extinction. Pet dogs are its most
widespread foe on beaches across southern Australia but now, on this shoreline,
it is the thunder of horses' hooves for which it is no match.
I am a Cup-lover and, in my Senate years never failed to run an office sweep or
to have everyone gather round the television for the running of one of the
world's great races. Nor do I think the racing community's invasion of the
Belfast Beach coastal reserve has been malicious. It seems more a case of an
out-of-control enthusiasm for what seemed to be a winning formula and no
government supervision of the beach. But the public commons of these beaches
predates even the Melbourne Cup and it is up to government to reassert the
public good.
If there is really an advantage in training horses on sand, how about the
corporations buying their sand on the open market like everyone else? The
locals deserve a fair go. That incudes the little black-hooded sprinter,
weighing just a few grams which, fast as it may be, is no match for the
half-tonne horses now pounding through its nursery.
Sent from my iPad
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