Latest news with #Eurobodalla
ABC News
2 days ago
- Automotive
- ABC News
Roadkill is costing Australians thousands. Could virtual fencing be the answer?
Lindy Butcher is up all throughout the night bottle-feeding some unexpected babies. The ACT Wildlife volunteer is caring for two wombats — Midge and Claire, just weeks old — rescued when their mothers were fatally hit by cars. Ms Butcher knows the cost of roadkill up close, having cared for thousands of injured animals over 30 years. "They would have been fox or bird food within a couple of hours." However, Ms Butcher isn't angry — she knows most collisions between vehicles and wildlife are accidents. "I feel sorry for people who have hit a big animal with their car because usually they haven't done anything wrong," she said. "The animal has leapt out in front of their car, scared the tripe out of them, damaged their car and then the poor animal has died or is injured. It's a problem." It's an issue with a big price tag. Every year, more than 7,000 insurance claims are made after collisions with kangaroos, with Huddle Insurance estimating damage from those crashes cost Australians more than $28 million in repairs and $6 million in excess payments. Two hours from Canberra, Eurobodalla Shire Council (ESC) trialled a virtual fence along a strip of road north of Batemans Bay in 2023. Green fence posts, distributed every 25 metres, form a virtual fence along the roadside, sensing approaching vehicles and emitting a light and beep. It is designed to warn wildlife about oncoming traffic and make animals pause before they step out and become startled by the blinding headlights of an oncoming car. The technology works best with vehicles travelling at up to 80 kilometres per hour. ESC reported incidents down from five per week to just five in the first year. Mayor Mat Hatcher said the fence cost $10,000 per kilometre to install, but he said it reduced insurance claims by drivers, council staff call outs and wildlife deaths. "It's a great return on investment for the ratepayer," he said. ESC has since installed virtual fences at two more locations in the shire and has allocated money in the annual budget to keep installing more fences. "For areas with a lot of wildlife, especially late at night when the roads are dark, it's been fantastic for us," Cr Hatcher said. Save Canberra's Kangaroos' Aisha Bottrill read about the success of the trial on the south coast and wants the fences installed in Canberra, where she often pulls over to tend to injured or dead kangaroos on the roadside. She started a petition hoping for a virtual fence trial on the road she commutes along twice daily. "Something needs to be done about it for the safety of the wildlife and for the safety of people who use that road." She said drivers had become desensitised to signage urging them to slow down for wildlife. "We need to put something in place that will deter animals from crossing the road if we can't deter drivers from slowing down in high-risk times," she said. "We live in the bush capital and we're so lucky to share our homes and backyards with so much wildlife. It's devastating to see so many injured kangaroos and not see anything done about it." Ms Butcher said 70 per cent of the incidents reported to the ACT Wildlife hotline were for collisions with birds, which would not be stopped by the fence. She said attempts to reduce roadkill also needed to include planting more trees so animals could move along the canopy without needing to come to the ground. But Ms Butcher would love to see the fences trialled in the ACT. "If we could even just reduce the number of wombats, wallabies, kangaroos and possums hit by cars, that would be great," she said. "It would be great to see something like that here.
ABC News
16-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Shipment of emus that swam to mainland New South Wales now thriving at Potato Point
Every resident in Potato Point has a story to tell about their most unusual neighbours. The little town on the NSW south coast, population 159, is home to one of the only thriving emu colonies on the Australian east coast. Local WIRES volunteer Rachel McInnes didn't know Potato Point, 8 kilometres east of Bodalla, had emus when she moved to the area 18 years ago. "It's a joy to go out your back or front door and see a couple of emus walking down the street," she says. "It's hilarious when you look down on the beach and think: 'What's that? Is that a person? No, it's an emu.' "That's just more icing on the cake of living in such a beautiful area." A businessman shipped in a population of about a dozen emus from Western Australia 30 years ago to live on his private island — Horse Island — at the mouth of the Tuross River. What he didn't realise was that emus are proficient swimmers, and soon his imported pets had made a break for the mainland — 20 to 100 metres away, depending on the tide. "I didn't know emus could swim," Ms McInnes says. The population struggled at first. But now, with the National Parks and Wildlife Service placing fox baits throughout the national park, Potato Point and the surrounding Eurobodalla National Park have become an emu haven. "Every year we see chicks, and lots of them," Ms McInnes says. "It's a topic of conversation when the new chicks are hatched: 'How many have you seen?'" This year, one local spotted a male emu with 21 chicks. For her PhD, Western Sydney University ecological statistician Julia Ryeland researched the fluctuations in emu populations along the east coast. "There are lots of records of emus being all throughout Sydney and along the east coast," Dr Ryeland says. "However, there are only a few areas where they remain on the east coast, and Eurobodalla National Park is one of them." Dr Ryeland says emu populations along the coast have declined from historical levels because of hunting, loss of habitat, and introduced predators such as foxes. It makes the little oasis at Potato Point important for the iconic Australian species. Dr Ryeland says emus are catalysts for bush regeneration by transporting seeds that get stuck in their claws or that pass through their digestive system. "It looks like they are quite a key seed disperser among different landscapes," she says. "They are one of the few species that are completely generous. They more or less eat anything, and they can transport really large amounts of seed really quite far distances. Ms McInnes says humans and emus live together in harmony at Potato Point. "They are protected here. We give them space and they are happy to coexist," she says. Sometimes tourists will turn up and ask a local where to see the emus. But Ms McInnes says they are not tame pets. "Don't ever think you're going to get a selfie with a wild emu. They are absolutely a wild animal," she says. "When we have visitors, they are absolutely tickled to see emus. To top it off, they might see a couple of kangaroos hopping down the main street. It's very cliché, but I love that we have them here. "We have the coat of arms living in our village. How lucky are we? "It's such a privilege to have them."
