TREAT

TREAT News | Wet Season January - March 2019

Community Plantings 2019

BCC - Barron Catchment Care; NQLMS- NQ Land Management Services; RSL- Russell-Smith and Lucas; SET - South Endeavour Trust; SN- Soils North; SFS- School for Field Studies; TRC- Tablelands Regional Council.

Funding:

20MT3- 20 Million Trees (Round 3); CSAG2 - Community Sustainability Action Grant (Round 2); NRLG - Nature Refuge Landholder Grant; RRA - Rainforest Reserves Australia;

• All plantings start at 8.00am. Please car-pool as much as possible.
• Bring a hat, sunscreen and water, plus gloves and a trowel if you have them.
• Look for TREAT signs for directions when close to each planting.
• A barbecue will be provided after each planting.
• Email Doug Burchill (dcburchill@bigpond.com) to be on the list for update information on the plantings; or
• Check for likely changes due to weather conditions by ringing Angela McCaffrey on 0498 124 463

This year another full program of 11 community plantings are scheduled from the beginning of February till the middle of April, to plant approximately 24,000 trees. Six plantings are at locations where TREAT has not previously planted and five are adjacent to where community plantings were held last year. Everyone is welcome to come to the plantings. School for Field Studies students are intending to come to four of the plantings. Those new to planting trees are given instruction on how to plant.

TREAT plantings - McLean Ridge Road

As the Peterson Creek Wildlife Corridor plantings were completed last year, TREAT has this year focussed on widening the Lakes Corridor, between Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham. We have a willing landowner in Stewart Maclean, and funds have been generously donated by Don Crawford, whose property Maroobi Park NR is next door and forms a large part of the corridor. The planting sites are former grazing land.

Trees for both plantings will come from the Lake Eacham nursery. Turn right into McLean Ridge Road from McLean Road which is off Gadgarra Road, off Wright's Creek Road. Parking will be along McLean Ridge Road and there is a walking track to the planting sites. Look for the TREAT signs.

QPWS planting - Massey Creek

This year's planting will be infilling some losses from last year (due to the drought conditions which prevailed after the wet season), plus a new planting across the creek from last year's site. Last year, tree spacings were 2m to help with maintenance and costs, but access across the creek isn't so easy and the planting there will have closer traditional spacings.

Massey Creek is on the Old Palmerston Highway towards Ravenshoe. Follow the TREAT signs at the wind farm on the Kennedy Highway.

SET plantings - Misty Mountain NR

South Endeavour Trust have completed their revegetation at Rock Road and have turned their attention to a corridor at East Evelyn Gap, near the Millaa Millaa Lookout. They have purchased properties on either side of the Gap, and the property on the western side is now Misty Mountain NR. Most of the property is forest, but a former grazing area will now be revegetated to create a wide corridor between the properties. TREAT planted on neighbouring properties for the Wet Tropics Management Authority in 2012 to create a corridor across the Gap, and the new corridor will be a substantial extension of that work. There are 2 wildlife underpasses on East Evelyn Road at Misty Mountain NR.

Site preparation is being done by Mark McCaffrey and trees for the plantings will come from the Lake Eacham nursery and the Tablelands Regional Council nursery. Entrance to the property is opposite the turn-off to the Lookout. If the weather is fine, parking can be on the property, otherwise parking will need to be along the Lookout road. Look for the TREAT signs on East Evelyn Road off the Palmerston Highway.

BCC planting - Mt Quincan

Last year a planting was held on Mount Quincan NR as part of a corridor from Mt Quincan to Leslie Creek. This year, the planting will be on the adjacent property, Mount Quincan Crater NR, now owned by Ben Eales, and will add to the corridor.

Site preparation is being done by NQ Land Management Services and the trees will come from the Lake Eacham nursery. Access is via Mount Quincan NR at the Leslie Creek bridge on Ball Road. Parking will be along Ball Road. Look for the TREAT signs.

Emms plantings - Cedarvale

Carolyn and Phil Emms are continuing to plant trees on the grass strips left in a 2015 planting on Cedarvale, to help achieve quicker canopy closure in their cassowary release facility. The plantings this year will be close to those done last year, also on the grass strips.

Site preparation is being done by NQ Land Management Services and trees will come from the Emms nursery. Cedarvale is on Pressley Road off the Gillies Highway. Follow the TREAT signs - Cedarvale is past Barrine Park. Parking is on Cedarvale, but the barbecue afterwards will be held at Barrine Park.

Clarkson planting - Galaji NR

John and Marion Clarkson are extending their Nature Refuge area with this year's planting, the first community planting of the year. It is next to where we planted last year, and again, was formerly a ginger cropping area.

John has already got the site preparation well in hand, and Mark McCaffrey will assist with augering holes prior to the planting. Trees will come from the Tablelands Regional Council nursery. Look for the TREAT signs on Topaz Road. Parking is on the property.

Russell-Smith and Lucas planting - Garriya NR

TREAT has not assisted with any plantings on Jeremy and Diane's property, but held a field day there in 2008, to look at a lot of plantings which had been done by the then Tablelands Community Revegetation Unit. Over the years, much has been learnt about what species do best on the varying soil types there, and what maintenance is required. The property is next to Wooroonooran National Park and the walk to the planting site goes through rainforest on the property. The planting site is on poorer soil, but holes will be augered and fertiliser added.

Site preparation (and maintenance) is done by Will Russell-Smith. The trees will mostly come from the Tablelands Regional Council nursery, with some trees supplied from the property's nursery and by TREAT.

Hopkins planting - Fisk Road

This planting at Butchers Creek is on a new and interesting site at Lynch's Crater. Alex Hopkins, who comes regularly to the Lake Eacham nursery on Friday mornings, is part of Soils North which has extraction rights to the bed of the crater. There is a small remnant on the side of the crater and Alex wants to revegetate a large area of grazing land to extend it. This planting is the first step in achieving that, and will be a block of trees near the rim, close to Fisk Road.

Trees will come from the Tablelands Regional Council nursery and 300 from TREAT. Site preparation will be done by Soils North and TREAT will assist with putting humate in the holes and placing trees. Look for the TREAT signs on Fisk Road off Topaz Road near the Butchers Creek school.

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Inside this issue

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Look who comes to revegetated rainforest sites!

Paige Baisley, Charlie Bassett, Anneli Visnapuu
(Centre for Rainforest Studies at the School for Field Studies)

Students of the Centre for Rainforest Studies often participate in community tree plantings during the wet seasons. They help TREAT, TRC, TKMG and SET to restore rainforest on previous pastures to create habitat and corridors for the unique wildlife of the Atherton Tablelands. As students of this semester we were keen to find out what animals start using these revegetated rainforest sites. Using three revegetation sites on the southern part of the Atherton Tablelands, we assessed the use of these sites by mammals, using trail cameras, animal signs, and spotlighting. For invertebrates we selected ants because ants are bioindicators and are often used in Australia to assess the development of rehabilitated mining sites. This is possible because ants have been classified into different functional groups depending on what role they play in an ecosystem (e.g. seed dispersal, soil aeration, control of other invertebrate populations etc.). For surveying ants we used pitfall traps and manual searches. We wanted to evaluate the different methods used for finding mammals and ants, based on their ability to detect fauna, and their suitability for potential future citizen scientists-driven monitoring projects.

The sites we selected were at Lemuroid Leap, Dirran's End and Ringtail Crossing, all Nature Refuges owned by either the South Endeavor Trust or by a local family. At each of these sites we established three 100m transects along which we did spotlighting for two nights. We also used these transects for recording animal signs and to find suitable places to set up trail cameras (two for each transect). For ants we set up different transects. They were just 40m long and had one pitfall every 10m.

We were excited to find quite a few possums using sites that had been planted in 2011 and 2012. These were the Common Brushtail Possum, the Herbert River Ringtail Possum and the Green Ringtail Possum. At Dirran's End we even found a Lemuroid Possum looking at us. In that site we also observed a Carpet Python, a positive sign as it indicates the presence of food sources for higher trophic levels. It was a fairly large Carpet Python that was quite disturbed and agitated by our spotlighting activity.

We placed our trail cameras near detected animal signs or near a visible animal track in anticipation of detecting some fauna. With our trail cameras we discovered that the sites were used by the Northern Brown Bandicoot, the Long-nosed Bandicoot and even by the Lumholtz's Tree-kangaroo. Besides these species, trail cameras also captured photos of an Echidna, Swamp Wallabies and Emerald Doves walking past. Spotlighting was the most comprehensive method for detecting arboreal fauna, but this method should be complemented by trail cameras that can detect animals on the ground and over a longer time.

Signs allowed us to detect the presence of fauna that produce scratch marks, diggings, and foraging holes. Though we detected the scat and scratch marks of numerous species of possums and the Lumholtz's Tree kangaroo, some signs like scratch marks will accumulate over time, failing to inform the observer when the fauna was present. Scats are also sometimes difficult to assign to a particular species.

For ant monitoring we found pitfall trapping to be very suitable for detecting ant species. Although we were only able to identify ants to genus level, we collected ants from 11 different genera via pitfall traps while we were only able to detect five ant genera via manual searches (these searches mean we check trees for ants and collect them using a brush and a vial). Pitfalls seem to be a more comprehensive method for collecting ant genera compared to manual searches. However this method means digging holes in the ground for the pitfalls to be placed into.

Fauna monitoring in revegetation sites is not only of interest for many community members who invest time and effort in revegetating previously rainforested areas, but it is also beneficial to researchers who are interested in monitoring the development of habitat features of these restored sites. Fauna monitoring can also be driven by citizen scientists and some of the methods we used seem to be quite useful for integrating in citizen science monitoring projects. We hope rainforest revegetation monitoring will become easier once more reliable standardized methods for monitoring vertebrates and ants become established.

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Spectacled Flying Foxes

Jenny McLean

CSIRO population counts of Spectacled flying foxes (SFF) from 2004 to 2017 showed an estimated 75% decline, from 250,270 to 75,347. The death of 23,000 from the recent heat event in the Cairns area (early December 2018) only compounds this massive decline. The species is now widely regarded as deserving a federal listing of 'critically endangered'. It is currently listed as 'vulnerable'.

Stable isotope research by CSIRO has shown that SFFs feed over a wide range of habitats, roughly 40% rainforest, 30% wet and dry sclerophyll, 10% wetland, 10% mangrove and 10% backyard/orchard fruit. Their diet of fruit and nectar means they provide essential ecosystem services of pollination and seed dispersal across all these ecosystems. The huge decline in population will impact our region.

There are small populations of SFFs up Cape York, but the main population is in the Wet Tropics as far south as Ingham. Interestingly, all four Australian mainland species of flying fox (Spectacled, Little Red, Black, Grey-Headed) can often be found in Ingham.

The heat stress event in early December was the first recorded in far north Queensland. They have become quite common in southern Australia where since 1994 there have been 27 heat events resulting in the deaths of about 130,000 flying foxes, the largest by far being 46,000 in south east Queensland in 2014. Flying foxes do not cope with temperatures over 42 degrees. They eventually fall out of the trees and die. To learn more about heat stress in flying foxes go to: https://www.animalecologylab.org/flying-fox-heat-stress.html .

Flying fox camps on the Tablelands coped with the recent heat event for a number of reasons. Temperatures may not have been quite as high, and the vegetation structure of the roosts were fairly intact. Many of the coastal camps that went down were in parks with little or no understorey.

The Bat Hospital near Atherton took in 350 orphans from the heat stress event, more than half of the total number that came into care along the coast. We took them from Ingham, Gordonvale, Edmonton and Cairns. We already had 200 orphans in care as a result of tick paralysis, and we expect to receive another 100 orphans for release. The largest number of orphans we've had in care before was 500 so this is a record year for us, as well as the weather.

Orphans under 200gms or about 8 weeks of age are first admitted into the nursery where they are only getting milk. There are several suitable milk formulas including cow's milk and infant formula. Those under about 130gms are usually fed with a bottle and teat but then move on to feeding themselves from dripper bottles. From the nursery they are taken outside into a cage where they now start to get fruit to eat as well as milk. At about 12 weeks of age or 300gms in weight they are ready to fly and are taken down to our large flight cage. They remain in this cage until they reach a minimum weight of 450gms at which point they are ready to go to the release cage at Tolga Scrub.

However our work is not over yet. We need to provide a soft release program which entails us going out to the cage daily for another 4 months. Scott Morrison from Tablelands Regional Council has been a great help with extending the cage to cater for the record numbers being released this year. We will be taking out large quantities of food and then gradually cutting it back. It will take a few months to get all the pups out for release as they vary in age by a few months - they're born mainly September to December.

In the wild the pups are completely dependent on breast milk until they learn to fly at about 12 weeks of age. They're on their mothers all the time for the first month of life, then become too big and heavy to fly with, so stay in the forest at night with the other pups. Once weaned they stay with their own age group until they enter the adult life of the camp in their third year. The average age in the wild is about 5 years.

How do we manage to care for this many bats? Luckily we already had a lot of international volunteers booked in for this season, many of them repeat volunteers and some of them staying 2-3 months. We accelerated our usual bulk buying of bat food, called in local volunteers more frequently and became more visible than usual on social media to attract donations. Many of our local volunteers are TREAT members.

To find out more about Spectacled flying foxes and the work of the Bat Hospital visit our website tolgabathospital.org Support us by coming to our Visitor Centre, rated #1 on Trip Advisor for attractions in this area, and bring any family or friends! We don't charge locals when they come back again with more family or friends. Tax-deductible donations to help feed the huge number of orphans currently in care can be made on our website.

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My trip to TREAT's Tree Identification and Seed Propagation Workshop

Lisa O'Mara - Coordinator of Treeforce and Mulgrave Landcare

Already on the Friday I was trying to talk myself out of that winding trip up the Gillies Range because of my 'busyness' then consoled myself with the fact that it will be beautiful up there amongst the green of the Lake Eacham nursery and a well-earned break between tree plantings.

Well the trip up the range flew by as my Mulgrave Landcare colleagues, Lois and Campbell, chatted away about local history, plants and the current state of the government and it wasn't long before we were being greeted and made welcome by TREAT identity Barbara Lanskey. The group was split into two and soon I was seated beside another identity, Bess Murphy from CAFNEC, for the leaf ID workshop.

Dinah handed out the most excellent paperwork with easy to follow diagrams, and tables on distinguishing leaf features and family characteristics, which, combined with the live potted samples and Dinah's soft gentle nature, was the best ID workshop I have ever been to.. I learned a lot more than I expected.

Like clockwork a substantial morning tea of freshly cut sandwiches and Barbara's homemade fruit cake was thoroughly enjoyed by all, then the groups rotated and before me was a veritable feast for sore eyes of native rainforest fruits ready for the seed germination workshop. My camera got a work out and we sampled the bush tucker as Peter freely endowed us with all of his extensive knowledge and funny stories, and yet another excellent handout resource so relevant to our local area.

The morning was so well organised that it ran seamlessly with top-notch presenters. I can highly recommend the next one and it was definitely worth the trip up the Gillies Range for this TREAT.

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Learning about planting trees

Jane Halls

Spotting a notice in the paper recently was a stroke of good fortune. 'Tree Planting Workshop' it said. We rural newbies who have recently swapped a suburban garden in Cairns for 6.7 acres of grassed land at Lake Eacham were well aware of our inexperience in this department. We immediately phoned and booked our spot for the morning's workshop.

And so, on a hot and parched Saturday morning, we made our way to Cutler Road where we gratefully received the knowledge so willingly imparted by Angela, Mark and Peter. We learned the importance of site preparation and herbicides, how deep to dig the hole, providing fertilizer and moisture to our new little plants and finally mulching. After an hour of theory and a lovely and unexpected morning tea it was time to put what we had learned into practice. In an existing re-vegetated area where some plants had not survived due to the extreme dry conditions we were currently experiencing, we dug, planted, mulched and watered.

And, fortunately, the very next day the land gratefully welcomed the first truly drenching rains of the coming wet season ensuring the survival of our first tree planting expedition! We were able to imagine our little plants striking out with their roots and reaching towards the sun and life.

Thank you so much to Angela, Mark and Peter for their dedication to the land re-vegetating cause. We have become enthusiastic members of TREAT and intend to become entrenched and useful members.

Next year, when we come to re-tree our property, we will be saving time, money, effort and potential distress to our future plant babies by doing the job properly.

Thank you!

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TREAT's Christmas Party

Angela McCaffrey

One of TREAT's many pleasant traditions is its annual Christmas party held on a Friday morning near Christmas time. The anticipation this year built up well in advance as numbers of volunteers in the Fridays leading up to the party were huge with around 60 people attending each week.

As always, the food excelled with platters of cheeses and fruits, fancy desserts, pastries and cakes provided by volunteer bakers and TREAT, all beautifully co-ordinated by Linda Joncour. The nursery was decorated with attractive trees moved into the main area by QPWS staff, and then draped in beautiful natural items collected by Ingrid Clark, making the nursery very festive.

Again as always, we don't need music as conversation creates a fabulous atmosphere enjoyed by all. This was enhanced by a wonderful and very funny poem by Geoff Errey entitled 'Holiday Hiccups' to which we all listened intently and sympathised with the sentiments around holiday transport woes.

The morning is a great opportunity to thank QPWS staff and volunteers alike for a fantastic year's hard work growing and planting thousands of trees in the landscape, as well as a time to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

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Nursery News

Nick Stevens

After an exceptionally hot start to spring and summer it is great to see continuing wet weather following 2 tropical cyclones and the development of the monsoon trough in late December and early January. Soil moisture is at a high level, perfect for tree planting, and hopefully this trend continues over the next few months as well without too much in the way of extreme temperatures. Special thanks to the volunteers who assisted nursery staff Peter and Simon with replacement of the weed mat and erection of new plant racks in bay 3 over two extremely hot days in November and December. There had been little opportunity to complete the task prior to this and with the nursery filling up and the parks base water infrastructure project progressing, it was timely to have the job completed.

We expect to be very busy over the next couple of months. As well as the usual planting season preparations and tree distribution, we will have contractors replacing the water supply to the whole base. Our ageing pipelines and water filtration system are to be replaced, solving many issues from inadequate supply pressure for irrigating the nursery, to providing potable water to the whole Lake Eacham base.

For those members wishing to collect larger tree allocations (approved of course!), please note the requirement for giving nursery staff at least 1 week's notice for prepping your trees. We will try to fit you in where we can with the community plantings schedule. The larger community plantings that we will be prepping trees for are all between mid- February up until the 2nd week of April, and during this period we will have only limited opportunity to prepare members' trees, so get in quick with your orders.

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Fruit Collection Diary October- December 2018

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HOLIDAY HICCUPS

Listen to some sound advice to which you might aspire
Don't delay in planning your adventure
Get your trips in early just as soon as you retire
For just around the corner lies dementia.

I try to live by these wise words, each year we make a plan
To tick another fancy off the list
But longings sometimes turn around and bite you if they can
Your trips can oft include a nasty twist.

You've heard of cancellations, of plane flights turning back
Of being stuck in terminals for days
Of travel firms expiring on the Oodnadatta track
Yes, fate can strike in oh, so many ways.

This year we went to Bundaberg to watch the turtles hatch
To treat ourselves we planned to go by train
But as with all things wonderful there has to be a catch
For turtle time is also when it rains.

Somewhere 'tween Cairns and Townsville there was water on the track
We found out in a phone call from QR
"We have alternate transport" - we trusted this as fact
To Townsville on a bus is not too far.

There's been a bit of history - Queensland Rail and us
We've only ever managed one full trip
We've cancelled once, twice had to fly, and now they've got a bus
The only thing we haven't had's a ship.

Thus off we set, a trifle cramped, we took in all the views
They let us off at Tully for some lunch
But when we got back to our seats they had some different news
"You're bussing all the way" - well thanks a bunch.

At Proserpine or thereabouts more floods had cut the line
We travelled on the coach till ten at night
They swapped us to another bus - that crew had done their time
By half past two I'm not a pretty sight.

But suddenly at Rocky we discovered to our glee
They'd found a train from somewhere in the sticks
We staggered on, and into bed, by now it's nearly three
They let us off at Bundaberg at six.

Of course the turtle hatching was just as we'd always wished
They scuttle down the beach all nose to tail
It really is a great event and one you shouldn't miss
They're much more organised than Queensland Rail.

Don't even ask us what transpired when time came to return
We got another phone call from QR
I wouldn't like to tell you 'cos your little ears would burn
Suffice to say we had to hire a car.

Don't get me wrong, I have to say, in all the trips we've done
The sweet times have always outweighed the tart
So do your travelling while you can, and savour all the fun
Let failing memory wipe the nasty part.

© Geoff Errey
December 2018

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