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FoMC East Coburg

FoMC East Coburg is a local working group of the Friends of Merri Creek formed in 2024. They are active on the east side of the creek from Moreland Rd north to Harding St (including Egan Reserve and Tate Reserve).

Activities are centred around protecting, enhancing and celebrating biodiversity through planting native vegetation, biodiversity surveys, art and culture, and maintenance (weeding and litter collection).

The group runs working bees and other activities on the first Sunday of the month and welcomes new members and ideas.
Contact us at: foecmc@gmail.com or via instagram @eastcoburgmerricreek

Tate Reserve - Green Links grant funding, the current Dog Walking in Merri-bek consultation and Swamp Wallabies on Merri Creek.
What’s happening in Tate Reserve? A new habitat zone along Merri Creek
 

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Tawny Frogmouths, Podargus strigoides,
Photo by FoMC East Coburg


Tate Reserve

Tate Reserve is a popular reserve that, until the 1990s, was stripped of vegetation after being used for decades as market gardens. Since then, volunteers from Friends of Merri Creek with Council, the Merri Creek Management Committee and the wider community have planted all the trees and vegetation we enjoy there today. But we can see the increasing use of Tate Reserve in recent years is degrading the pathways and creek edges, and new vegetation is struggling to thrive and create crucial mid-storey and understorey habitat that supports and protects small birds, mammals and insects.

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After a planting day, photo by Friends of Merri Creek East Coburg.

 

Funded by the state government’s Green Links Grant program, a new project led by the Merri Creek Management Committee and Friends of Merri Creek aims to improve habitat and connectivity for wildlife between Coburg, Northcote and Brunswick. This project will remove weeds and establish over 17,000 plants at three wildlife refuges, including at Tate Reserve. The Tate Reserve habitat zone will be the largest protected habitat and wildlife refuge on this side of the Merri Creek in Merri-bek. Similar to the existing wetlands at Strettle Reserve in West Preston and Merri Park, the Tate Reserve refuge will have pedestrian gates that enable people to enter and connect with nature along the creek, but are fenced and signed to discourage dogs.

Dogs and Tate Reserve

When Merri-bek commenced its recent Dog Walking in Merri-bek consultation to pilot changes to 9 parks across Merri-bek, a petition was circulated to change Tate Reserve from its current designation as on-lead dog walking to off-leash. Friends of Merri Creek did not support this petition, particularly given the high percentage of dog walking off-leash areas already available at Egan Reserve and across the creek at AH Capp Reserve.

Friends of Merri Creek and our local working group, FoMC East Coburg, proposed an amendment that was unanimously approved by Councillors and became the Stage 1 Pilot. This compromise proposal allows for a bigger habitat zone (fenced and dog-free), with two gates for easy access linking the existing centre pathway, and a new dog off-leash zone along the western pathway. This proposal also allows all bush kinder programs to play in an area free from dogs off-leash. The western gravel path will remain outside the habitat zone and open to all users moving between Joe’s Garden and Moreland Road. 

You can find out more about the plans for Tate Reserve at the Dog walking in Merri-bek website.

Swamp Wallabies on Merri Creek

In the late 1970s, the engineering vision for our creek was of freeways and concrete drains. We now have a shared community vision of a restored and flourishing Merri Creek and extensive parklands enjoyed by local communities. This vision includes indigenous wildlife making Merri Creek home and using the creek and its tributaries to move freely between habitats. Due to decades of revegetation efforts, swamp wallabies have returned to the lower Merri Creek and are often sighted in Coburg North and Fawkner.

Sightings have also occurred in Coburg, Northcote and Brunswick. Northcote Golf Course and Merri Park, Northcote, in particular, provide good mid-storey habitat for swamp wallabies to hide and browse in. However, sightings of swamp wallabies south of Coburg Lake have declined in recent years, possibly due to increased disturbance from more human and dog visitors to the Merri Creek parklands. Unfortunately, swamp wallabies have fallen victim to dog attacks on Merri Creek in the past. To maintain a healthy population of swamp wallabies in the lower reaches of Merri Creek for future generations, we need to act now to restore habitat and provide safe wildlife refuges. These spaces will also provide habitat and refuge for small insectivorous birds and other small mammals like possums and rakali and help build towards a connected habitat corridor to the Birrarung/Yarra.

For more information please see: