New Wildlife Refuges take shape.
28th October 2024
By Professor Nick Williams, President FoMC
Works have commenced to create three wildlife refuges along Merri Creek, between Preston and Northcote, with a new fence recently installed around the billabong area in Merri Park, Northcote. Funded by the state government’s Green Links Grant program, the project aims to remove weeds and establish over 17,000 plants to restore habitat for wallabies, small insectivorous birds and other fauna and better connect them as wildlife corridors. Similar to existing wetlands at Strettle Reserve and Merri Park, the refuges have pedestrian gates that enable people to enter and connect with nature along the creek, but are fenced and signed to discourage dogs. Rectangular mesh will be added to the bottom of the newly constructed fence at a later date.
There is a reason for the fences. We all love our dogs, but they can have negative impacts on wildlife. Even the best behaved dog can disturb fauna and their scents can deter animals from staying in the refuge. Dog excretion also makes it very difficult to establish indigenous vegetation. Because they are meat eaters, dog poo is very high in phosphorous, a nutrient which many native plants find toxic even at low concentrations, while their urine contains nitrogen, which, like phosphorous, acts as a fertiliser favouring weeds over native species. A recent study in a peri-urban nature reserves in Belgium surveyed dog visits and found a dog density of 4.2 dogs per hectare per day – I suspect dog densities along the Merri Creek are significantly higher. The nutrient fertilisation impact of the dogs in the site with the highest dog densities was substantial: 31.3 kg of nitrogen added per hectare per year and 13.1 kg phosphorous added to each hectare per year. The levels along paths was even higher, exceeding the European Union fertiliser thresholds for agricultural land!
If councils could remove grass when they mow, which is a more expensive option than leaving it on the ground, it would remove nutrients from the parks along the creek helping tip soil conditions in favour of native species over pasture grasses and weeds. However, because this is unlikely, to help reduce the impact of your dog on Merri Creek please only let it off a lead in designated areas, pick up after it (preventing phosphorous inputs and smelly shoes) and try to encourage it to wee where the grass is green (e.g. sports grounds, nature strips) as it indicates the area is already fertilised. I’m still trying to train my labradoodle Polly to do this! Hopefully, over time the ground storey vegetation in the refuges, and along the creek more broadly, will become more dominated by local native plants and we’ll be able to see wallabies, sugar gliders and even platypus in new refuges.
Image drawn by @merricreekmusing
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