Weather

0.5 mm of rain in the gauge. Overcast with light drizzle early but brightening later. Little or no breeze. Accessible track damp. Water level steady. Moon – First Quarter tomorrow.

Wildlife Report

It is with a heavy heart that I submit today’s Patrol blog for what may well be the last time.
I have to report that the Dowling Family have done what they have been threatening to do for at least a couple of years and closed the Petersons Creek Walking Track between the boundary with the Road Reserve at The Other Side and the boundary of the adjoining paddock just downstream from the Highway Bridge.
Their expressed reason for wishing to do so is concern about the bio-security of their property created by users of the track who they accuse of leaving drug paraphernalia, used condoms and food stuffs, which activities have never been observed by the Volunteers who maintain the walk and myself.
I believe that they are now using the present concern regarding Foot and Mouth Disease as a justification for their actions which in my view is inappropriate and serving no useful purpose.
As a child on the Isle of Wight I have lived through a FMD epidemic when the best friends of my parents owned a dairy and pig farm. I have personally owned a 23 acre small holding on the IW and as a former Medical Officer in the Royal Navy I have a better than usual knowledge of epidemiology.
I can well understand farmers and graziers in Australia being anxious regarding the recent outbreak in Indonesia. It has to be recognised however that in 2000, fifty nine countries officially reported outbreaks of FMD. The disease occurred in Europe (Greece), Asia (Russia), Mongolia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. There is frequent travel and tourism between most of these countries and Australia.
FMD is usually spread by droplet infection between cattle and other cloven hoofed

animals, particularly sheep, goats and pigs. The virus can also be transmitted in dust and dry material which may adhere to human skin, clothing and footwear, the feet and plumage of migratory birds or be blown in the wind from a passing cattle truck! Contaminated water is another common way in which the disease spreads between farms.
With a property having multiple boundaries with busy roads and crossed by a creek which has banks on a number of other properties and receives drainage from the streets of Yungaburra I would think that potential risk from 500 m of walking track would be the least of the farmers worries.
It saddens me that a Family who have been publicly acknowledged for their contribution to to the development of the Petersons Creek Walk and have signage along the track expressing this have after 20 years of coexistence decided to close it down in such a peremptory manner. In so doing they not only deprive the locals of an important place for exercise, dog walking and enjoying nature and will almost certainly have an adverse effect on the local economy.

In the limited area open to me I did check out Allumbah Pocket and The Other Side. I was lucky enough to observe a Platypus swimming under the Suspension Bridge, an improvement largely funded my a member of the Volunteers Lloyd Able.
At the Other Side three Australian Brushturkeys were foraging near the Boundary Fence.
As I recorded the offending sign I realised that the wooden bench seen in the background is that donated by relatives in memory of Doreen Child who will have to Trespass if they wish to visit.
I then drove to the Platypus Viewing Platform from where I obtained photos of the Golden Orb-weaver Spider in the Lomandra clump seen below the present sign which also conceals a large and expensive notice praising the Dowling Family for their generosity.
I juvenile Eastern Water Dragon was on a rock under the Bridge but was obscured by foliage
I crossed the Highway and visited with the Brushtail Possum in the hollow tree and the

Overhanging Fig Tree.
I completed my activities with images of the information board at the entrance to the now closed walk and of the adjoining paddock showing the pasture littered by derelict farm machinery and some cattle surrounded by migratory Cattle Egrets.

Platypus. Ornithorhynchus anatinus

Australian Brushturkey. Alectura lathami

Golden Orb-weaver Spider. Nephila pilipes

Common Brushtail Possum. Trichosurus vulpecula

Farmer’s Field

.