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Volunteers needed to weed Tassie’s wild wilderness coastline this summer

An award-winning wilderness weeding venture has put a callout for volunteers ready to brave Tasmania’s wild wilderness coastline this summer.
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The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area’s stunning coastal reserves boast remote beaches, ancient Aboriginal sites and breathtaking landscapes. But they are under threat from the invasive sea spurge and marram grass and volunteers are needed to weed them out.

The European plants have become weeds in southern Australia, and can have devastating effects on dune systems, coastal herbfields, grasslands and shrublands. Some of these areas are habitat for threatened shorebirds such as the orange bellied parrot, hooded and red-capped plovers, little and fairy terns, and pied oyster catchers.

The only way to get rid of the weeds is to pull by hand or spray, requiring an army of volunteers, which is why the Sea Spurge Remote Area Teams (SPRATs) came into being.

The SPRATS cover some 600 kilometres of coast from Macquarie Harbour around to Cockle Creek and have been operating since 2007. Every season volunteers are pulling fewer plants than the season before, but the effort has to continue until the seed banks are depleted.

SPRATS is looking for volunteers for the 2020–21 season. There are opportunities for experienced bushwalkers with a variety of fitness and experience levels.

Applications must be in by 4 October 2020, and it is recommended you read this year’s SPRATPACK 2020-21 and the Expression of Interest form before applying.

Volunteers work in small teams, are dropped to their location by helicopter or boat and walk between the identified sites to rid them of seedlings.

This is an incredible experience, camping in remote but stunning coastal locations and experiencing the wilderness while doing your bit to ensure the landscape stays intact for the plants and animals that rely on it.

If you are interested and can devote about up to two weeks to the program in January 2021, contact: sprats.tas@gmail.com.

The deadline for applications is 4 October 2020.

SPRATS are funded by and works in partnership with the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service.

Access to the weed site is by helicopter, return is by boat to Strahan.

Remote area volunteers, including Andy McQueen and Liz McQueen, can spend up to three weeks tackling weeding out sea spurge along the coastline of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Remote area volunteers, including Andy McQueen and Liz McQueen, can spend up to three weeks tackling weeding out sea spurge along the coastline of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.

More info

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The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

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Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]