Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Is it ignorance or some intuition about appearance that makes us react in different ways to different creatures?

The red and black spider below is a male Missulena occatoria, or Red headed Mouse Spider. In her book, Spiders of Bendigo, Jennifer Shield notes, ‘The males wander in search of females in September and April May, and can be seen in daylight…Recently it has been found that the venom of these spiders has a neurotoxin similar to that of the Sydney Funnelweb Spider which causes violent muscle twitching.’ Maybe that explains why none of those who saw this specimen wandering the bush above Golden Point reservoir were keen to make a close acquaintance.

Mouse spider at Golden Point, July 2011. Photo: Sam Prest

On the other hand, when the green creature below dropped onto the hand of a FOBIF member in the Columbine Creek valley, there was no such instinctive reaction. We’re not sure of the species, and would welcome a suggestion.

It looks harmless--but what is it? Photo: Bernard Slattery

Footnote: members interested in local orb spiders should have a look at Castlemaine resident Lynne Kelly’s Spider blog at spiderblogger.blogspot.com

At the FOBIF AGM a question was put to the Catchment Management Authority’s Damian Wells about vegetation clearance along Barkers and Campbells Creeks. We’ve had the following response from the CMA this week:

‘The CMA inspected sites in the region in response to community/stakeholder enquires following flood events.

‘Any sites that contained accumulated flood debris i.e. loose vegetative material such as sticks, logs, branches, leaf material were targeted for removal. At almost all blockage sites the accumulated flood debris was positioned against in stream ‘live vegetation’, therefore it actually was contributing to the blockage. Predominately, this in stream ‘live vegetation’ consisted of exotic vegetation, mainly willow but may have included hawthorn, ash and poplar species.

Campbell's Creek, July 2011: the stumps visible here are willows; the CMA says its works have had a 'negligible' effect on native vegetation.

‘At some sites live native vegetation (canopy) species such as red gum and wattle were amongst the accumulated flood debris sites. Therefore the act of accessing and removing the debris and live exotic species at the identified blockage sites with large mechanical machinery was unavoidable.

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After our July 13 report on the Catchment Management Authority’s problems trying to prevent people building on flood plains at Echuca and Creswick, FOBIF member Geoff Hannon has alerted us to a document that shows this isn’t a recent problem. Governor Lachlan Macquarie tried repeatedly to discourage colonists from building in places which would certainly flood. In 1817 he decreed that a letter on the subject of disastrous floods on the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers be read in all churches in the colony of NSW. It reads, in part:

‘…Whilst it does not fall within the Reach of human Foresight or Precaution to be able to guard effectually against the baneful Recurrence of such awful Visitations, or to avoid being more or less involved therein, yet when the too fateful Experience of Years has shown the Sufferers the inevitable consequences of their wilful and wayward Habit of placing their Residences and Stock-yards within the Reach of the Floods (as if putting at Defiance that impetuous Element which it is not for man to contend with); and whilst it must still be had in Remembrance that many of the Deplorable Losses which have been sustained within the last few Years at least, might have been in great measure averted, had the settlers paid due consideration to their own Interests, and to the frequent Admonitions they had received, by removing their residences from within the Flood Marks to the Townships assigned for them on the High Lands, it must be confessed that the Compassion excited by their Misfortunes is mingled with sentiments of Astonishment and Surprize, that any People could be found so totally insensible to their true interests as the Settlers have in this Instance proved themselves…’

The complete text of this letter can be read on the website of the NSW Public Record office .

Meanwhile, the North Central CMA has called for public participation in its effort to map precise flood level marks. To see how to participate in this process, click here.