Cattle in the Alpine National Park

[Moondog55]

All you fellers must be vegetarians.
While it's true that the graziers get a real sweet deal the numbers of cattle involved are so small it makes no real difference.
I like the taste of beef that graze up high.
The graziers are the reason we all know about the high plains and went up there in the first instance 80 years ago.

[corvus]

was wrong in my initial thoughts about this subject

Last edited by corvus on Thu 17 Nov, 2011 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Bill P]

Hey I'm not vegetarian, in fact, I love munching on home killed steer. Maybe I'm cranky because I can't graze my cattle for free?

And anyway sustainable human activities in the Alps go back way way longer than the 1840's.

Anyone fancy a Bogong moth? Bill P

[north-north-west]

All you fellers must be vegetarians.
While it's true that the graziers get a real sweet deal the numbers of cattle involved are so small it makes no real difference.
I like the taste of beef that graze up high.
The graziers are the reason we all know about the high plains and went up there in the first instance 80 years ago.

That is so illogical I'm not sure it's worth a serious answer.

Are you really saying that if I occasionally eat a bit of meat I have to agree with absolutely everything that all meat producers do or want to do?
Or that no-one knew about the high country before the graziers?
Or that we would never have started walking up there if they hadn't preceded us?
Or that cattle don't have an impact on sensitive alpine and sub-alpine environments?

Really?

[Moondog55]

I do and I don't
Sure; a few naturalists and government surveyors and prior to that a few locals in summer for the moth harvest
Bogong moth are best roasted in the ash of a wood fire
Recreational use followed the graziers, with-out cars and good roads that was the only access
They do but it is no longer that great and really is a non-issue, and could be fixed with a little fencing of the sphagnum bogs anyway and the hydro did much more damage and still is, I haven't seen anyone whinging about the plans to re-instate the old SECV blueprint and start building the Pretty Valley dam or the raising of the storage level on the pondage and do away with the safety margins
Did you know at one stage VicRoads wanted to close the road to Falls Creek?/ it was so badly built in the 40s and 50s that maintaining the road was going to cost too much, in which case Dungys track or the goldmine road would have been the main access
If I had my way I'd be burning the whole lot on a notional 10 year rotation to replicate the traditional land-users practice.
it is an emotional issue not a logical or practical one
besides I enjoy a good discussion and a logical argument

[cdg]

I dont mind the cattle grazing in the high country.

[climberman]

Moondog, most of the best palaeo evidence is that there was very limited burning of alpine areas prior to European occupation of the high country. For articles, search for Mooney, S.M. who has done or supervised extensive charcoal analysis of alpine areas (and many others). http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/staff/scott-mooney

Scott has done some recent work on the Alpine areas. A good number of other researchers have also looked into this area but I tend to follow Scott a bit as Istudied under him.

[Moondog55]

And yet my personal experience ( when digging pits for thunderboxes ) says that in certain areas there was extensive burning, also grass fires leave little charcoal for dating.
All Victorian clan groups practiced firestick management and my personal experience with aborigines in the Northern Territory (1970 ) and Nuigini (1990 ) tells me that interpretation is mistaken.

[Nuts]

Its only really a guess at how fires were started? Either way (whether a natural event or aboriginals began the problems) the bush will never reach mature communities free from understory. It needs management in some form. Too many weeds, to many chances for unplanned burns. I doubt a few cattle will do the job, people aren't going to like burning off any better. Goats would be better than cattle (cringe) Surely the grazing prevents blazing thing is a joke? The numbers would need to be huge!

[houndsman]

Although somewhat off topic...In reply to a post made by North-North-West who spoke of the deer in alpine areas of victoria. What are other peoples thoughts on a deer's impact on the environment? Until last week i wasn't aware of the wide spread population we had in our forests, i ran into a small hunting group who were in state forest, they were happy enough to have a chat about what they were doing and how they went about it. really interesting insite into the deer in our forest and what could be done to slow there ever increasing population.

With the huge deer numbers in the forest do people think they have as much of an impact as say a 100 head of cattle in an area?

[photohiker]

Deer are basically big rats. They're lighter than cattle, but they eat just about anything.

I came to this realisation whilst walking across Scotland, even in the middle of a treeless bog I would come across the ancient remains of a tree and it had been gnawed to death by them. They also carry a lot of ticks around the place and because they are not domesticated or managed these issues can never be fixed.

There are more deer in the Scottish highlands than people. Estimates vary between 300,000 and 500,000. They are one of the reasons the Scottish hillsides remain tree-free apart from plantations which have to be fenced to allow the trees to grow to an adequate height to survive deer.

So what do I think about deer in the Alpine National Park? - Shoot them.

And keep Cattle out.

[Moondog55]

Deer are usually quite fussy and picky eaters; goats are not and pigs will and do eat everything and anything

In the absence of wolves and tigers hunting is one way of controlling deer numbers, feral goats and pigs are a much bigger problem in most of our national parks and forests than Sambar tho and the impact of other deer species is so small it can be disregarded as a practical issue.

[climberman]

And yet my personal experience ( when digging pits for thunderboxes ) says that in certain areas there was extensive burning, also grass fires leave little charcoal for dating.
All Victorian clan groups practiced firestick management and my personal experience with aborigines in the Northern Territory (1970 ) and Nuigini (1990 ) tells me that interpretation is mistaken.

Umm, NT and PNG are kinda different to SE Oz. But you'd know all about charcoal dating so I'll leave it to your observations of dunny digging over thousands of cores of study.

[photohiker]

Deer are usually quite fussy and picky eaters; goats are not and pigs will and do eat everything and anything

I think the point is whatever they eat, they do not belong there, they are competing with native fauna and they will eventually over run the joint and eat anything because their preferred food will be in short supply. They're big rats with antlers.

Shoot them

[north-north-west]

Deer are usually quite fussy and picky eaters; goats are not and pigs will and do eat everything and anything

I think the point is whatever they eat, they do not belong there, they are competing with native fauna and they will eventually over run the joint and eat anything because their preferred food will be in short supply. They're big rats with antlers.

Shoot them

+1

[corvus]

Happy to have Deer culled /eliminated how do we do it ? close the National Park for a couple of years and have open hunting season 24/7 12 with free Licence to Hunt ??
I guess it is easier said than done, who pays for it ? eradication of Rabbits on Macquarie Island was an expensive exercise and still ongoing.
corvus

[north-north-west]

Rather than Park Passes, give every walker an AK47 in exchange for their car keys, and don't give them back the keys until they've hauled out at least two deer carcasses.

[Moondog55]

Rather than Park Passes, give every walker an AK47 in exchange for their car keys, and don't give them back the keys until they've hauled out at least two deer carcasses.

UMm Given the current restriction on automatic weapons that statement is a little "Politically incorrect"

We need to get a handle on the whole issue of feral animals.
Cats are one of my pet dislikes in the bush and foxes and rabbits and hares. Sparrows. Starlings. Indian Myna birds. Oh and brumbies I think that while all feral animals do some damage ( as do farmed animals ) some animals do much more damage than others, let's add camels and donkeys to that list

[photohiker]

We need to get a handle on the whole issue of feral animals.

Agreed. The deer discussion was in response to a specific question about them by houndsman a dozen posts back.

[Moondog55]

It is a funny situation, deer hunting is allowed in some National Parks, but at the same time you are not allowed to destroy feral animals like cats, goats or pigs in the same National Park.
If we argue to remove cattle then we should use the same argument to remove all non-native animals at the same time, removing the cattle is physically easy as they are domesticated and used to being moved about by people, the feral population is a hundred times more difficult and probably a thousand times more expensive.

[houndsman]

I like the theory of destroying all these feral animals but if we do a little reading into the matter we can find some interesting info...

1) the national parks a basically a no gun zone and if guns are aloud then the destruction of feral animals is not ie. it is illegal to shot wild dogs or foxes in a national park.. How is this?? so our government has a wild dog bounty but in a national park where our native creatures are supposed to be protected the destruction of ferals is not aloud

What are peoples veiws on the hunters sharing the bush with us?? well very small my liasons with deer hunters has been very polite and insightful.

Sorry about the double post moondog but we must have a similar idea...

[andrewa]

It interests me that no-one seems to have made the association between a well known grazing family who would be utilizing the Alpine National Park, and the wife of a current senior state Liberal Politician.

No names mentioned.

[wander]

A big issue with guns in National Parks is hunters (and their dogs) have a good track record of shooting themselves, other hunters and other park users. And gun users have a good record of shooting anything rather than only what they are allowed to shoot. Have a look at any set of back country lane signs to see an example of this.

That said gun clubs do have good access to shoot in some National Parks as part of controlled programs that are part of bigger programs to deal with feral pests. Several Parks in SA are closed for a couple of days a year for the express purpose of allowing for feral animal shoots. These are closely controlled and monitored events and I understand verbally (not having read the de-brief reports) from the Parkies that these events have contributed to the overall effort to rid (well actually get the numbers under control) Park areas and adjacent areas of goats.

Animals like cats and foxes are very much harder (very resource intensive) to deal with by shooting programs. They are small, quick, can and will hide for days, each animal can have an exclusive territory of many square km. So trapping and baiting programs are more effective for these sorts of animals.

From memory and I am happy to be corrected the eradication program run for water buffalo in the NT was a 20 year effort and took many many heli and shooter hours and water buffalo are a large hard to hide target. A mate of my father's spent 2 years full time as a shooter on this program. The effort and cost was huge. But the stimulus was commercial with the threat of TB getting from the wild beasts to commercial cattle being the issue. So funding was was much more forthcoming than it is for getting rid of deer from what many see as locked up and non-commercial land. Very sad attitude, but one that is changing with generational change.

[Moondog55]

I have to admit a vested interest here, I am a shooter and hunter, one of the considerations when declaring the Wonnangatta and Moroka areas was the interests of hunters.

I see nothing incompatible with hunting and conserving our national heritage, all I was pointing out was the inconsistency and irrationality in some government legislation.

Hunting accidents get a bad press; but the accident rate is actually very low, much lower than shark attacks for instance, much more scary are the booby traps set by people growing a certain illicit herb in our state forests and National Parks ( which by the way both cattle and deer love )

[davids]

Come on Andrewa, mention names please! Surely that's not a state secret!

[andrewa]

Look at:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/22/tip ... mours-426/

An interesting "association" given the current "plan" to graze the ANP.

[houndsman]

Wander where do you get you information from??
you say that shooters have a good track record of shooting themselves... Please explain? I very much doubt a shooter or hunter has done this ever in a Natinal Park.. there was a case about twelves or so years ago near warbarton but not in a national park and another last year but again not in a national park.. It would seem to me that hunters in our forests would be a win for all. They are using the tracks all year continually clearing fallen trees, i have heard of times when they have helped other bush uses that were stuck get going again.
You say they also have a good track record of shooting other park uses?? to my knowledge this has never happened in Australia!

Also you state the gun owners have a good track record of shooting anything that moves?? Considering they are in our forest to hunt the worlds number 1 game species( the hardest species in the world to harvest) i dont beleive they would shoot at anything that moved, all the money and time spent to pursue such a great beast would go down the drain...

It just seems you are anti hunting for some reason... not sure why, all species that have been spoken about in this thread are introduced and cause damage to the environment why they shouldn't be culled is beyond me.

Also one last thing wander why are hunters dogs a big problem in our forest? would love for you to clarify this..

thanks houndsman

[north-north-west]

I dont mind the cattle grazing in the high country.

The issue is not cattle-grazing in the High Country, but cattle-grazing in national parks, specifically the Alpine National Park.

I do and I don't ...
it is an emotional issue not a logical or practical one...

To some extent. However, the graziers' campaign is heavier on emotion and inaccuracies than their opponents'.

Fact: Cattle pollute water sources through trampling sphagnum bogs, breaking down creek banks and leaving their droppings everywhere. They reduce biodiversity and create erosion through both trampling and their grazing habits. They spread parasites and weeds. And they have absolutely no effect as a fire mitigation system.
That's your idea of 'not much damage''?

...could be fixed with a little fencing of the sphagnum bogs...

So Parks are supposed to spend piles of their already grossly inadequate budget to fence off the most sensitive areas to prevent damage by the deliberate introduction of non-native animals, purely for the economic advantage of a very small number of people? And that's your idea of 'logic'? If there must be fences, why don't the graziers build and maintain them?
(To be emotive for a moment: And that's just what the National Parks need - more fences. OK, there are already thousands of miles of derelict fences criss-crossing the Australian Alps, from Walhalla to Tharwa, because these Mountain Cattlemen care so much for the High Country that when their leases were revoked they just left all those fences up there rather than clearing them away as any responsible land user would. So, along with all the other potential risks to walking up there we can add the chance of getting tetanus from rusty barbed wire.
Oh, and, by the way, did you know that the zinc used in galvanised iron inhibits the growth of many native plants, especially Alpine species? They found that out back in the 60s & 70s during the first round of attempts at remediation of the erosion caused by cattle-grazing on the Main Range. So, more galv wire . . . )

It's a National Park. The primary purpose of National Parks is the preservation and protection of the environment. It may be a built environment, as at Port Arthur, or a largely natural one, as in the Australian Alps, but the Parks still exist mainly for protection. The two most important secondary purposes are research and recreation - in so far as they do not severely impact on that first purpose. Deliberately introducing exotic animal species does not further any of these aims.
Furthermore, if it is OK for one group to have access for financial gain to the detriment of the environmental health of the Parks, why not others? If grazing is allowed, there is no logical reason not to allow mining, or forestry, or cropping.
Except then it wouldn't qualify as a National Park, would it?
Also, if cattle-grazing is acceptable in the Alpine National Park, why not in Kosciuszko? Or Cradle/St Clair? It's the same sort of country we're talking about, after all.

[Bill P]

Very well said, NNW.

One thing the cattlemen have done very well is hoodwink the general public into believing that they are carrying on an iconic and time honoured tradition.

Hands up those who think these cattle are brought up to the hills by authentic drizabone clad horseman with an intrinsic association and an abiding affinity with the bush?

Well tbe sad truth is this vandalism is actually carried out much more pragmatically, by disinterested trucking contractors.

It's really not the Man from Snowy River.


Bill P

[Moondog55]

you argue well NNW, but when you see how much other damage has been done by people ( SECV : Forests Commission and clear fell logging: Skiing with all of its associated roads, hotels, sewerage farms to service the hotels and ski lodges) the little extra done by a few cattle is nothing much.

I was around when the Alpine National Park was first mooted and all of these points were hotly debated then, in 30 years not much has changed, just more government promises broken and 99% of decisions about the country being made by people who never leave an office in Spring St.

I'd rather shoot the idiots that planted South American privet on Bogong or deliberately released foxes in Tasmania than worry about a few cows that fill the ecologicalniche left by the extinction of the indigenous mega fauna like Zygomaturus as recently as 14000 BWM