Another Denmark councillor resigned this month, changing the notional balance of power.
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Cr Dawn Pedro had been a long-standing councillor with a commitment to environmental management.
A group of councillors who campaigned with sacked shire engineer Rob Whooley are now in the majority.
However a day after Ms Pedro resigned, Cr Whooley found every other councillor voting against him on a motion.
Australia once had a giant flightless bird – about two metres tall – that lasted just 7,000 years after humans arrived on the continent.
Photo Courtesy University of Colorado
In North America, stone points have been found embedded in Mastadon skeletons, and Europe has similar evidence of megafauna hunts.
However up until now, it was not clear whether the first Australians preyed on any of the megafaunal birds or animals.
Charred eggshells in the Exmouth-Carnarvon area provide the first evidence that they did.
Science Network [read this story]
A library of soil samples is being established at Muresk, the old agricultural college near Northam in WA’s wheatbelt.
It will mostly consist of specimens collected during studies for the grain industry, but others will be welcome.
This will be an exciting resource for researchers.
Science Network WA [read this story]
A former Deputy Shire President has resigned his seat on Denmark Shire Council in Western Austrlia’s Great Southern region.
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He told me he did this because of the way the former CEO was encouraged to resign late last year (you can see my report if you scroll to the next page).
I can see the balance of power shifting as the newer wave of councillors, driven by the former Shire Engineer’s campaign in last year’s election, now command half of the votes.
From The Great Southern Weekender, February 4, 2016.
WORDS AND PICTURE BY GEOFF VIVIAN
This is the kind of local story I love to do, and I will tell you why.
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It is about an everyday citizen trying to do the right thing by his community and his family, despite apathy and opposition.
Mr McPherson liked to cycle the gravel paths around a large bush block near his home with his kids.
These paths had become increasingly blocked by illegally dumped rubbish, the last item being a whole discarded trailer.
Taking this sort of issue straight to the media is an aggressive measure, but he had already tried to contact the landowner and the local City council so I didn’t mind batting for him.
I contacted both of these late in the afternoon, and by next day the landowner had decided to start fortnightly inspections, and the City council to “revisit” the issue.
From The Great Southern Weekender, January 21, 2016.
High soil moisture levels had farmers in the Great Southern excited about a bumper harvest last spring.
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The reality turned out to be different for some, with destructive hail storms and catastrophic fires bringing down Western Australia’s overall yeild.
Still, many grain growers reported a good year if they were lucky enough to avoid these events, and smart enough to put their crops in at the right time.
From the Great Southern Weekender, January 14, 2016
ALBANY’S chief fire control officer offers a different slant on the events of the past few weeks.
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Residents of the South West town of Yarloop have criticised authorities for not warning them of the catastropic blaze that destroyed their town until it was almost upon them.
He contrasted this with the actions of a few young campers at Two Peoples Bay, near Albany, who alerted authorities within 15 minutes of a similar fire starting, allowing firefighters to start arriving within another 20.
From The Great Southern Weekender, January 14, 2016.
Rangers Herbert and Wesley Alberts with Georgia Ward-Fear. Photo courtesy Georgia Ward-Fear
Almost every conceivable measure to stop cane toads advancing into the Kimberley has been tried and failed.
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Collecting cane toads and killing them has failed.
Constructing barriers to keep them out of waterholes has failed.
Experiments with lungworm showed the worms were even more harmful to native frogs.
Meanwhile, other researchers have been training larger predators to avoid eating the toxic amphibians.
And strange as it may seem, a future program could involve releasing more toads into the environment, ahead of the invading wave.
Science Network WA [read this story]
This story has been republished in The West Australian, Friday, January 15, 2016.
This is a little gratuitious municipal smut from The Great Southern Weekender, October 22, 2015.
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Here is a nice local angle on a national story I missed posting last year.
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Albany man Glen Colbung was acknowledged as the architect of a $1.3 billion native title settlement between the Noongar people and the WA Government.
Former South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council CEO Glen Kelly paid tribute to Mr Colbung at the signing of the deal in Perth last June.
Under the arrangement, the state is to pay $50 million into a Noongar futures fund every year for 12 years.
Six Noongar corporations will then be able to draw on the interest for social and economic programs.