The minutes general meeting on 14 July 2021
Meeting Minutes
MLVG AGM Minutes and the President Report 2021
The minutes of MVLG AGM in 2021
The president of MVLG report in 2021
The 2020-2021 Financial Year Report
The MVLG Annual General Meeting Deer Report – December 2021
The MVLG Annual General Meeting Deer Report – December 2020
- This past year has been a very quiet one due to COVID19 keeping recreational hunters away over the April to September periods when we see most activity. However established deer harvesters are moving in the community. Again, we have continued to monitor opportunities to be involved in the deer space with the ultimate aim of making a difference to our community.
- Locally:
It is noted that deer activity seems to have lessened, they are there but due to consistent hunting over a period of years many are more wary of wandering to far into farmland and farmers changing their own practices. We are seeing more farmers erecting Deer proof fencing but it seems limited cost being a big factor.
The local Harvesters that supply the commercial businesses are well established and accepted by the local community. Simon Feillafe provided an up-date on Deer and the deer harvesting initiative and how it is working in our community, the article was published in the Bush n Bull and is also available on our website.
- Externally I continue to represent the Mitta Valley Landcare Group at regional level The meetings involve many government and regional Landcare groups to discuss developments in this space. Again due to COVID only one meeting was scheduled for March 2 this year as a Post Fire Deer Forum in Wangaratta. Due to COVID restrictions on movement hitting at the same time I did not attend this meeting so am unsure if it in fact went ahead. Last year I reported that we were awaiting the final report from the Victorian State Government on what initiatives they are prepared to back to help landholders with this problem . This report has now arrived and can be viewed on-line on our website under News articles on the Homepage.
Reported by – Karen Moroney
Minutes General Meeting 2021
The minutes general meeting on 3 February 2021
MLVG AGM Minutes and the President Report 2020
The minutes of MVLG AGM in 2020.
The president of MVLG report in 2020.
The 2019-2020 Financial Year Report.
MLVG AGM Minutes 2019
The minutes of MVLG AGM in 2019.
Dung Beetle Report for AGM 2018
Last year we, in the Mitta Valley were very fortunate to have been chosen by Bernard Doube as the only site fir releases of the new spring active dung beetle Onthophagus vacca in Victoria – Bernard personally delivered these from South Australia and held a field day at John and Judy Paterson’s property at Noorongong, where one colony of 1000 beetles was released into the field. A further 400 beetles were divided and are being raised in tents on 3 different properties. These are due to hatch very soon and we are waiting expectantly to see the results.
It is now 9 years since the two winter-active dung beetles, spiniger and bison, were released in the Mitta Valley, and Belinda Pearce (co-ordinator or the “Do it with Dung” project) and Judy Cardwell decided it was high-time we carried out a survey to see how successful the spread and survival of the beetles has been.
To this end, a Field Day and Identification workshop was held on the 20.5.18, starting at Judy and Alec Cardwell’s place, where about 25 people gathered together to learn how to identify winter-active beetles in the field. We then moved things on to the Mitta Muster rooms where Belinda Pearce aided in creating an informative day on the importance, care and identification of dung beetles.
Following the day, 16 people, from one end of the valley to the other, volunteered as monitors and are setting fortnightly traps, and recording their findings until the end of 2018. This will give us all a good idea of how well the winter-active beetles have adapted to our valley, and how far they have spread from their release sites. Once the data has been collected, it will be uploaded to a website called the Atlas of Living Australia.
The interest shown by Mitta Valley Landcare in doing this monitoring has triggered a lot of interest elsewhere – other groups are now going to follow suit.
Although it is a little too early to jump to conclusions, the results so far are very encouraging – on almost every property where releases took place, including neighbouring farms, earth castings can be seen where the beetles are burying the dung.
In time, we hope they will be as numerous and beneficial as the summer-active beetles.