Victorian Government shows no mercy for fauna and flora in Melbourne's heatwave

Treasury Gardens when well-watered
At the same time as I received a report on Bob Brown's speech on endangered species at Brown Mountain Forest, I also heard really disturbing... awful... news of time spent in the adjacent Treasury Gardens on Wednesday, when temperatures were well over forty degrees.

These gardens are known for their fountains and ponds and large shady trees. Captain Cook's cottage was imported from England and now resides here.

Apparently birds were going around with their beaks open, their wings extended, parched and distressed because there was NO WATER in any of the fountains and ponds there.

I thought that the Parks and Gardens had some kind of water recycling program, to mitigate the awful damage that the governments forced population program is doing to our water reserves.

Apparently not.

The person reporting this to me was so appalled that she emptied her make-up purse and filled it with water from the taps in the Ladies' toilets and placed it on the ground for the animals.

If the commodification of water has come to the pass where we will allow all the animals and possibly the trees in our parks to die; if our governments are going to show this degree of callousness, they must be pursued to the wall.

The following action was reported to me: A representative of Melbourne City Council was rung yesterday and told of the situation. It is reported that "he sounded genuinely sorry about the birds and agreed that drinking fountains with receptacles for overflow water for birds and humans was a good idea and will initiate it."

He said, however, that it obviously can't be straight away but he said it sounded as though it should be done.

He was asked if he could get something rigged up as an interim measure for birds during this terrible heat and he said he would look into it.

Mind you, he also said that he was about to go on vacation.

He also agreed that there should be lot more water fountains all around the city.

Note: prompt action by this person will be greatly appreciated, but who is responsible for this situation arising?

There have also been reports that animals are falling into the new plastic lined waterways that the Victorian government has allowed to be constructed. They cannot climb out on the slippery plastic, and drown. It is hard for me to imagine a dialogue with public servants and politicians so far removed from the reality of natural hydraulics that they would actually deprive the earth of water. What destructive buffoons rule this State.

Yesterday I rescued a bird from a bathtub full of water and lilies in my garden. She had gone in and become too wet to get out. I placed some plastic netting in the bath, where it formed a good bird-platform. I put her on the platform and she sat there until her wings dried off. I had also placed bowls of water around the garden and on the garage roof, with rocks in them that birds and other creatures could sit on or climb out of the water on.

If people do not take these measures for wildlife, not only will the wildlife suffer, but they will become extinct even more rapidly.

Please be kind and responsible to our fellow creatures, even if the Victorian government is barbaric in this regard.

See also: "A Place to die" of 31 Jan 09, comment The last of our urban wild life of 22 Jan 2011.