Kangaroo Island 15/2/20

Submitted: Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 18:25
ThreadID: 139685 Views:9311 Replies:5 FollowUps:6
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The fires are hardly out yet.
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Peter
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Reply By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 19:01

Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 19:01
Thanks Peter. What part of the island were the images taken

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Stephen
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Follow Up By: Peter_n_Margaret - Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 21:02

Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 21:02
About 12km west of Vivonne Bay Stephen.
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Peter
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Reply By: Allan B (Sunshine Coast) - Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 21:48

Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 21:48
.
Thanks Peter for those photos.

It is amazing how quickly some Australian native plants can respond and recover.

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Allan

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Reply By: Ron N - Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 22:05

Saturday, Feb 15, 2020 at 22:05
It's the cycle of Nature in Australia - the land of eternal Droughts, Floods, and Fires.

Just wait until next Spring, after half-decent Winter rains - the wildflowers in the burnt country will be nothing short of amazing.

Everything that is man-made that was burnt, can be replaced/rebuilt. The bush will recover, as it has done for 50,000 years, even before the Aboriginals arrived.

The irreplaceable parts, are those people who died (unnecessarily in many cases), in the fires.

Cheers, Ron.
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Follow Up By: Peter_n_Margaret - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 09:14

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 09:14
The new shoots are epicormic growth. They are no guarantee that the trees will survive.
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Peter
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Follow Up By: Ron N - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 10:14

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 10:14
Peter, the largest percentage of Kangaroo Island vegetation is Mallee, and Mallees are distinguished by a lignotuber that has incredible resilience to fire, clearing, and any type of damage that would kill many other types of vegetation.

There is a cycle in the Mallee woodland growth, that runs over many years. The mature Mallees are large and the understorey is sparse, because light reaching the ground is reduced by the Mallee leaf cover.

Then a fire goes through, the Mallee appears to be totally destroyed - but the lignotubers and stems resprout, the burnt stems eventually decompose and falls onto the ground (making for small animal and insect habitat) - and the Mallee then recovers to its original height, over somewhere between 25 and 50 years - until another fire damages it, and the cycle starts again.

Mallee lignotubers are virtually indestructable - apart from constant attack by Man in clearing for farming purposes.

The only other major threat to Mallee and the natural re-establishment of Kangaroo Island vegetation, is introduced woody weeds and perennial grasses, such as Perennial Veldt Grass.

See Page 7 in the link below for the Mallee cycle -

Kangaroo Island Mallee woodlands

Cheers, Ron.
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Follow Up By: Bushranger1 - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 10:55

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 10:55
G'day Ron,
You got it 100%.
Managed & owned 1,650 acres of Mallee & Yellow Gum Woodland for years & had a couple of partial burns due to lightening strikes.
Don't get me started on Parks Vic burning huge tracts of the nearby Park to get burn quotas up!
No assets in sight but hey its cheap to do burns way out there.
Also done too frequently thus altering the vegetation & destroying habitat of the threatened Mallee Fowl!
If you walk thru old growth woodlands in many different forest types you will find most things in balance. Go through too frequently burnt habitats & it is almost impenetrable with competition from so many plants.
I just hope the "armchair experts" that control our forests put some science behind the management instead of lighting it up like many people believe is the answer following the fires.
I don't know if anyone heard a certain controversial talk host refer to Eucalyptus as "Gasoline trees" saying they should be removed but I have never heard such absolute rubbish like his comments.

Cheers
Stu
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Sunshine Coast) - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 13:24

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 13:24
.
No guarantee but......
"The new shoots (epicormic shoots) produce green foliage that enables the tree to survive. "Learn more here.
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Allan

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Follow Up By: Bushranger1 - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 13:41

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 13:41
Thanks Allan,
Great information that is well explained.
The associations between plants is extensive as pointed out in the article.
I spent a morning with an expert on Mistletoe & learnt a lot about the plant connections.
Every ecosystem is connected & insects also play a huge role in this.
As Sir David Attenborough once said "If the mammals on Earth die out the world will go on but if the insects disappear all other life will follow".

Cheers
Stu
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Reply By: Member - McLaren3030 - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 07:25

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 07:25
The Australian Bush is very resilient, and most times will recover from Bush fires. It is an amazing site to see the green appearing so soon after the devastating fires.

There was an interesting segment regarding Bush fires on ABC’s Landline last week. The segment explained that before European settlement, the Australian Bush was nowhere near as thick as it is now due to the First Australians regularly managing the Bush with fire. I know it has been said before, but we need to learn from our First Australians and carry out load reducing burns on a more regular basis. The trouble is, there are too many “vocal minorities” that are against load reduction burns, and other forms of fuel reduction. The Mountain Cattlemen warned us that by not allowing them to use the “high country” for summer grazing, it would increase the voracity of Bush fires through the high country.

Macca.

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Reply By: Bushranger1 - Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 09:50

Sunday, Feb 16, 2020 at 09:50
G'day Peter,
Thanks for the photos.

I have owned & managed a few different covenanted property habitats for 40 odd years. Also have had to deal with wildfire events.
Lots of combined reasons for the fires being so intense.

Years of missed Spring rains. We noticed for many years the forest leaf litter was not rotting down & there was less fungi to help decomposition. So yes climate change is one reason.

Extinction of our mid range mammals & predation of Lyrebirds by foxes. These animals turn over huge amounts of forest litter aiding composting.

Burning without any regard for science. Just burning huge tracts of bush to maintain set quotas is useless. Patch burning near assets (towns) is required. Unfortunately the bean counters reckon its too expensive per hectare near town hence just torching remote bushland for years. So now we are paying the price for years of forest mismanagement.

Many introduced grasses & plants with increased flamability due to drying off in the hot weather

So many reasons really. Just need to think it through carefully before going out & torching the bush without researching it first.

Cheers
Stu
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