VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies – Grampians/Budj Bim Experience

The Year 12 OES class was on camp visiting Budj Bim and the Grampians National Park last week.  On Wednesday we engaged with Indigenous Rangers Leroy and Colleen from the Windamara team at Budj Bim and we conducted water testing whilst there. That afternoon we drove to Halls Gap to listen to a talk about conservation efforts around the endangered Brush Tailed rock wallaby from Grampians Ark Coordinator, Joseph Terry.

As the 2024-25 summer bushfires burned in the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, recovery teams raced against time to save the landscape's unique and endangered native animals.  When animals or plants are listed as threatened it means they are on a sliding scale of being at risk of extinction.  The park is well-known for its colony of brush-tailed rock wallaby but also living in the understorey of the park’s mixed forest and heathlands were small mammals including the Long-nosed Potoroo, Southern-Brown Bandicoot, Heath Mouse, and the Smoky Mouse.

With their habitat destroyed by the fires that burnt nearly 80% of the park, providing food and shelter for these animals and the wallabies was critical.  Volunteers and local community organisations including Friends of the Grampians and Halls Gap Landcare helped assemble more than 350 habitat pods to protect small animals.  In the days and weeks after the fire food was dropped by drone and helicopter in locations the colony were known to live, in the hope that they had survived the fires. Ground feeding operations began in February at 17 monitored feeding stations along 5km of the escarpment.  These stations have been serviced weekly, with a total of 11 feeding operations conducted so far, covering more than 110km.

“We have confirmed the presence of Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby actively feeding and drinking at all 17 ground-feeding stations, including the eastern escarpment,” Joseph said.

Our students learned so much from this experience and we hope to monitor the success of the program over the rest of the year.  Many thanks to Joseph and Parks Victoria for this opportunity.

On Thursday we hiked along the Grampians Peaks trail from the start of the Gar trailhead to Briggs Bluff and Beehive Falls, again conducting soil and water analyses.  On Friday we visited Lindy and Peter Hayes’ property at Dunkeld, looking at their house which was built as a ‘Green Building design’.  Peter and Lindy’s house was amazing and we are so fortunate to have community members willing to let a class of students into their private home to look at elements of GBD.  To conclude our camp, we headed off to visit Lisa McIntyre, the Nature Glenelg Trust’s Partnerships and Community Coordinator.  We viewed Lisa’s property to look at how the McIntyres use regenerative farming practices and to see firsthand works conducted by the local Landcare groups.  Many thanks to Lisa for her help this year and hopefully next year we have better weather!

Thanks also to my offsider Tony Flavel and Tynan Shannon for their assistance on this camp and well done to the students for their engagement in this experience.

Ms Merrin Shannon

VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies Teacher