The Kununurra Cane Toad Working Group: (CTWG)
Meeting Minutes 02 May 2005
Present:
Karin Carnes, Des Hill, Dick Pasfield, Chris Adams, Gae Mackay, Noel Wilson
Apologies:
Scott Goodson, Doug Powers, Keith Wright
Minutes from the previous meeting:
Accepted
State Cane Toad Advisory Committee:
Membership of the state group was discussed. Background given about getting a local representative on the state group.
The state group have decided that the local cane toad group can have representation on the state group.
Des Hill was nominated by the group with Dick Pasfield as proxy for Des.
Action:
Gae Mackay to write to the executive officer of the State Cane Toad Advisory Committee nominating Des Hill as the local representative for this group, also nominating Dick Pasfield as proxy for Des. Also requesting all relevant information from the state group be forwarded to these two people.
Cane toad initiative update:
Noel Wilson gave an update on the cane toad initiative.
The survey team have been working with the NT on their trapping competition. The team were involved in assisting to assess the finalists for the competition. This involved carrying out field trails in the Victoria river district for this. Form this work the team assessed the good and bad points of all the finalist traps, and will be able to incorporate the good points into a trap for use in the Vic River area. The team have also been carrying out surveillance in the Legune area and will continue work in this area in the next week. From there they will continue to work downstream towards Bullo Station.
The team will be constructing traps over the next week to use as part of the surveillance to be carried out.
The public awareness material was circulated for comment.
Comments on the FAQ brochure:
Needs to be stronger wording in the environmental section, there is a need to mention local extinctions of certain species. In the social section need to have the following included – indigenous people hunting for food is an important part of their diet and the loss of these species due to the cane toads could have health implications for these people. Also the first dot point under social should be reworded to say that cane toads can be accidentally consumed and leave off the “by some human immigrants and by Aborigines”. This last statement could be seen to be insulting.
The picture gardens have offered to run a cane toad ad at the pictures.
Action:
Noel Wilson to follow up with public affairs to progress this.
Need to investigate the option for running further ads on radio Waringarri.
Action:
Noel Wilson to follow up with public affairs in regard to this.
Cane toad working group action plan:
There is a need for a generic power point presentation on a few levels that can be used for presentations to various groups. Needs to be able to target primary school, high school and other community groups.
Action:
Karin Carnes and Dick Pasfield to progress this.
Circulation list – at each meeting of the cane toad working group we will decide information that should be circulated to a group interested in what is happening with the cane toads.
Action:
Karin Carnes to request a copy of the circulation list from Lee Scott-Virtue.
Next meeting Tuesday 7 th June 2.00pm CALM.