Plants and Animals

Grampians Ark - Back in Balance

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The Grampians Ark - Back in Balance fox baiting program builds upon significant fox baiting efforts conducted in the Grampians National Park over the past 12 years. The project aims to bait foxes across over 250,000 hectares as part of a landscape scale, tenure blind management program in collaboration with DPI, DSE and local land owners. The Grampians Ark - Back in Balance initiative plays a key role in the Grampians reintroduction of the critically endangered Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby, and benefits a wide array of native small mammals across the landscape. After the January 2006 fire the Grampians fox baiting program was extended by 30,000 Ha and now covers 107,000 Ha (the equivalent size of 5,400 MCG football ovals), or over 64% of the Grampians National Park along approximately 720km of the existing road and track network with the aim of achieving 250,000 Ha over the life of the project. Fox baits are buried and spaced every kilometre to minimise the possibility of non-target species poisoning and the program is pulsed with baiting conducted 2 months on with a 1 month break, 4 times per year. A one month break is scheduled into the program to reduce the affects of bait caching, shyness and avoidance by foxes Monitoring The Grampians Ark - Back in Balance project also monitors the effectiveness of landscape scale fox control for the protection of native wildlife. Monitoring is conducted through three programs in the Grampians National Park: input monitoring (calculation of fox bait take information) output monitoring (measuring decline in fox activity through sand pad monitoring) response monitoring (spring mammal trapping to monitor the response of native animal populations to the fox baiting effort) Results from the monitoring indicate that fox activity is significantly lower in the baited compared to unbaited areas of the park with bait take having considerably reduced since commencement of the baiting effort. Small mammal trapping is proving a little harder for local management to measure yet the signs are positive with Southern Brown Bandicoots and Swamp rats showing increased survival rates in response to the landscape scale baiting program prior to the 2006 Grampians fire. How to get involved Conservation Volunteers Australia assists in the monitoring of native wildlife through the 'Naturewise' program. In the Grampians Naturwise program, volunteers work in small groups alongside a Park Ranger to check mammal traps and collect data. Volunteers play a very important hands-on role, and report a high level of satisfaction with their involvement.

Parks Victoria staff member Mike Stevens and Conservation Volunteer Jenny Howe measuring wildlife in Grampians National Park (Photo courtesy of Inger VanDyke)

Publications and Reports

Grampians Ark Field Report 2007 (PDF - 1.1 MB)

Adaptive Experimental Management of Foxes 04/05 (PDF - 1,012 KB)

Adaptive Experimental Management of Foxes 03/04 (PDF - 984 KB)

Adaptive Experimental Management of Foxes July 02/03 (PDF - 903 KB)

Eastern Pygmy Possum - one of the species landscape scale fox control aims to protect	Sand pad with Fox print in the Grampians National Park