• One of 3 dreys and 12 ringtail possums released in the significant native figs now destroyed by Sydney City Council - Ficus Macrocarpa Hillii
by
Julie Moffat
Wires rescuer, Inner Sydney metropolitan area
In July 202 we at Wildlife Rescue - WIRES - released ringtail possums in the enormous figs along the Maddox Street area, Alexandria, in the council area of Sydney City Council.
We released 3 dreys and total of 12 ringtail possums. We did this with arborists who were part of the team contracted to City of Sydney parks!
(A ‘drey’ is the nest of a tree squirrel, flying squirrel or ringtail possum)
None of us had any idea there was an approved proposal for a sport field that would remove these trees and there were no signs of tree removal plans.
We visit and support and feed these animals in the trees to help them adjust to the urban wild, initially every day for a few weeks, then from time to time to check if they are still around.
• July 2021 - Perry Park aborist climbers assisting wildlife carers releasing ringtails in the subsequently destroyed trees cut down by Sydney City Council - see the climber up the top of the photo?
• One of the arborist climbers using ropes and pulleys to lift dreys and possums up into the enormous trees
But Sydney City Council cut down 69 of the 88 enormous trees to make larger an existing sporting area.
And also killed the possums and dreys we released and destroyed precious, very limited habitat for possums, birds and insects.
I only discovered the trees had been cut down after I saw them gone.
Since then I’ve reviewed the council process and files. The council process is perfect for killing trees, wildlife and, with them, Earth.
Australia is a world-leading country in deforestation - all levels of government kill tree in the cities and the country, including Sydney City Council in its council area.
Sydney City Council sent a consultation notification letter about cutting the trees down sent to key stakeholders, identified as sporting groups, and excluded wildlife groups.
Then, when the council’s Environment Committee considered the staff’s proposal all members of it voted unanimously in support of the proposal to cut down the trees.
The Environment Committee!!
Circumstance were perfect for the staff to kill trees as the brief chronology shows:
Consultation was 11 November 2020-9 December 2020. At this time a large swathe of our beautiful Australian east coast was dealing with catastrophic bushfires and smoke from burning forests and birds and animals filled the skies of Sydney.
The project and reports were presented to the Environment Committee in May 2021, when we were all facing Covid restrictions and associated adjustments in our lives limiting outdoor activities and contacts with agencies such as Sydney City Council.
The minute to councillors was both inaccurate and, on reflection, intended or designed to mislead. For example, this extract from the minute recommending cutting down the trees says:
“The proposed design supports the Greening Sydney Strategy directions as follows:
i. Direction 1 Turn grey to green, the proposal provides an overall increase in tree canopy.”
That statement - ”Direction: 1: Turn grey to green” - is an excellent example of saying black is white.
The council’s website about Perry Park continues calling black white as, instead of saying, “while we cut down 63 old and large trees’”it says:
“Temporary closure
This park is temporarily closed while we upgrade the sports field.“
“Upgrade the sports field’!
Despite the growing data, science and banning of synthetic grass because of its ‘forever’ micro polluting plastics the council is spreading it far and wide at the park.
• Standalone tree - no longer interlocking canopy from adjoining trees for possums to travel in or to lower urban heat for birds, animals and humans
• In 2019 a government agency, Sydney Water, cut down 11 trees nearby and it promised to replace them but has not done so
* The council’s web page says nothing about cutting down 63 trees or planting new trees - looks like the council person in charge of cutting down the trees is Terry Byrnes, named on the website image above
Julie Moffat,
volunteer licenced by WIRES to rescue, rehabilitate, care and release injured and orphaned native wildlife
Editor’s note:
For an example of how large trees can be kept the image of a large, conserved tree being kept and replanted is in this recent blog about another institution killing trees - Sydney University kills kookaburras.
The Sydney Olympic site is littered with large trees uprooted, loaded onto barges and planted to get large, mature trees in place in time for the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000; maybe Sydney City Council should have an olympic games or some such activity likely to prompt it to keep trees.
Those new sports grounds at Perry ‘Park’ will be hotter than before now the aircon freely given by the 63 trees has been cut off; the poor players will suffer avoidable heat exhaustion there.