If you love Australia's native wildlife and care about their welfare within urban areas, please sign this petition. There are two large ponds at Arthur Streeton Drive where the sewer grates are not covered with mesh. As duckling and swamphen broods eagerly follow their mother around in order to learn how to swim and forage, if she hops onto the sewer cover, the chicks will fall straight through. The depth is several feet! And if there has been heavy rains, they risk being swept in. Not cool!
The picture I uploaded is of a Purple Swamphen chick who fell to the bottom and cried out for three days after which I finally succeeded at catching her. As she headed back to her family I could see she was dragging a very swollen leg which had turned green around the joint. Unfortunately, the Vet had to put her down.
But this could have been avoided if the sewer grates had animal-friendly mesh covering them. One grate had half its mesh worn away and another has none at all. Please encourage Banyule City Council to install such protection to avoid further injuries and deaths of our native birds and wildlife.
Dear Banyule City Council,
Please install animal-friendly mesh on your sewer grates to avoid further injuries and deaths of our native birds and wildlife. The grates at Arthur Streeton drive are sorely lacking such protection.
Thank you.
