The Feral Spotted Turtle-dove trapping workshop today has been a great success with lots of new traps out there ready to catch some ferals. We had a big turnout with around 20 people showing up to learn about the program and find out about trapping feral doves on their property. We had lots of kids this time which gave the workshop a great family atmosphere.

The dove eradication program has been attracting attention interstate this weekend. Barbary Doves have been seen in small numbers around Melbourne and at least one pair have been trapped near the suburb of Brighton. Spotted Turtle-doves continue to infest Melbourne suburbs in huge numbers. Barbary Doves are still regularly seen around the suburbs of Adelaide, and both cities have thriving populations of the highly invasive Indian Myna. I’ve had several emails of support from people interstate who have heard of our community-based program of feral dove control.

This is encouraging news – so congratulations to everyone who came along today – there are folks in far off cities eagerly awaiting news of our progress.

Thanks are due to Land for Wildlife coordinator Jesse Carpenter who delivered a presentation outlining the whole program and the problems associated with avian pests. Also a warm thank you to Anthony Molyneux who generously gave up his Saturday morning to give his explanation of how important the feral doves are as a source of natural food for captive animals at the Alice Springs Desert Park.It is exciting to have so many new traps out in the community now as the Spotted Turtle-doves have been flourishing in the wetter-than-usual conditions and it is important to get some level of control on their population before they are able to spread farther afield.

Thank you to everyone who came along and made the morning such a great success and thanks to the good people at Bloomin’ Deserts Nursery who so kindly provided us with the space to run the workshop.By the end of the day, everyone who wanted to build a trap for their yard had worked some magic with the chicken wire and designed and built their own. Some industrious folks had even managed to build a few spares, so these will go into circulation as “loaner” traps. If you didn’t manage to get along to the workshop just drop us an email at lfw@lowecol.com.au and with these new spare traps in the program we should be able to drop round a trap for you to use in just a couple of weeks.

Lastly, please remember to keep conducting feral dove surveys around your home and around your suburb. A crucial part of this program is monitoring the feral dove population so that we can gauge the success of what we are doing. You can email details of your dove observations to lfw@lowecol.com.au or click on the Land for Wildlife sign above to visit the website and download a feral dove survey form.

Cheers