On Thursday May 28th I had the pleasure of supervising 9 American Conservation Volunteers inject wheel cactus at Mt Egbert. Previous to their injecting work they had been conducting malleefowl mound searches in the Wychitella Block and were very grateful to be in more open country doing something different.
The day started out with a talk by Ranger Suzie Deason on the history of the wheel cactus in the Wychitella area, the processes involved in injecting wheel cactus and the safety measures required.
In bright sunshine the group was let loose in a set area to “destroy” as many wheel cactus as they could find. The enthusiasm was quite a sight to see with some heading off in “Terminator” style while others took a more passive approach. A couple of them actually had a race to see who could get to the first cactus after it was spotted about 100m away.
About an hour and a half in to the injecting while having a break as a group it was discovered that we had misplaced one of the volunteers, so a search party was sent out to locate him. Thankfully he was quickly found and the group returned to the top of Mt Egbert for lunch.
The afternoon session was taken a little more slowly with the morning enthusiasm wanning greatly. About an hour was spent injecting a few more cactus before a group decision was made to call it a day. Many of the volunteers were almost asleep as soon as they got on the bus. But it was a great effort and many cacti will be turning their toes up.
Wendy Murphy, WCMN Ranger
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