http://narg.asn.au

The annual report was delivered to the members present at the 2009 AGM held at Braidwood Exservices Club on Saturday 31/ 10/ 2009.

Welcome to you all.  Thank you for your attendance today, for your membership and your ongoing commitment to the aims and objectives of Native Animal Rescue Group.

On the auspicious date of 09/09/09 Native Animal Rescue quietly passed its second birthday. This to me is a positive indicator of Native Animal Rescue's successful mode of operation. Its members go quietly about their business steadily and calmly getting what needs to be done, done.

2009 NARG President's Annual Report

This may seem to some, because of a perceived lack of high profile actions, that not much is happening but I can assure all the members that "on the ground" much is constantly occurring.

At the committee level we have had regular meetings and have undertaken a number of actions. It is important to note here that decisions made by the committee are mostly then carried out by individuals so it is those people in particular I would like to thank and praise for their efforts. The sorts of tasks go from distributing leaflets, extending release sites, supplying milk formula and associated items like teats and bottles, constructing enclosures, writing articles, responding to media requests, organising and presenting training opportunities, up-skilling others to collaborating on the best outcomes for wildlife. The committee has tried to assist the membership in establishing the circumstances that provides the best outcomes for the animals in our charge.

That is what the committee has tried to do, but all of this pales when compared to the day to day slog of dragging dead animals off highways, of getting up 2, 3 and 4 times a night, every night, to check and feed the littlies, to collect grass day after day after day for the biggies, to do the 2am wombat relocation, the 6am bird collection, the midnight phone call, dealing with quirky enquiries from  the public, the 800 kilometre round trip to shift animals from carer to carer, trips to Sydney for NWC meetings, trips to Tumut to help with training all while trying to have a life/job/family and maybe even some (shock horror) leisure time!

That is something which the committee of NARG does try to maintain: awareness that core business sometimes takes precedence over other matters.  Just as importantly NARG recognises that sometimes in people's lives other things other than NARG are more important.  Several members of NARG have had to deal with difficult life issues through the year and have not been able to give NARG the attention they wanted.  NARG wishes these members all the best and we hope things sort out for them and they are once again able to be more active in our group.

It is a bit like the old adage- from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

So what has NARG done over the year?

Communications

Four NARG newsletters were produced and along with other emails and notices, the membership has been kept well informed. Much of the material reported on today has already been sent out over the year through the email system or through the newsletter. We feel this is a good way of keeping you in touch but the committee would like to get more feedback from members about what you think about things and what your needs are etc etc. so please phone a member of the committee for a chat or email us if there is something on your mind.

All committee meetings are open to the membership and although non committee people don't have a vote, they are quite informal occasions and all present are fully engaged in all aspects of the discussion so I would recommend you come along.

Don't forget to have a look at the webpage every now and then.  Most of the minutes of meetings are there and we are slowly populating it with photos and stories and the like.

The Braidwood Times has helped NARG by printing advertisements promoting the group. The newspaper also printed several wildlife stories and photographs over the year.

NARG Flyers were distributed throughout the NARG area.

Informal correspondence (email) was exchanged with DECCW to press the case for people to have freedom to choose which wildlife group they can belong to. DECCW has yet to decide on their policy.

NARG wrote to the NSW Government stating its opposition to the proposed Shooter's Party Bill to allow shooting of wildlife in National Parks.

The annual DECCW return was sent in and at the time (30 Jun 09) reflected 54 wombats in care, nine macropods, four possums, seven birds and a turtle.

Fundraising

Shirley will outline in detail our sound financial base but I would like to make mention of the profound influence on our budget of John Kosseck.  He "gave" the wombat calendar to NARG and he continues to do the bulk of the set up work for its creation. At the last AGM we were selling the 2009 edition which sold out soon after, and judging by sales so far the 2010 edition is well on its way to setting a new record!

Alex successfully arranged for 12 sponsors to help fund the calendar and I am currently getting to each one in turn collecting that money.  When in Braidwood please support those businesses which have supported us and don't leave today without a few calendars to sell to your friends.

IBM Australia provided a grant of $1,600. This was arranged by Donna Stepan who works for IBM. A big thank you to Donna for this. 

NARG was unsuccessful in obtaining a Volunteers Grants Program 2009 grant.

Animals

Since the last AGM we have "turned over" quite an extensive list of animals needing our assistance

Around 50 Wombats, 33 Macropods mostly eastern grey except for 5 wallabies; 7 Possums; 3 Antechinus; 3 turtles; 2 Echidnas; 1 Blue Tongue lizard; 1 Spotted Quoll; 11 birds, including Galahs, Tawny Frogmouth, Wood Duck, Rosella, Kookaburra & Currawong.

Based on our principle of "best care best outcome" we have made some exchanges and or transfers of animals between carers and between groups.

For releases we have utilised sites at Braidwood, Mongarlowe, Sandy Point, Nerriga, Sassafrass, Gundaroo and we have developed or are developing more pre- release facilities at Tomerong and at Bungendore/ Bywong as well as Majors Creek.

We are slowly developing a Bird care "centre" at Jembaicumbene and we are still optimistic about a long term development of a raptor care centre at Mongarlowe.

NARG has bought some small mammal Tubs and have stationed them at two locations which constantly have NARG animals in care.

Unfortunately road kill seems to be the public's main interface with our native species.  The numbers of animals checked by members and MOPs continues unabated- hundreds of kangaroos and wombats, dozens of wallabies and possums, birds beyond imagination. We save only the smallest proportion.

Euthanasia of injured and diseased animals continues to be needed occasionally- Barbara and Bill get quite regular calls and I get asked to do the occasional shoot as does Roger.

Jake the snake man has cut down his hours of availability and me not being in town during snake hours has put a bit of pressure on NARG but with the HSC soon over I hope Billy might step up to the mark to become the main snake dude in town.

Relations with other groups

The president of Wildcare and I have been slowly working on a MOU between the two groups. I made the first ambit draft to which the Wildcare committee. Our committee then responded to their suggestions and I am currently completing the amalgamated final "in inverted commas" version which I hope best captures the spirit and intent of the document. One of the first jobs of the new committee will be to review it, make any final adjustments, and then present it to Wildcare.

If we think it necessary we could then offer it as a template to all our surrounding groups.

Harmonious relations continue with LAOKO and SONA with exchanges of ideas and advice, training opportunities, occasionally animals and the occasional visit.

Many members from other groups continue to be welcomed at our training events- this includes the two mentioned as well as NANA, Several Wires Branches, Sydney Wildlife and, last year, Wildlife Victoria.

Big issues

NWC Shirley Lack and Philip Machin have been active with NWC. During the year Shirley became the Secretary of the NWC and has contributed to the Minimum Standards Working Group. NARG has been able to arrange for the NWC to confront DECCW on the matter of wombat culling. And there is a Government review underway to establish policies and procedures for the culling of wombats. The NWC has coordinated NARG Third Party Insurance free of charge and we have taken up the Director's Insurance organised through the NWC.

Other During this last week the Wombat Protection Society has contacted its members about an ABC Stateline story about supposed wombat numbers increasing and wombat culling.

Training

The training offered by NARG continues to be of a very high standard.

The big events included

Medication for Wildlife by Dr Howard Ralph and Dr Rosemary Garlick

Echidna Care by internationally renowned published expert Peggy Rismiller

Advanced Wombat Care by Shirley Lack and Lesley Waterhouse

Apart from Peggy, all presenters are members of NARG as well as other groups.

All of these courses were well attended with up to 60 people coming along to each, including many from neighbouring groups. The interaction of people from neighbouring groups has been very good. The NARG training courses have complemented other courses run by neighbouring groups and NARG members have been welcomed at those courses by those neighbouring groups.

Membership

There has been an increase in the NARG membership. Allowing for some members who chose to not renew their memberships we now have 61 members.  This is a steady rise, some locals, others from a bit further away bringing a varied level of expertise but a strong interest in being a part of NARG.

We recently had one resignation. (Since the AGM this member has withdrawn the resignation and has been made welcome- never too late to change one's mind!!)

Added Assistance

The Braidwood Servicemen's Club has been particularly helpful over the year in allowing us to meet and hold training courses at the club.

The businesses below have all donated money towards the production of the annual calendar and I would like to publicly thank

Bindi's, Braidwood & District Information Centre, Braidwood Hotel, Braidwood Outdoors, IGA Braidwood, Landmark Braidwood, Len Mutton & Co. Mobil Oil Australia Royal Mail Hotel, Shoemark Real Estate, Solar Powered Solutions, Ssnakebyte Ssound.

Future Directions

I am a great believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so the future needs have a strong element of "Steady as she goes".

We do need to develop a stronger (bigger) within- area group of members available to do those day to day things like picking up the occasional animal, being a drop off point for stuff, becoming snake handlers for relocations, becoming bird carers and the like.

Related to this we need to improve our "beginners' development program".  At the moment it is a bit haphazard so one of the tasks of the new committee will be to set up an introduction/ induction system so our new members get up-skilled so they can at least carry out rescues and initial care of animals.

This may not even be a course type structure, it may well be done at an individual one on one level but we do need to involve our "newbies" earlier.

Also related is the need to help our members create suitable care facilities- We need several aviaries stationed in and around Braidwood for either Birds or possums, we need people trained and capable of caring for reptiles and with facilities to suit, we need more macropod carers and, down the track, release sites. We have a number of members willing and able to take on little wombats but our main need is for people to be able to take middle and larger wombats both healthy and injured- people willing to build indoor and outdoor facilities in and around Braidwood.

NARG is ready and willing to help members carry out this work if it means better outcomes for animals. We are building up a set of equipment for just this purpose.

We continue to be on the lookout for release sites for fully developed wild and or hand raised wombats.  We have evaluated several now but they are often too far out to be able to manage the soft release properly.

None of these needs to happen overnight but they do need to happen.

Finally I think 2009 has been a sound year of consolidation- a slow start but nevertheless productive and worthwhile. While we lost some battles with injured and sick animals our successes were considerable.

The high points for me were, after 14 month of cutting grass with a pair of scissors into bite- sized pieces every afternoon, seeing Bucky settling into his new home, cured of the mange with a flashing set of new teeth all grown back, and, just recently, watching Miss October 2009 snarling and growling her way into her release enclosure at the edge of the Morton.

Finally I would like to thank the 2009 committee for its work, much of which goes unnoticed and unrecognised but in wildlife care that's par for the course.

Ladies and gentlemen- it is worth it.

Bill Waterhouse

President

NARG

31/10/09