Wildflowers blooming in Innamincka
Floodwaters delivered a show of colour to the areas around Innamincka with dunes of yellow and white from Poached egg daisies (Polycalymma stuartii), to fields of purple Whalembergia sp. along the Cooper Creek.
As these floodwaters recede, the focus on land management activities in the Innamincka Regional Reserve and areas of the Strzelecki Track have been on the pest plants and animals that accompany this type of flooding event.
In October, the board attended a trip to the region with National Parks and Wildlife Service SA (NPWS), South Australian Herbarium and Indigenous Rangers from the Cooper Basin, where the area’s priority invasive weeds were detected and mapped.
The group collected more than 300 flora samples, supported by Chris Brodie from the SA Herbarium. While there were invasive weeds, the samples also included the native bush food Owenia acidula (Sour apple) and plants that grow alongside the Cooper Creek such as Balhinnia (Bean tree) and other native flora endemic to the dune systems of the Strzelecki Desert, such as Swainsona and Crotalaria species, including Crotalaria cunninghamii, also known as the Regal bird flower.
During the trip, Indigenous Yandruwandha/Yawarrawarrka, rangers were trained in track plot surveys. Undertaken over a few days and different dunes, the surveys detected small marsupial species such as hopping mice, reptiles and large feral herbivores. These were logged by NPWS as part of ongoing surveys multiple sites across the Strzelecki Desert which are monitored in the hope of detecting threatened or endangered species such as Kowari, Crest-tailed mulgara and Dusky hopping mouse, now restricted to these areas instead of occupying a larger area of central Australia as they once did.
The trip also provided an opportunity to collect monitoring cameras placed in the area as part of the board’s Wetland Wonders project, from areas that could be reached.
