Norfolk Island Flora & Fauna Society at the A&H Show in 2022

The Norfolk Island Flora & Fauna Society has been privileged to host Maxime Paradis (L) and Thaïs Bardisbanian on Norfolk since May this year. We offered to sponsor them for 12 months, and propose an environmental program they could undertake which could benefit the Island, as well as improving their experience and skills. They have been ideal guests here, and manage well with English as their second language, exercising the school level French of most of us, only occasionally.

Their previous studies in environmental management (Maxime) and ecology and corporate social responsibility (Thaïs) enabled them to apply for sponsorship by the Ministère de L’Éducation Nationale in the Government of France as part of a Service Civique program to work for the benefits of global society. Thaïs is from Marseille and Maxime’s home is Blainville sur l’eau in central-inland France. This is their first travel to Australasia and the South-west Pacific (other than a short trip to New Zealand by Thaïs).

The program designed by Flora & Fauna Society members, and staff of National Parks and Council, has been to bring together as much knowledge as possible around rodent control, both here at Norfolk Island and in other places where controls and eradications have been undertaken. Some have succeeded and some have failed, and some have succeeded at controlling rodents to a low level. When their work here is completed, we hope to have a better understanding of why some methods have been more successful than others, and to gain a broad picture of how individuals manage rodent control on their properties or in their work places here on Norfolk.

To this end Thaïs and Maxime will be looking forward to meeting you at the A&H Show on Monday 10 October where they will be presenting interesting facts about rodent control methods, information on various baits (what’s safest around your pets and the owls for example), and will have a display of various traps as well. They have created a short questionnaire and hope to collect some information about how you manage rodent control on your property.

The Flora & Fauna Society will again be sharing a tent at the Show with NI National Park, and the NIRC Environment team. We will have potted weeds to aid in identification, and you are invited to bring along any of your own that you can’t identify, so someone can help out. There will be native plants and information about where to plant them and why they’re useful, or perhaps should be avoided in certain locations.

Also present, on his second visit to Norfolk, will be the exuberant Francesco from the pest-survey team of the Department of Agriculture in Victoria, who is inviting anyone to bring along insects to be identified as well.

There’s more too … So much to see and learn there.

We hope you will come along and practise your French language skills with Thaïs and Maxime, and give them a big (slightly late) welcome, and help with their questionnaire.

Look for the tent near the sports field, with the NIRC, Parks and F&F logos.

And make sure your name goes into the draw with your questionnaire to win a special prize!

Visit our website at https://norfolkislandfloraandf...