mary poppins

mary poppins

mary poppins

@ozgal1965

4 Oct 2025

💼 🌊 State Government Algal Bloom Reference Group Meeting #4 First meeting with the new Environment Minister Lucy Hood MP, noting she will now be co-chairing the state gov. Reference Group meetings with Minister Claire Scriven MLC. Unfortunately, due to breaking my fibula 12 hours earlier, I had to attend online. While an active participant, asking many questions, I also noted the following potential points of interest: ● Heartbreakingly, 2 tonnes of sea life in the last 7 days has been collected (hand-picked & logged appropriately). ● The Beach clean-up that is occurring has a focus to locate fish identify by marine Sciencetist. ● Laid-off workers from the seafood industry are assisting with the beach clean-up (mainly occurring in the York Peninsula areas). ● Importantly, several questions were asked by the stakeholders in the room concerning the summer plan, money allocations and employment programs. The follow up from these points were requested to be taken on notice and information was going to be provided to the respective stakeholders in coming days. (Yes, I had questions & I am waiting for answers!) ● School Aquatic programs were discussed and how these will be managed coming into summer. It was confirmed that a back up venue for every school beach water program, that normally occurs on the beach, has been arranged and these backup venues can be utilised if needed. ● Stock assests of fish species have been occuring over the last six months, and the analysis of these observations is currently underway. ● During the meeting, there was also a presentation from one of the scientists who started the iNaturalist 'SA Marine Mortality events' page. Notes from her insightful presentation included: • The webpage was started in the first week of April. • The paged started after reports of dead marine life washing ashore on the York Peninsula. • Numbers from the page include: ▪︎ 52,000 uploads ▪︎ Over 1300 contributors ▪︎ Now upto over 550 different species reported dead ▪︎ *** THE 52,000 UPLOADS ON THE PAGE IS A MIS-REPRESENTION OF ANIMAL DEATHS AS THE NUMBER OF MARINE LIFE DECEASED IS IN THE MILLIONS. Unfortunately, the media keep using the upload number as the number of deaths and this is not a reflection on the real number. ▪︎ A range of scientists are checking and approving every upload to the iNaturalist site, including IDing all animals that are uploaded on the page. ▪︎ There is a crew also searching the pages that are popping up on FB to look for animals that haven't been uploaded to the iNaturalist page, so this datebased can be the accurate record of animals effected. Please if you are witnessing animals washed ashore, uploading them to iNaturalist will assist scientists are their records 🙏 Crew, this is one of five HAB meetings I am attending this week as a vounteer. As always, I am here to field your questions and asked them to the relevant people when my chance arises. Do not hesitate to reach out if you would like clarification and I will do my best to seek you an answer. Sincerely, Gretel Wilkes- Adelaide Coastal Councils Network (ACCN) Chair @GLH_books Photo Moana beach This morning

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