The first & only all species wildlife hospital in NSW, Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital, is in urgent need of ongoing funding to keep its doors open 7 days a week

 

The staff at Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital doing their thing. Image supplied 

IMAGE: The Echo, December 2023

Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital provides professional veterinary services for injured, diseased, orphaned and displaced native Australian animals. Its services are provided free of charge, 7 days a week, and available to wildlife rescue groups and members of the public.

Although receiving calls from all Australian states & mainland territories, the majority of phone calls made directly to the Wildlife Rescue 24 hour national call centre operated by Wildlife Recovery Australia, the parent organisation of Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital, came from members of the public seeking assistance within Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria in 2024.

These calls for information and assistance were made on behalf of a wide range of Australian native animals in distress, ranging from sea birds, marine mammals & sea turtles through to land birds, koalas, gliders, bandicoots, possums, echidnas, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, goannas & other lizards, snakes, frogs & small native mice.

ECHO, 1 January 2025:

As Australia’s bushfire season approaches, the only all-species wildlife hospital between Sydney and the Gold Coast has been forced to reduce its opening hours over Christmas/NY as surging patient numbers take their toll on the humans who provide the vital veterinary service free of charge, seven days a week.

‘Combined with no government funding to operate, an uncertain economic climate, donor fatigue and a chronic veterinary sector workforce shortage, the relentless demand for wildlife care has forced us to reduce our opening hours to protect the mental and physical health of our veterinary staff and volunteers,’ said Dr Ken Henry AC, Chair of Wildlife Recovery Australia, the parent organisation of Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital.

‘It’s unsustainable that governments continue to rely on wildlife hospitals like ours to treat the native animals under their legal protection, with no recompense. Recurrent government funding would reduce the mental and physical stress on our people by allowing us to train more people to share the load.’.....

Read the full article at

https://www.echo.net.au/2025/01/wildlife-hospital-vets-struggling-as-summer-patients-surge/

It's happiness as usual on Yamba beaches during the holiday season

Pippi Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Yamba Weddings

Turners Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Clarence Coast Holiday Parks

Main Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Londoner in Sydney

The Courier - Mail, 29 December 2024:

If you’re a surf lifesaver and volunteer to patrol on Christmas, you’ll know what a rewarding experience it is.

Apart from the fact that doing a shift at the beach on our most venerated public holiday is virtue-signalling of the highest order, it offers an iron-clad excuse, if you need it, to get out of tricky family gatherings or participation in tedious board games.

It’s also the happiest day of the year to be on the beach. Everyone’s loving being there, and everyone appreciates the lifesavers being there.

Strangers will come up to patrol members and offer genuine thanks and/or some leftover pavlova.

Big tip for future reference: don’t put yourself in a situation that requires rescue after lunch on Christmas Day.

Another benefit of sitting in a chair for hours watching the crowd having fun between the yellow and red flags is that it offers the opportunity to let your mind freewheel, which is good exercise only without sweat.

On Wednesday, on patrol at Yamba, I turned on the TV in my head and skipped from topic to topic: wondering how various couples on the beach met, what do seagulls really think of us, do fish feel fear, using alliteration for amusement, how many prawns get eaten on Christmas Day, the enormous amount of equipment some people bring to the beach … and how lucky we are to be a swimming nation.

There were several families from overseas on the beach that day. They were easy to spot not because of their accents or wacky swimming costumes … it was the fact they wouldn’t go beyond ankle deep into the gentle surf.

Australia would be an entirely different country if we hadn’t embraced the aquatic life. It’s a credit to our culture that we put so much effort into teaching our kids to swim and that as a nation we are so confident in the water.

The OECD last year released a major report on the influence of swimming competence on people’s lives globally. Australia’s relationship with swimming is referenced repeatedly.

It makes for fascinating reading, and as I watched the kids bodysurfing a sentence in the report came to mind.

“The ability to swim, like other life skills such as being able to drive and cycle, broadens the horizon of the possible and empowers individuals.” Happy new year and see you down the beach.

*********HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025*********

Source: unknown

*****Season's Greetings for 2024 from***** ************North Coast Voices************

 

Best wishes for the festive season to our readers from

North Coast Voices

North Coast Voices will be on holiday until New Year's Day 2025

Animated from Google Images

With our families, friends & holidaymakers out on local rivers & coastal waters this summer perhaps a timely reminder is due concerning the danger of drowning

 

Lennox Head
IMAGE: Amy Fallon
The Guardian, 21.01.20
 

In the twelve months between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024 there were 323 drownings across Australia.

Last summer, 134 lives were lost, averaging at least one drowning per day. Older adults were particularly at risk, being 39% of all deaths, 27% of victims were people born overseas and 10% were children aged 0-14 years. A total of 82% of drownings were male.

Many drowning incidents occurred at unpatrolled or isolated locations, including beaches, rivers, lakes and dams.

All states and territories reported an increase in drowning compared to last summer, except for South Australia and the Northern Territory. [See:https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/research-and-policy/drowning-research/summer-drowning-toll]

ABC News, 22 December 2024:

More people have drowned across Australia in the first three weeks of summer this year than during the same period in 2023, with the current death rate 120 per cent higher than the five-year average, according to Royal Life Saving Australia data.

Australia's leading drowning prevention body has reported 18 drowning deaths since December 1, including six in New South Wales and five in Queensland.

In the first three weeks of December last year, 14 people died drowning in waterways across the country. The five-year average number of deaths since 2019 for the same period is 15 fatalities.....

Justin Scarr, the Royal Life Saving Australia CEO, told ABC News that the end-of-year holiday period and consecutive days of good weather across the country have contributed to the higher fatal drowning numbers....

"The weather has been great and many people are flocking to a range of waterways, including beaches and lakes," he said.

"We're urging people to plan. Preparation is key.

"When you arrive at a holiday location, it is the first couple of days where you are unfamiliar with the location, you don't know where the patrolled areas with lifeguards are, you don't know the time for the lifeguards and potentially you don't know necessarily the swimming ability of the people you are holidaying with.

"We urge them to make smart choices about where they are going picnicking, know the local conditions and if people can't swim, don't go near the water at all."....

Royal Life Saving Australia water safety guidelines at

https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/about/campaigns-and-programs/Water-Safety

Customer violence towards Woolworths & Coles frontline staff reported to be increasing. This festive season let's all be polite and tolerant to everyone on both sides of the store counter.

 

Woolworths Group, Coles Group, ALDI, and Metcash (IGA) the largest supermarket chains, along with Spar and a number of smaller grocery/convenience stores, have outlets across the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.

However, it would be fair to observe that the market dominance of Woolworths and Coles raises their profiles in regional districts.

So that during first the panic buying shortages of the COVID-19 global pandemic years and, the prolonged cost-of-living pressures which followed on from those years, due to weaker than expected economic growth in major economies, global supply constraints exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, inflation and rising costs, it was Woolworths and Coles reputations which began to noticeably tarnish.

Due in part to some of the positions they took when managing stock distribution during the earlier stages of the pandemic. However, it was the growing unease from 2020-2021 onwards concerning the cost of basic grocery items which saw community sentiment finally brand them as 'price gougers' and, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in September this year announced it had "commenced separate proceedings in the Federal Court against Woolworths Group Limited (Woolworths) (ASX: WOW) and Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd (Coles) (a subsidiary of Coles Group Limited - ASX: COL) for allegedly breaching the Australian Consumer Law by misleading consumers through discount pricing claims on hundreds of common supermarket products".

None of these things excuse in any way the recent reports of an increase in violence towards supermarket staff, but it would be foolhardy of both Woolworths and Coles not to give thought to the part their corporate behaviours may have played in increasing the level of physical risk their staff potentially face in the workplace.

DailyTelegraph, 20 December 2024:

Woolworths has launched a violence prevention team to combat rising staff abuse while Coles is fitting some workers with personal security devices to protect them at work.

The supermarket giants are grappling with soaring rates of customer aggression and violence towards workers along with frontline workers at retail stores, hospitality businesses and shopping centres.

Woolworths has recorded more than 2100 incidents of violence and abuse since July this year across supermarkets, metro stores and Big W outlets, equating to nearly 500 incidents a month.

The supermarket has established a dedicated counter violence taskforce that has equipped staff members with tools to combat potentially dangerous scenarios. In the ACT, Woolworths has also successfully sought Workplace Protection Orders that prohibit repeat offenders from entering shops and harassing staff.

Woolworths is also using online module that train workers by screening videos of dangerous scenarios and teaching them the correct response to potential customer aggression and conflict......

Coles has started training staff to diffuse situations and regularly reports incidence of violence to police.

“The safety of our team members and customers is paramount, and we have a range of measures and processes in place to support our team,” said the spokesperson.

“Some of these include providing our team members with equipment such as personal security devices like duress devices and specialised training for our team members to help de-escalate situations.”

Scentre Group, which owns Westfield, has been running emergency response training and armed offender drills at stores with NSW Police, Queensland Police Service, the Australian Defence Force, South Australia Police, and the Australian Federal Police.

“We take our duty of care, and safety, extremely seriously,” said a spokesperson.

“Our security approach is created in partnership with law enforcement authorities, including Police and relevant government agencies.”.....

DailyTelegraph, 14 December 2024:

... Almost 100 people have been charged with offences against retail workers as authorities crackdown on unruly behaviour in shopping centres and supermarkets.

The charges occurred from June last year when the Minns government toughened laws protecting shop staff in ­response to a rise in violence.

Of those charged, 44 were convicted and 13 jailed.... 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February 2024:

A Coles employee is fighting for life after being allegedly assaulted by a customer.....

The Australian femicide count reaches an appalling number in 2024 - averaging one woman violently killed every four days

 

This year 2024 marked 50 years since the creation of Australia's first women's refuge Elsie in Glebe, Sydney, for those fleeing domestic violence and 50 years since the establishment of the Sydney Rape Crisis Collective in Redfern, Sydney.

It is 29 years since a female counsellor was gaoled for protecting the privacy of her rape victim client by refusing a subpoena by the accused rapist for the counselling notes petaining to his victim.

It is 10 years since Destroy the Joint started the online Counting Dead Women recording the monthly toll of women who died violently at the hands of partners, family members, acquaintances or strangers.

It is also 9 years since this campaign commenced....

Death toll based on media reports as of 18 December 2024

The RED HEART Campaign’s Memorial to Women and Children Lost to Violence is an ongoing journalism-based story-driven project tracking every known Australian woman and child killed as a result of murder, manslaughter or neglect from White Settlement to now. Simply tap a heart to read each victim’s story. To add a loved one, change an entry or request more information, email admin@theREDHEARTcampaign.org

NOTE: The Red Heart campaign includes in its count Australian women who died violently while outside the country.