Day: April 11, 2017

IT’S taken just 14 months for nine-year-old Cadel Ambrose to get to the front in go karting. Cadel, of Bittern, won the second round of the Australian kart championships at Geelong two weekends ago when racing in a field of 18 seven to nine year olds, including last year’s winner. The next championship race will be in late May at Monarto in South Australia. “He’s come a long way in a short time,” his mother Suzie Morrell said. “It’s not surprising he likes to drive as his father [Rohan Ambrose] and my father [Geoff Morrell] raced cars in the improved…

SIX-year-old Abigail Court has become something of an orange-bellied parrot expert since learning of how close they are to extinction. The youngster was taken to Moonlit Sanctuary, Pearcedale, by her mother Rebecca soon after the opening last year of a breeding aviary designed to help increase the number of orange-bellied parrots. The species is clinging onto survival with Zoos Victoria – which also runs a breeding program at Healesville Sanctuary – estimating there could be as few as 50 birds left in the wild. The 200mm long mainly green and yellow parrots are larger than budgerigars and only breed at…

TRIBUTES for satirist John Clarke flowed from far and wide on Monday as news spread of his death the previous day while hiking in the Grampians National Park. The location of his passing indicated his love of nature, which for many years had included a deep concern for the future of Western Port. Born in New Zealand, Clarke, 68, was a founding member of Western Port Seagrass Partnership, an independent trust formed in 2001 to lobby for the protection and restoration of Western Port and its catchment. Regarded by many as the funniest satirist in Australia, Clark three years ago…

MEMBER councils have bailed out the Western Port Biosphere which in January warned money would run out by this month, April. Executive officer Cecelia Witton says the biosphere foundation has survived a “hectic” few months with the help of “our biosphere councils and others, [and] secured the funding required to meet the projected cash flow shortfall”. In a bid to secure future funding a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is now being drawn up between the biosphere and its member councils: Mornington Peninsula Shire, Bass Coast, Cardinia and Casey. Frankston Council withdrew its $20,000 commitment four years ago, leading to the…