Now into its third decade, the Townsville City Council’s Eco Fiesta event, held annually on the weekend closest to World Environment Day, seems as popular as ever. Once again the Townsville Branch took the opportunity to promote its activities and concerns, with displays featuring mahogany gliders, flying-foxes and of course our popular program of monthly field trips.

Photo Alison Downes.

There was such a constant stream of visitors to our display that those who had come along to help hardly had time to draw breath. The beautiful mahogany glider poster set alongside Daryl Dickson’s heart-breaking photos of the animals caught up on barbed wire attracted a lot of attention and questions. It was surprising how many people had never seen a photo of the glider before. All the posters sent up from Brisbane were eagerly snatched up in return for a gold coin donation as were the back copies of our wonderful Wildlife Australia magazine. The large stock of information leaflets on gliders, quolls and flying-foxes steadily diminished during the day, money rattled into our donation box and over 50 people responded to our invitation to be added to our free email list.

Mahogany gliders captured popular attention. Photo Alison Downes.

Many thanks to Alison, Beth, Jane and Sandra who all helped during the day, to Mike for helping with set-up and take-down, and to grandsons Max and Ben for helping Grandma carry boxes, tables, chairs and other paraphernalia the day before! This is a low-cost event for the Branch with lots of potential to increase awareness of wildlife issues in our region. Hopefully we’ll be back in 2016.

Plenty of information was available on flying-foxes. Photo Alison Downes.