{"id":186112,"date":"2025-10-02T22:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186112\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T22:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:46:12","slug":"organisers-refuse-offer-to-move-agnes-water-festival-off-rainbow-bee-eater-bird-nesting-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186112\/","title":{"rendered":"Organisers refuse offer to move Agnes Water festival off rainbow bee-eater bird nesting site"},"content":{"rendered":"

A two-day cultural festival will go ahead on top of a native bird’s protected nesting site this weekend after organisers refused a council’s offer to help them move the event to another location.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hundreds of community members in the coastal towns of Agnes Water and 1770 have been calling for the enforcement of the rainbow bee-eater’s state and federal protections.<\/p>\n

A series of public meetings has taken place with festival organisers, Gidarjil Development Corporation, and landowners, the Gladstone Regional Council.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Trucks on the nesting sight of the rainbow bee-eaters setting up for this weekend’s festival. (Supplied: Wyanda Lublink)<\/p>\n

With up to 200 underground nests recorded in previous years at the 1770 SES gounds, five and a half hours north of Brisbane, it is believed to be one of the largest colonies of the birds in Australia.<\/p>\n

The community sprang into action<\/a> a month ago when organisers of the 1770 Cultural Connections Immersion Festival laid orange builders mesh, then white garden mesh over the grounds in a bid to prevent the birds from nesting.<\/p>\n

The migratory birds return to nest in Australia from September to January.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Areas of the rainbow bee-eater nesting site were covered a month before the festival. (Supplied: Wayne Proudfoot)<\/p>\n

The netting has been removed by unknown community members half a dozen times in the past month, before being re-laid by festival organisers.<\/p>\n

Following weeks of social media pressure, a spokesperson for the Gladstone Regional Council said it had held discussions with Gidarjil and offered to cover the cost of stage hire to move the festival to another location.<\/p>\n

Council offered a different part of the grounds where the festival is planned, away from the birds’ nesting area, or the Discovery Coast Sport and Recreation grounds, about 7 kilometres away.<\/p>\n

The offer was refused.<\/p>\n

Gidarjil has not responded to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A rainbow bee-eater lands on netting covering part of the 1770 SES grounds in the weeks leading up to a festival. (Supplied: Wayne Proudfoot)<\/p>\n

“Council is continuing to work with Gidarjil Development Corporation and Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) on finding a solution for this year’s festival,” the council spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for DETSI said the festival was granted a species management program (SMP) on September 25, and the department’s wildlife specialists provided specific advice on avoiding impacts on breeding places.<\/p>\n

“DETSI has conducted multiple site visits, including [Wednesday] and has not identified any active nests [defined as nests with eggs or offspring] in the SMP management area,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Unknown community members have removed plastic mesh from the nesting site half a dozen times in the past month. (Supplied: Wayne Proudfoot)<\/p>\n

The SMP comes three weeks after ground barriers were first laid and a week after DETSI provided a statement that said an SMP was not required because no active nests were detected.<\/p>\n

Community members have been documenting the birds at the grounds and on top of the mesh since the beginning of September.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Plastic garden mesh has been laid over the nesting grounds of the rainbow bee-eater at the 1770 SES grounds. (Supplied: Wyanda Lublink)<\/p>\n

The Agnes Water coordinator for the Gladstone Conservation Council, Jodie Richards, said the birds had already dug dozens of nests, calling DETSI’s active nest definition “nonsense”.<\/p>\n

“If the bird is digging a nest, it’s nesting according to bird experts,” Ms Richards said.<\/p>\n

“Further confounding the situation, if we used a burrow scope to check for eggs, we’d be nest tampering.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A two-day cultural festival will go ahead on top of a native bird’s protected nesting site this weekend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7248,14798,7766,118724,118725,43,118723,118722,118721,44,118720,118719,41,39,42,40,21331],"class_list":{"0":"post-186112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-bird","9":"tag-detsi","10":"tag-festival","11":"tag-gidarjil","12":"tag-gladstone-regional-council","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-migratory","15":"tag-nest","16":"tag-nesting","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-rainbow-bee-eater","19":"tag-ses-grounds","20":"tag-top-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topnews","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-wide-bay"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}