THE first whales of the 2020 season have been spotted off the Mornington Peninsula’s Number 16 beach. In between Blairgowrie and Rye back beaches, the humpback whales at Number 16 were recorded as travelling east by Mandy Robertson on Saturday 16 May. “It’s a wonderful coincidence that the first sighting of humpback whales in our region for 2020 aligned with the first relaxing of the COVID-19 rules,” Dolphin Research Institute executive director Jeff Weir said. “Our citizen scientists can now venture out, but this year need to keep a safe distance from each other – as well as from the…
Day: May 19, 2020
THE Better Buses campaign has been hailed as Mornington Peninsula Shire’s “most successful advocacy and community engagement to date”. The shire’s Quarterly Community Report: January-March 2020 said the campaign backed a push by public transport users for better bus services across the peninsula of which about 82 per cent is not serviced by public transport (“Shire’s push for better bus services” The News 2/9/19). “We have been overwhelmed by the level of community support for our Better Buses campaign. About 92,500 people have engaged with us,” the shire’s innovation and advocacy executive manager Tania Treasure said in the report released…
SURFER Beau Telley’s fun day in the water ended before it started. Instead of riding waves at a point break near Flinders, he was running in panic to his car pursued by a swarm of European wasps which, mistakenly, blamed him for disturbing their nest, Sunday 10 May. On a day of particularly high tides the surf was surging over the beach and crashing against the foreshore vegetation – flooding the wasps’ nest and making them angry and intent on revenge. Telley said he had reached the bottom of the stairs to the beach, early afternoon, and was putting on…
Mornington Peninsula Crime Investigation Unit detectives have arrested a man after a number of criminal damage offences were committed in the Mornington and Mount Martha area late last year. Police received nearly 40 reports of cars having their tyres slashed between September and December 2019. Investigators have charged a 25-year-old Mount Martha man with eight charges of criminal damage with more charges expected soon. The man has been bailed to appear at the Frankston Magistrates’ Court on 11 November.