Motor racing near wetland?
by Carla Caruso
Park lovers have questioned why the State Government chose to return the Adelaide 500 car race to Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16) after award-winning, biodiversity wetlands were created there.
Birds and other wildlife have boomed in the area since the $13 million, 3.2-hectare wetland was opened in the southern part of the park in May 2022.
But the good work for nature was undermined by the carbon-emission motor-racing festival during the last weekend in November.
The Adelaide 500 car race took over Park 16 from November 23 to 26, 2023.
The Adelaide 500 event was brought back last year – the same year the wetlands were opened – in an election bid by now-Premier Peter Malinauskas after the four-day carnival had been cancelled in 2020 due, in part, to declining public interest.
Scenes from the carbon-emission motor-racing event over the weekend contrast with more serene images elsewhere at the Park … like the below shot of a reed warbler at the wetlands, recently shared by Christopher Bollen, aka Dr Birdnerd, on Instagram. (Don’t even mention the traffic havoc the race causes…)
A reed warbler doing what it does best — letting out a lovely tune — in Park 16. Photo: Christopher Bollen.
As Christopher wrote online:
“The reeds around the [wetlands’] multiple ponds have proliferated over the past two years. This year was the first I had heard or seen the wonderful reed warblers.
This wetlands area is still very new, but the increase in birdlife [already] is remarkable ... Perhaps we will see superb fairywrens back in the park in the next year or two?”
Moved by the photo, Christopher Hunter, who’s behind the wildlife accessories label, Bush Bling, and also a fauna rescuer, lamented the return of the race in the vicinity, writing:
“That horrible, horrific, destructive motor race has to go.
You have to wonder about the intelligence of those people who would condone this race in the same place they have just built wetlands.
Adelaide has to move on from the past and pioneer more sustainable events that will gain international interest.
If it has to have its oil-burning fest, move the motor race out to a purpose-built track [like the one at Tailem Bend] and stop destroying our beautiful Park Lands.”
A supersonic jet at the car race, captured by Pete Hayward.
City resident Ann Dubbioso also bemoaned the race being back last weekend on our Facebook page, writing:
“I live 10 minutes from the CBD and the supercars racing at the moment are sooo loud, it’s deafening.
Can’t imagine how the nesting wildlife in the Park Lands and surrounds are putting up with it.
[The sound of] the supersonic war jets at the beginning of the race … trigger war-torn survivors living in our state.
Also, last year, hundreds of bats died from fright in the Adelaide Botanic Garden [Park 11], leaving carers to pick them up and care for the orphaned baby bats.”
Bat ‘pups’ are born in late September and, through until March, it’s a hectic time for local organisations like Bat Rescue SA.
Grey-headed flying foxes are often seen at night, leaving their famed colony in Botanic Park (Park 11) and flying over parks like Victoria Park on the hunt for food — including this mum and her pup, photographed by Christopher Bollen.
And now that the race is over? Weeks of dismantling the infrastructure begins before you – and the wildlife – fully get your Park back…
In the longer term, we’ve asked the City Council to plan for a park AFTER carbon-emission motor-racing in your Park Lands is appropriately consigned to history.
Banner (top) pic, above: @adelaide_aerial.