# Removal of 'bush rocks' and 'beach rocks' in Victoria Question.



## Levold (Feb 26, 2012)

Hi, was wondering if anyone knew the legality of removing loose rocks from the sides of roads (not state or national park roads) and beaches in Victoria for reptile enclosures/outdoor pits? 
I know from reading on the web that it is illegal in NSW but cannot find anything relating to Victorian regulations.
I also remember doing it in the 1980's - 1990's as a kid/teen with no problems.


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## Wrightpython (Feb 26, 2012)

its only illegal if you get caught


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## PMyers (Feb 26, 2012)

Shhhh! Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness...


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## Ricochet (Feb 26, 2012)

What - illegal removing of rock - would never happen .

Don't know the legality, but I doubt anyone would give a rats unless you were disfiguring the enviroment eg. crowbar and sledgehammer.

Unless your going to build a house and are using a semi and an excavator to remove the rock..........................................might upset someone


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## SteveNT (Feb 26, 2012)

It's illegal to pick up rocks????? Hahahahahahaha I'm glad I dont live in that part of the world. What a joke!


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## Levold (Feb 26, 2012)

I use to do Lapidary/rock fossicking and we never really had any issues with the forestry workers. And as a solo person its not like any BIG rocks could be removed to make a significant impact on the surroundings. And on an environmental aspect, roads cut through the bush to make access to Logging coups do a lot more damage to the environment / animal habitats.


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## browny (Feb 26, 2012)

was a nice rock garden outside the bank the other day.....it's now a few rocks lighter haha

I would like to know also, grew up in W.A. and we always grabbed fallen trees on the roadside for firewood and things like that without any issues ever please tell me here in Vic is the same


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## starr9 (Feb 26, 2012)

Id like to know if this is true or not in QLD and can you take drift wood in QLD?! When I was walking some weeks back I noticed a heated conversation btwn some ppl over one person picking up some drift wood and wanting to take it home?! One person said you cant the other said you could?!?


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## jahan (Feb 26, 2012)

It`s even illegal to take a fallen branch without a permit in vic.


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## SteveNT (Feb 26, 2012)

Gone from nanny state to to complete insanity. It is your right as a citizen of earth to pick up a stone or a fallen branch if you want to. These desk driving beaurocrats are mad! A pox upon them! 

Do you have to clean the sand from between your toes when you leave the beach or face larceny charges?
That is the most stupid thing I ever heard.


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## Chanzey (Feb 26, 2012)

starr9 said:


> Id like to know if this is true or not in QLD and can you take drift wood in QLD?! When I was walking some weeks back I noticed a heated conversation btwn some ppl over one person picking up some drift wood and wanting to take it home?! One person said you cant the other said you could?!?



Yeah ive always thought you were not allowed.


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## -Peter (Feb 26, 2012)

SteveNT said:


> Gone from nanny state to to complete insanity. It is your right as a citizen of earth to pick up a stone or a fallen branch if you want to. These desk driving beaurocrats are mad! A pox upon them!
> 
> Do you have to clean the sand from between your toes when you leave the beach or face larceny charges?
> That is the most stupid thing I ever heard.



Pox on the people who cleanout habit by illegally removing ute loads of rock to build paths and retaining walls in their backyard. A pox on people who remove all the tree hollows to grow plants in. Wouldn't be stupid laws if there werent stupid greedy people. "Citizens of Earth, Your lease is hereby terminated. You have 60 days to vacate".

@ Levold
Just consider what your picking up. Spread yourself around. No one is going to worry to much if you take a little bit here and there.


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## wokka (Feb 26, 2012)

Technically you are stealing from us, the public. What is even worse in my view is the tightarses who won't pay tip fees, so they dup rubbish on public land and again we , the public have to pay through the nose to clean it up. They save $50 and we pay $500.


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## Thyla (Feb 26, 2012)

Not too sure about the legality of it but common sense tells me not to remove rocks from the wild. Reason being, many animals find habitat living under rocks like the Broad-Headed Snake. The removal of natural rocks for landscaping purposes has reduced the habitat and the snake is now endangered in NSW. Please keep this in mind when thinking about taking rocks from the wild.


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## pythonmum (Feb 26, 2012)

SteveNT said:


> Gone from nanny state to to complete insanity. It is your right as a citizen of earth to pick up a stone or a fallen branch if you want to. These desk driving beaurocrats are mad! A pox upon them!


Here's an even better one - if you throw a road-killed native animal in the bin for disposal, that's fine. If you pick it up for dissection and making a study specimen (I'm a bio teacher and do sick stuff like this...) you need to have a permit. Fine for it to be hit by a car and dumped in the bin, but don't you dare use the carcass!


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## Darlyn (Feb 26, 2012)

jahan said:


> It`s even illegal to take a fallen branch without a permit in vic.




That is utterly hysterical!
So your walking through the bush and pick up a stick as a web remover and poking stick, your breaking the law? Ha ha ha


In answer to the OP although it's been a while since I've been in Noojee you should be pretty right picking up
a coupla of rocks.


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## SteveNT (Feb 26, 2012)

Yea that's sad. _Peter and Wokka, he wants a branch and some stones for his herp hutch. Relax.

The cops probably have a drone on him as we speak! 

Pythonmum I dont believe there is any limit on mindless beaurocray and we may in fact find them governing sport soon and ensuring it's a WIN WIN every game.


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## Darlyn (Feb 26, 2012)

Hey Jahan is the dinosaur place still there?


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## jahan (Feb 26, 2012)

What place is that Darlyn?


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## Levold (Feb 26, 2012)

Darlyn said:


> Hey Jahan is the dinosaur place still there?


Did you mean me? The Dino at the Hotel at Noojee? If so, its still is but located out to the side and is 'ruined' Falling apart and huge fake looking teeth etc.


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## abnrmal91 (Feb 26, 2012)

There is a nice bit of crown land about 15 mins from me. Not great for rocks but fantastic for tree branches for snakes. Only thing that sucks is the long walk back to the car carrying them. I am surprised I have never walked out of the bush to find cops standing around the car as I have had it parked in some odd places before when looking for branches.


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## Darlyn (Feb 26, 2012)

Yep sorry wrong name


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## jahan (Feb 26, 2012)

Thanks Levold.I`ve never heard of it.


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## Renenet (Feb 26, 2012)

pythonmum said:


> If you pick it up for dissection and making a study specimen (I'm a bio teacher and do sick stuff like this...) you need to have a permit. Fine for it to be hit by a car and dumped in the bin, but don't you dare use the carcass!



By actually making an unfortunate death have some kind of meaning, you break the law? That's ridiculous.


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## jahan (Feb 26, 2012)

I havn`t been over that side of Vic since cocky was an egg.


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## Wrightpython (Feb 26, 2012)

pythonmum said:


> Here's an even better one - if you throw a road-killed native animal in the bin for disposal, that's fine. If you pick it up for dissection and making a study specimen (I'm a bio teacher and do sick stuff like this...) you need to have a permit. Fine for it to be hit by a car and dumped in the bin, but don't you dare use the carcass!



what about for dinner


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## longqi (Feb 26, 2012)

mmmmm

roo tail stew

yummmmmy


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## dustyb (Feb 26, 2012)

In qld it's illegal to remove rocks from a waterway, embankment or national park reason being that it has the potential to cause erosion anything else is fine


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## eipper (Feb 26, 2012)

I know of two very well respected herps that were charged for cutting open a road killed brachyurophis and counting the eggs inside. As memory serves me it was thrown out of court by the judge, without conviction as being ridiculous.

As for collection of road kill. I had a sci research permit that allowed me to collect DNA samples from dead vertebrates in Victoria. One of the conditions on the permit was I had to get permission from the owners of the land prior ( in this case vicroads). They wanted a map of exactly where I would be sampling the road kills from, my s.o.p, my risk assessment and a copy of my permit prior to allowing me to take a 10 mm section of tail, a photo and the usual temp and location data.

Talk about a nightmare

Cheers
scott


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## Jande (Feb 26, 2012)

starr9 said:


> Id like to know if this is true or not in QLD and can you take drift wood in QLD?! When I was walking some weeks back I noticed a heated conversation btwn some ppl over one person picking up some drift wood and wanting to take it home?! One person said you cant the other said you could?!?



I also would love to know. Lived in Qld around beaches all my life until 2.5 years ago. I thought it was illegal to take driftwood but this may have stemmed from the crack down they had of people taking shells off the beach. Can't really remember if it was actually illegal. I think it's harmless to take, along with cuttlefish bones which I used to give to my budgie as a kid. It's no longer the habitat of something so I really don't see the issue.


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## SteveNT (Feb 26, 2012)

It appears that we have been ajudged as having no capacity for common sense, the only hope for us is massive regulation. Otherwise we would run away with all the precious stones and sticks that HAVENT been catalouged by the PS. And that has no place in world of lazy public servants who will never get their shoes dirty. Far too hard to find out what the real world is doing. Just ban everything.


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## shadowpuppet (Feb 27, 2012)

As long as there are no signs saying that your not allowed to remove anything and your not taking taking a ute load of rocks and branches, I dont see a problem with it.

I found my branches on the side of a back road which were obvisouly dumped there by someone. My rocks came from an area where they just built a new freeway. 

Who is doing more damage? Me with my two rocks or those tearing up the country side to save 10mins on a drive.


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## Red-Ink (Feb 27, 2012)

Levold it is illegal to remove them from public land... private land with the permission of the owner then it's no holds barred. Just ask farmers if you can walk around their properties picking up a few rocks or branches that have fallen down. Most of the time when they knock trees down they'd be more than happy to give you a few branches. 
I've even asked council workers that are trimming trees from power lines for branches, haven't had a refusal yet. They're just turning them to mulch anyway.


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## jordo (Feb 27, 2012)

A quote taken from Benjamin Croaks paper: Using Artificial Rocks to Restore Nonrenewable Shelter Sites in Human-Degraded Systems: Colonization by Fauna 
(Which focuses on the conservation of _Hoplocephalus bungaroides_):

"One major threat to these systems is the removal and disturbance
of loose surface rocks for gardening and landscaping
(Krefft 1869; Shine & Fitzgerald 1989; Shine et al.
1998; Webb & Shine 2000)"

The law is there for a reason. You may think only taking a few rocks from scattered locations is harmless but in this example around Sydney the high population density means if even a fraction of people take that attitude it can still have drastic effects.


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## -Peter (Feb 27, 2012)

SteveNT said:


> Yea that's sad. _Peter and Wokka, he wants a branch and some stones for his herp hutch. Relax..



I'll try and make my responses one paragraph for you in future then you wont have to worry about not reading the second one.


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## moosenoose (Feb 27, 2012)

I get crappy about not having a middle-man or two involved in any of my transactions as well! Pooh pooh!


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## Beard (Feb 27, 2012)

moosenoose said:


> I get crappy about not having a middle-man or two involved in any of my transactions as well! Pooh pooh!



Really. I get crappy when I have to pay someone a few hundred dollars for something I can get from a friends property for nothing more than a few hours of my time.................


Oh, thats probably why I don't pay and cut my own firewood and collect my own rocks for my garden


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## dragonlover1 (Feb 27, 2012)

SteveNT said:


> Gone from nanny state to to complete insanity. It is your right as a citizen of earth to pick up a stone or a fallen branch if you want to. These desk driving beaurocrats are mad! A pox upon them!
> 
> Do you have to clean the sand from between your toes when you leave the beach or face larceny charges?
> That is the most stupid thing I ever heard.



I have heard some ridiculous thins in my time on this planet but this is INSANE,what are these government numbskulls smoking?



Thyla said:


> Not too sure about the legality of it but common sense tells me not to remove rocks from the wild. Reason being, many animals find habitat living under rocks like the Broad-Headed Snake. The removal of natural rocks for landscaping purposes has reduced the habitat and the snake is now endangered in NSW. Please keep this in mind when thinking about taking rocks from the wild.



that sounds fair enough but where do the pet shops get their rocks and logs from?or do they "grow on trees"


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## jahan (Mar 10, 2012)

Firewood (branches) may now be collected without a permit in Victoria.
See the DSE web site for designated areas and dates of collection.


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## reptalica (Mar 10, 2012)

I picked up a rock once.......married it. Wonder what the offence is???


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## Levold (Mar 10, 2012)

Well i have a 10yr miners right now. (use to fossick for gems and thought may do it again) rocks are technically minerals so as long as no machines are used and is all manual tools used, it should be legal?

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk


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