The little echidna was slumped on its back, dead beside the road, paws limp and useless, snout that just a short while ago so successfully hunted ants, now chewed off by the very ants it had pursued.
This tiny tragedy, unnoticed by most zooming past in their vehicles, happened this week on the Pyrenees Highway at Green Gully – just out of Newstead.
The little animal’s body was still limp indicating it had not long ago been struck, when the Mail, here to meet locals calling for the speed limit to be reduced, noticed it.
Locals like Janet Barker, Cecile Ueerts, Saide Gray and Chris Johnston, who’ve lived at Green Gully for many years, say there’s a worryingly high incidence of near misses on this 4.4 km stretch of the Pyrenees Highway where they’re stepping up efforts to have the speed limit lowered.
They’re now calling on Mount Alexander Shire Council to help them in their long-running efforts to work with VicRoads to have the limit dropped to 80 km. Full story in today’s Castlemaine Mail, Friday, January 24, 2020.