Are you team bird or team barrel?
Seven years ago, the former investment banker Andrew Ross announced a masterplan to dot Australia with a ten-pack of Wavegarden pools.
The first of the ten pools opened near Melbourne’s Tullamarine in 2019, to much celebration from that city’s wave-starved surfers.
A second pool, which was going to be built in the Perth suburb of Alfred Cove and, importantly, a few hundred metres from my parents’ house, was shut down by the state government after local activists claimed bushland and marine reserves would be damaged.
A few oldies also complained it might impact upon their access to the lawn bowls club there, which apparently carried a bit of sway.
Now, his next swing at a pool in Perth, this time at a bleak part of town called Jandakot, has hit a potentially fatal roadblock after it was revealed around thirteen acres of endangered vegetation would be bulldozed, putting the habitat of the almost extinct black cockatoo to the sword.
You know black cockatoos? Noisy as all hell, but with a cute little button of white on their heads and with pink lining around the man-bird’s eyes. Ain’t nothing feels more Australian than sitting under a gum tree watching a flock of happy cockatoos heading to adventures unknown.
The tank set-up looks pretty wild, elevated walkways around the pool, caravans around the perimeter mimicking Slater’s set-up at Surf Ranch and a sort of square semi-highrise overlooking the man-made masterpiece.
If you live in Perth, which makes Florida look like Oahu, you’ll be supplicating yourself to whatever gods you follow to get this thing made.
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Within 12kms of the site there is over 9,000ha of bushland. The 3ha that is proposed to be cleared is being offset by buying 18ha of bushland and vesting that back in the State so it can never be developed. The Federal Dept of Environment (which is responsible for endangered species like the Black Cockatoo) has already assessed the project, and in July 2022 determined it would have no impact on cockatoos or their habitat habitat.
Unfortunately we are at a point where so much habitat has been lost, clearing of any banksia vegetation has an impact. Death by a thousand cuts.
That’s true, but offsetting 3Ha that will be cleared with 18Ha that can never be cleared provides a net positive environmental benefit, and is the sensible/scientifically informed way State Govt is balancing conservation against land development in urban areas.
Fake news! Birds aren’t real.
Probably cause that makes too much sense
Why is it pronounced Perf?
The pool would be useful particularly in the afternoon as what little surf the Perth coastline gets is blown to bits by the daily arvo onshore.
Maybe the black cockatoos, and the famed local black swans can be protected and be persuaded to hang around to add some cackle to proceedings in the tank.
To clear land for Wavepools…it all makes sense now.
Cockburn Sound ! (its a real place and very close ,they pronounce it silent ck somehow ? never understood that…)
Cockburn – The place where blokes who do like foreplay live.
A mate told me his wife wanted a black cockatoo for her birthday..
FFS , everybody I know in Torquay has surfed the pool!!
what about the white cockatoos , # Whitecocksmatter
🤣
Oh, that’s gunna hurt
The surfer motto!
More me less animals
Surfers are the worst people for ruining the environment ( but pretend they are not!).
Save the birds.
Bury the wave pool!
Do it in Mandurah:
1. needs the tourism
2. land cheap as fuck
3. watching methies surf would be hilarious
Add an ‘environment & education community area’ to the planning and you can do whatever the fuck you like to the black cockatoos. Set em alight with napalm and dance on their bulldozed nests, just make sure you tell everyone afterwards why it’s important to protect them.
exactly kill everything bees and insects first they are fucking useless – then wave pools everywhere run on diesel and oil for sure
fuck the barrier reef too and while we are at it let’s finish the amazon off and build pools there too
Im all in
Being a surfer and living in Perth is perhaps one of the bleakest existences known to man.
Try being a black cockatoo next to a bunch of helicopter hangars in Jandakot…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
…do you remember when RK [Richard Kelly] famously accepted a state round win with a speech claiming he was now “the best surfer to have ever come out of Ardross”?
RK ripped !
Surfed best in spray on black levis
see above