Six trays, one question each
Each tray holds one creature and answers one practical question about meeting it near the bush. The drawings are made for this guide; the facts beside them come from the NSW and Australian government pages linked on every tray.
- PCM 01 Paralysis tick Ixodes holocyclus Kill it where it is, then brush it off. Never pull it out. after NSW Poisons Information Centre; Australian CDC
- PCM 02 Funnel-web spider Atrax robustus How to tell one, and the pressure bandage for a bite. after NSW Poisons Information Centre; Australian Museum
- PCM 03 Shed snake skin Snakes are protected in NSW Leave it be, call a licensed handler, know the first aid. after NSW environment department; NPWS; NSW Poisons Information Centre
- PCM 04 Mosquito Dawn, dusk and standing water The viruses they carry in NSW, and a walk around the yard. after NSW Health
- PCM 05 Rat skull after Rattus fuscipes, the bush rat What rodents can pass on, and cleaning up without catching it. after NSW Health; Australian Museum
- PCM 06 Chewed eucalypt leaf Before you reach for a spray The label is the law, storing it safely, and first aid if it goes wrong. after NSW EPA; APVMA; NSW Poisons Information Centre
Two numbers worth knowing by heart
Almost every tray ends at one of these two numbers. The NSW Poisons Information Centre, based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, gives poisons information and advice to families, the public and health workers; its service is for humans only. Triple Zero is for an ambulance.
Triple Zero is Australia’s main emergency number for life-threatening or time-critical situations, and calls are free. If someone is unconscious or not breathing, the NSW Poisons Information Centre says to call Triple Zero (000), ask for an ambulance and start CPR straight away.
The centre answers on 13 11 26, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you think someone has been poisoned, its advice is not to wait for symptoms before calling.
Bush at the end of the street
Manly sits close to real bush: Sydney Harbour National Park, which takes in North Head and the Manly scenic walkway, is home to native wildlife living in what the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service calls “rare pockets of bushland once common around Sydney”.
The creatures in this drawer like that kind of country. Ticks occur in humid, moist, bushy areas, NSW Health says, and rely on passing animals to feed on and carry them. The Australian Museum maps the Sydney funnel-web from the Central Coast south to the Georges River, where it favours shady gullies and slopes facing south or east, in woodland, forest and bushy suburbs. Snakes warm themselves in sunshine, on rocks and in the open space a walking track makes.
Several of them are also protected. All native birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, dingoes aside, are protected in New South Wales by the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. That is why the snakes tray, and the bush rat in the rodents tray, both come with a reason to leave the animal be.
Written from the health services’ own pages
Pest Control Manly is general information, not medical advice. Each first aid line in it follows the steps of the service that wrote them, in our own words, mostly the NSW Poisons Information Centre and the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, and links to that page beside it. Where two services word a step differently, the tray says so and shows both.
Pest control as a trade starts where this guide stops. In New South Wales, the use of pesticides after they are sold is regulated by the NSW Environment Protection Authority, and the pesticides tray sets out what its pages and the national regulator’s say about using them at home.
