Author Archives: AWPC

Southern Brown Bandicoot’s declining numbers in south east Victoria

THE federal Department of the Environment earlier this was trying to take the southern brown bandicoot off its threatened species list. However, Federal Environment minister Greg Hunt rejected claims his government doing this. He was responding to an article pub­lished in The Times last month (‘Bandicoot under threat from govt’, The Times 26/1/15).

In 2001 when the species was put on the endangered list, a SBB recovery groups was establish and they were selected as the flagship species in the Western Port Biosphere Reserve, to receive special attention. Hundreds of people, including scientists and government agencies, private consultants and landholders had workshops, and the Victorian government created strategy after strategy to protect them, but nothing worked.

A proposal for habitat corridors for the SBB in the draft Biodiversity Conservation Strategy, released in 2011, was withdrawn by the State Government and revised using consultation. The proposal is that there should be at least two 80m wide corridors leading to reserves to the south and reserves or Green Wedge land to the east – to ensure the sustainability of the species. The former Growling Grass Frog corridor along Clyde Creek should be reinstated.

There is too much of the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy that’s left to the Precinct Structure Planning process, rather than an independent role of a monitor to ensure impartiality.

In March 2014, the Coalition state government removed habitat corridors from its plans to protect the southern brown bandicoot in the southeast. and DEPI and Parks Victoria declared a secret war on Southern Brown Bandicoot ~ April 2014

Once common in the south-east, now, just two viable populations remain in the region – at Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne and in undeveloped parts of Koo Wee Rup at the northern end of Western Port. A third population on Quail Island in Western Port has been decimated by wild pigs released on the island by hunters. The SBB is listed as an important component of the Ecological Character of the Western Port Bay Ramsar site and there is continuity of local populations of bandicoots with areas traversed by the Koo Wee Rup Bypass

Southern_Brown_Bandicoot_Victoria(image: Southern Brown Bandicoot, Cranbourne Vic 1984)

They proposed to conduct regulars fox and cat control programs in the Pines for the protection of this species, knowing very well that SBB’s are not there anymore.(Already costing well over $ 100.000.00) They refuse to install a predator-proof fence around the Pines which is the only realistic way to protect the SBB in the Pines ones re-introduced. (They just want that money)

Ecologist Hans Brunner, from Frankston, has been involved with Southern Brown Bandicoots (SBB) for more than 40 years. He vividly remembers finding SBB all over the Mornington Peninsula, in the Frankston area, and especially in the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve which had the larges and strongest colony in the region. Sadly, they have silently disappeared and in many places they’ve become extinct!

How could this happen?

Local wildlife expert Mr Legg said evidence of SBB populations recovering in a couple of places in Australia was no reason to remove legal protection. He had “reluctantly watched the crash and local extinction of SBB populations across the southeastern suburbs of greater Melbourne and within the Western Port catchment” over the past three decades.

The SBB is facing strong competition from housing growth, and urbanisation. The number of dwellings in Mornington Peninsula Shire is forecast to grow from 84,177 in 2011 to 95,955 in 2026. It’s the housing industry that’s become Victoria’s greatest growth industry, and the urban growth boundary is a slippery concept, that keeps expanding with population growth.

At least $120,000 was spent on fox and cat control, while some SBBs remained. It was unsuccessful. Protecting SBB in the region is a grand failure. What’s needed are large reserves surrounded by predator-proof fences. Some insurance colonies are need, with the rest surviving in the wild.

What’s to be gained by de-listing the SBB? Money will be saved by not having to spend in fox and cat control, and developers will be given more permits to build housing.

Jennifer Cunich, executive director of the Property Council, of course would not endorse any expansion of wildlife corridors. She dismissed any science, and any scheme would be of little benefit. It would be like a brewery recommending an AA group!

The SBB is restricted to remnant and exotic vegetation along drains and road reserves in the project area and surrounding landscape which provides cover from predators.

The VicRoads Bypass alignment intersects habitat for the SBB along the existing Healesville Koo Wee Rup Road to the south of Manks Road and core habitat of the Dalmore Koo Wee Rup Cluster of bandicoots at Railway Road/disused South Gippsland Railway Line and levees of the Bunyip River Drain Complex.

There’s no room for complacency, or sitting back watching decline. What’s needed now is to repopulate the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, and protect the colonies at Cranbourne Botanic gardens. Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate of the modern world, and any “fauna” reserve and green wedges must have local native species. It’s easy to say there are “plenty” elsewhere, but extinction is a process, not one event, and allowing local extinctions is part of a process that MUST stop!

Screenshot from 2015-05-07 10:44:08

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Stop the Sanctuary Cove Kangaroo Cull

Five star luxury resort Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast have elected to use lethal means to manage the Eastern Grey Kangaroo population, despite having used a non-lethal management program for the past 10 years which has shown good effect in reducing the population. Instead, they have chosen to opt for slaughtering the kangaroos in order to curb the population growth of Eastern Greys at Sanctuary Cove.

Surely Sanctuary Cove boasts the beauty of the Australian bushland as they show a picture of two kangaroos on their website home page. so how do they justify the culling of our much-loved native symbol? Is this ironic, or hypocritical, that they use this world-famous symbol to lure tourists to their resort?

Sanctuary Cove however, have failed to maintain the program as often as it was needed and have now opted to take the unethical approach of culling up to two-thirds of its 300-350 population.

Sanctuary Cove has ignored expert veterinary advice, as well as animal and environmental advocates’ calls for non-lethal methods to be used, and has instead opted to take the unethical approach of the cull. Sanctuary Cove states that they are only targeting the sick, old, injured and aggressive.. this is a lie!

Kangaroos on Sanctuary Cove precinct on the Gold Coast are highly valued by residents and visitors. Sanctuary Cove have been provided with an ethical solution to the manage the population. The initial culling of 100 Eastern Grey Kangaroos (with more planned) is cruel and unnecessary.

Concerns have been raised that the indiscriminate culling will have significant ramifications for the intricate social and family structures of the kangaroo mobs, and may result in a further increase in kangaroo-human conflicts at the resort.

Sanctuary Cove has failed to demonstrate that non-lethal methods are ineffective. Please sign the petition to call on the Minister for Environment to immediately withdraw the Damage Mitigation Permit. This is a cultural and attitude problem, not an environmental one!

Please sign this Petition to let the Sanctuary Cove management know that this is not acceptable.

(featured image: EGK on the Gold Coast, Queensland)

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Stop the West Byron mega-development:Petition

ByronBaymap

This project will overwhelm Byron. It is a massive 108 hectare estate that will increase the current population of Byron Bay – 9,000 people – by 25-30%.

Byron already has major traffic problems. It’s an area of low employment because jobs are few and there is no infrastructure in place to support this kind of growth. We want people to visit Byron and not get stuck in traffic jams all year round.

This project has been taken out of the hands of Byron Council (who recommended against rezoning the land for development) because it is a “major project”. The developers of the site are requesting that the Department of Planning and Infrastructure rezone the land so they can go ahead with this mammoth project

The area is also key koala habitat that if destroyed will mean the decimation of our beloved and shrinking koala population. There is no plan of management for Koala Habitat Protection as required by State Environment Planning Policy.

Three-quarters of the site has acid sulphate soils which become toxic when drained.

Byron is unique among NSW’s coastal towns and its character is what brings people here. If that essential small-town relaxed community feel goes and is replaced by yet another Gold Coast-style over-developed crowded mess then everyone loses – visitors, business operators and residents.

Unfortunately koalas have faced a number of threats to their survival which has resulted in significant declines to their population across their range. This decline has resulted in the listing of koalas as a Vulnerable species under both the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. One of their biggest threats is urbanisation!

Don Page, you’re our local member. Please stop the despoiling of Byron Bay now!

https://www.change.org/p/don-page-stop-the-west-byron-mega-development

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Swift parrots diving into extinction: logging to blame

Study: Swift Parrot Population May Decline Up To 94 Percent In 12 To 18 Years.

swiftparrot1

Sugar gliders are being blamed for the grim numbers, but researchers are ready to do what it takes to save the swift parrot. The study found that “when sugar gliders prey on the swift parrot nests in areas where there was high forest loss, 83 percent of the time the animals ate the eggs and mother.” In some cases, the mortality rate could be as high as 100 percent. So, it’s all about cause and effect, and increasing competition for dwindling resources.

Researcher Dejan Stojanovic said the research found if nothing changed, the bird’s population would decline by as much as 87 per cent.

Across southeastern Australia, the forests and woodlands where swift parrots live have been converted to farmland, swallowed by urban sprawl and been chipped away by logging.

These processes are well known to drive the decline of forest wildlife, but until recently, we didn’t fully understand the subtler effects of deforestation on swift parrots.

The Conversation: Sugar gliders are eating swift parrots – but what’s to blame?

They are very light birds, weighing about half as much as a banana – which is lucky, because they fly ridiculously long distances during winter, to forage for food and to escape the Tasmanian winter. These are tiny, kaleidoscopic technicolour parrots fly all over Australia, but come back to breed in the forests of Tasmania.

They may be going to the way of the dodo, researchers say.

Environment Tasmania said information documents revealed evidence of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) that approving logging in parrot breeding habitat despite strong scientific advice against activity in the areas. The DPIPWE departmental group also advised that logging was “… likely to interfere with the recovery objectives of the species”.

Parrot breeding habitat had already been extensively logged over recent years and that made remaining patches of swift parrot breeding habitat more important. They migrate from the Australian mainland to Tasmania to breed each spring, swift parrots rarely reuse the same nesting area in successive years. They nests are most abundant in old growth forests, but finding nests for research demands an intensive annual search across the east coast forests of Tasmania.

“Everyone, including foresters, environmentalists and members of the public will be severely affected if they go extinct,” said Professor Heinsohn from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society.

Swift parrots are major pollinators of blue and black gum trees which are crucial to the forestry industry, which controversially continues to log swift parrot habitat.

Making things go from bad to worse, Forestry Tasmania is considering selling nearly 40,000 hectares of hardwood plantations, after the Tasmanian Government gave it the green light to sell assets. Selling hardwood plantations would force Forestry Tasmania to log more native forests, which would “drive to the brink” endangered species like the swift parrot and the masked owl. Native species are now no more than collateral damage in the quest to capitalize our our natural heritage, and resources.


Mr Roderick from Birdlife Australia estimates there are three to four hundred regent honeyeaters remaining, making it and the swift parrot the two most endangered of a whole suite of threatened woodland birds.

A recent Wilderness Society report has found Tasmania’s Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) is failing to protect forests and wildlife. Spokesman Vica Bayley said so far the agreement had been a failure. “We are still logging critical habitat for species such as the swift parrot,” he said.

Petitions:
Help save critically endangered Swift Parrots and Regent Honeyeaters in the Hunter Valley!

Urge the Tasmanian government to protect the endangered swift parrot to save it from extinction

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The Animals

overview and link to the animals:

Wombats

Tasmanian Devil

Sea Turtle

Possum

Leadbeater’s Possum

Koala

Kangaroo

Flying Fox

Emu

Echidna

Dugong

Dingo

Crocodile

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Uncategorized

The Bramble Cay melomys- our newest mammal extinction

One comment
The Bramble Cay melomys was first discovered by Europeans when, in April 1845, Lieutenant Yule,
Commander of the HMS Bramble, and his crew encountered the cay supporting this rodent population
(Limpuset al.1983, Ellison 1998). The species was then apparently in high densities and seamen from aboard this vessel sought recreation by shooting the “large rats”
with bows and arrows.
BrambleCaymelomys

With no sightings since 2009, experts have officially recommended that the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola, also known as the mosaic-tailed rat) be declared extinct. Researchers from the University of Queensland have concluded that the main cause of the extinction is human-induced climate change.  In the decade between 2004 and 2014, the amount of leafy plants on Bramble Cay shrunk by 97 percent.  The lack of plants, in turn, was probably caused by a rising sea that swept over the island during storms and high tides — ocean inundation, as the scientists call it.

Bramble Cay is part of the Shire of Torres, specifically of the Eastern Islands Region.

Had it been something like a fuzzy koala or panda instead of a rat, the world might have taken more notice, but maybe not.  The animal’s demise could be dismissed as nothing more than a lost “rat”!  It’s one more piece in the avalanche of the world’s Sixth Extinction process.

It was larger than the three other Australian species of melomys and about the size of a small rat (head and body length: 148-165 mm; tail length: 145-185 mm). In 1978, the population on Bramble Cay was estimated to comprise at most several hundred individuals. A formal population census of the Bramble Cay melomys conducted in 1998 estimated the cay’s population size was 93, based on the capture of 42 individuals. Surveys conducted for the species in 2002 and 2004 detected only 10 and 12 individuals, respectively.

Certainly, anecdotal reports indicate at least some individuals were killed by domestic dogs that were released onto the island from visiting boats, but also that the species was hunted by indigenous people who visited from PNG on a sporadic basis.

Temperature changes are likely the main driver, not sea level rise. The trend towards a strengthening in the intensity of La Niña conditions until at least 2012 has been linked to climate change, specifically the increase in global mean temperature (L’Heureux et al.2013), with the frequency of extreme La Niña events predicted to increase (almost doubling) with greenhouse warming during this century (Cai et al. 2015).

Dr Luke Leung of UQ’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences said “anecdotal information obtained from a professional fisherman who visited Bramble Cay annually for the past 10 years suggested that the last known sighting of the Bramble Cay melomys was made in late 2009.”

There is a slim chance, Leung said, the Bramble Cay melomys still exists — perhaps on nearby Papua New Guinea — though there is no confirmation of the animals having lived anywhere except the coral island.

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