The primary Victorian legislation to protect and conserve threatened species and ecological communities is The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (the Act).? Since the Act was passed in 1988, 653 plant and animal species, communities and threatening processes have been listed.
The primary aim of the FFG Act is aims to guarantee that all taxa of Victoria?s flora and fauna can survive, flourish and retain their potential for evolutionary development in the wild, and to ensure that the genetic diversity of flora and fauna is maintained.
We contend? that more effective? utilisation of the conservation measures available in the FFG Act 1988 would make a real difference to biodiversity conservation in Victoria. Moreover, failure to complete Action Statements renders the RFA (Regional Forest Agreement) Reserve System inadequate for the protection of endangered species, due to lack of information and management strategies.
The CAR (Comprehensive Adequate Representative) reserve system on paper, is designed to protect all biodiversity values in the Otways from logging practices based on best scientific information. However if the impact logging has on other forest values is not acted upon, then decreased levels of protection are what occur.
An analysis by lawyers at the Environment Defenders Office (EDO) found that of 599 threatened plant and animal species listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, only 270 have an action statement to manage their conservation as legally required.
Brendan Sydes, Chief Executive Officer and EDO lawyer found that Action Statements have still not been prepared for 374 of the 675 species, communities and processes listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, despite the clear legal obligation to do so.? In the past year, only one draft statement has been released.
At this rate, it will take the Government decades to fulfill their obligations,? said Mr Sydes.
Fragmented koala habitat and lack of food supply, farms, roads, land clearing, dog attacks, developers, forestry threaten koala survival, as their numbers plummet towards extinction.
The koala is a small bear-like, tree-dwelling, herbivorous marsupial which averages about 9kg (20lb) in weight. Its fur is thick and usually ash grey with a tinge of brown in places.
The koala is possibly one of the best known Australian animals, and is found in four states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The word ‘koala’ comes from an Australian Aboriginal word meaning ‘no drink’.
Koalas can’t see very well. They rely mostly on their hearing and smell. They mainly eat leaves from gum trees and only a few varieties. The others could be poisonous.
They are marsupials, which means that they carry their young in a pouch.
There are about 600 varieties of eucalypts. Koalas Australia wide eat only about 120 of these. Koalas in a specific area would prefer to eat only about 4-6 different types.
Declining numbers and threats
Over 2 million koalas were killed between 1908 and 1927. Occasionally koalas are taken by Goannas, Eagles, and Owls. Humans are koala’s worst enemies. Dingoes will kill the koala. Now there are only 2,000 to 8,000 koalas in the wild!
The population of Australian koalas has dropped by 90% in less than a decade. This is due to the destruction of the koala’s natural habitat by human settlement, logging, dogs and roads on the narrow crescent on the eastern coast of Australia.
Beginning in the 19th century, Koalas were hunted mercilessly by European settlers for their soft fur pelts and were entirely helpless in the face of guns and dogs. The major means used by professional hunters were poisoning and snaring, and by the late 19th century, 300,000 Koala pelts a year were being shipped to the London fur market .
Australia’s most “at risk” koala populations are now protected under national threatened species legislation, federal environment minister Tony Burke announced April 2012.
Koala Status
Mr Burke’s announcement follows almost a decade of lobbying by scientists, local landcare groups and wildlife carers to have the koala listed under federal threatened species legislation. The Australian government lists the species as “vulnerable,” and the U.S. government classifies them as “threatened.”
It means developers will have to account for koala listings when making building applications. However, it doesn’t actually prevent them from continuing, or actually accounting for them. Koala numbers in Victoria’s Grampians National Park, in the state’s west, and at Mount Macedon, northwest of Melbourne, were declining, according to Ms Tabart of the Australian Koala Foundation. However, the Federal listing will offer substantial protection otherwise but where logging operations are conducted under Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) the Federal listing will have no effect. The EPBC Act is exempt from RFAs.
The NSW Government is sitting on its hands while thousands of hectares of native bushland has been cleared near Moree and in other parts of the state, threatening the survival of local koala populations and destroying habitat for threatened wildlife, the state’s peak environment group said. Important koala habitat has been bulldozed and an investigation is underway, but the NSW Government has said it may not take any enforcement action until Christmas. There are no real concrete overall policies to protect native species. Economic activities have a higher status than native species.
Limited gene pool and disease
Mating with kin is not unusual in animals with declining populations, and researchers expected to find that the koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) had been doing just that. But scientists were surprised to learn how far back the inbreeding goes. The biggest danger associated with a limited gene pool in koalas today is their relative difficulty in combating disease.
Scientists also worry that the lack of a coping mechanism afforded by gene variation could make it especially difficult for the koala to adapt to climate change.
Koala overgrazing?
The lack of connected wildlife corridors, disturbances to habitats, fragmentation by farms and roads and land clearing are all part of the problem of some koalas “overgrazing”, and threatening their food supply.
AWPC policy
Some of the actions the AWPC recommends to protect koalas from extinction are:
developing and implementing the regional and Council koala Policy and Strategy
planting koala food trees along road reserves and in parks and conservation areas
activities in schools to increase awareness and understanding
purchase of environmentally significant land large areas of koala habitat to be permanently protected investigation into a habitat linkage strategy to guide our future planning
research on koala movement and population statistics
surveys to know their numbers.
Rescue and restoration services for sick and injured koalas
Speed limits and signage to protect koalas on the roads
community awareness programs
Coal Seam Gas mining pollutes, destroys koala habitat
by Anne Kennedy
What is happening in the NSW Pilliga (and Leard Forest) is disgraceful. The Pilliga is so isolated, no-one really knows -or didn’t, until we formed the Alliance to make a noise about it.
A new ecological study of the Pilliga Forest in north-west NSW has found it is a “Noah’s Ark” or refuge for many bird and mammal species that are declining across Australia. Coal seam gas exploration has already caused substantial damage to the forest and progression to full scale gas production could lead to local extinctions.
David Milledge, ecologist and lead author of the report says that “Our study also raises real concerns about the future of the important Pilliga population of the Koala as the results support previous findings of a severe decline in the area”. The report confirms that the Santos coal seam gas project area in the Pilliga has national conservation significance and is vital to the survival of federally threatened species like the Pilliga Mouse and South-eastern Long-eared Bat.
Environmental groups have organised a coal seam gas tour of the Leard and Pilliga forests following the approval of the Maules Creek coal mine by the NSW Planning Assessment Commission. This will turn a critically endangered ecosystem into a gaping hole in the ground, and destroy habitat for threatened species like the koala, National Parks Association spokeswoman Pat Schultz said.
Koalas are endangered, On the “threatened species at risk” list Once there was a large colony of healthy koalas in the Pilliga, but are becoming difficult to find – since the coal seam gas industry started clearing (and polluting) there. They occasionally find dead koalas, squashed by a mining truck, or drowned in polluted ‘holding ponds’ the coal seam gas toxic waste-water is stored in.
The majority of coastal koalas (remaining ones, whose habitat hasn’t been entirely destroyed by urbanisation) have chlamydia. The western inland koala colonies (Pilliga/ Leards forests) are disease-free. Saving these healthy koala colonies, who don’t have contagious diseases, and aren’t inbred, is absolutely vital for the long-term survival of the koala.
Santos (with NSW govt blessing) plans to turn the Pilliga into a giant gas field, Leard’s into an even bigger coal mine than it is already. It’s a disaster, free from environmental legislation that would cripple the industry!
The ecologist who said the mine has “no significant impact” to the 30 known threatened species or the 2 endangered ecological communities on site or known from the locality, is the local esteemed Professor David Goldney in Bathurst. (Cenwest working for Resource Strategies). AppendixE- Fauna Assessment
Take a protected species under the protection of the Department of the Environment, call it a resource, increase the killing, and you have the largest wildlife slaughter in the world today.
Government sanctioned cruelty
The Code of Practice says joeys can be ripped from their slain mother s pouch and hit on the head with a water pipe or iron bar until dead; shooters even bash joeys against their vehicle or a tree trunk.
Older, ex-pouch, but still dependent joeys flee in terror when their mothers are killed to die from cold, starvation, predation and maternal depravation. A million or more joeys die in this way every year.
No Shooter will ever allow himself to be filmed killing joeys.
The Code of Practice is not linked to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and is legally unenforcable.
Contrary to public perception, the RSPCA does NOT monitor or police cruelty to commercially killed kangaroos.
The nature and method of slaughter cannot be ignored. It is barbaric and inhumane. Each night thousands of animals are butchered, many are maimed, the young in pouch are cruelly dispatched and the young at foot are left to fend for themselves. Any reasonable person would not wish to be a party to this slaughter by purchasing kangaroo products.
Former Senator George Georges (Queensland) heard evidence about kangaroo killing for three and a half years as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare from December 9th, 1983 to June 5th, 1987. (Preface of The Kangaroo BETRAYED!).
The cruelty and suffering that we have already seen in the native animal industries means that this is no longer an experiment. Hundreds of thousands of kangaroos each year are not killed humanely, emu chicks in Western Australia are de-toed without anaesthesia to reduce risks to handlers, and possums in Tasmania are trapped, transported and killed over a period that now has blown out to anything up to 48 hours. The trade in wildlife is a trade based on profit, without any place for compassion. (Foreword of The Kangaroo BETRAYED! Professor Peter Singer)
Kangaroos are shot in the Australian outback by spotlighting at night. One million joeys die alone. Three aspects cause great cruelty:
Because head shots are attempted, these may not strike the brain but injure the head including the mouth. These kangaroos escape into the scrub outside the spotlight s beam and will die over several days from their horrific injuries and starvation.
In-pouch joeys are killed by stomping on them or bashing them with a stick or against a vehicle. Several blows may be necessary.
Ex-pouch joeys are still reliant on their mother s milk for protein, warmth in the cold winter s nights, protection from predators, and they are dependent on their mothers for psychic support. They spend time in and out of the pouch and when their mothers are killed, they are left to fend for themselves.
Video evidence is available in the ABC documentary Kangaroos – Faces in the Mob and the explicit cruelty in the International Fund for Animal Welfare film of Greg Eichner, NSW shooter – farmer. The kangaroo killing and game meat lobby can no longer conceal the extreme brutality of their trade. For years we have been calling for an end to this industry which causes the lingering death of 1,000,000 joeys. These joeys similar to the joey Jaffa in Faces in the Mob are orphaned when their mothers are shot in the so-called harvest. (Dr John Auty)
All decent Australians should become active in calling upon Federal and State politicians to outlaw this trade – a trade as horrible as the slow slaughter of whales and the clubbing to death of seals or any of the other terrible abuses of wildlife around the world.
Aside from the cruelty which is inherent in the commercial kangaroo killing industry, one land holder in Western NSW has described pitting which is the digging of pits to bury kangaroos that have been killed illegally. These same land holders want to legally increase their income by skin only shooting which is more cruel than the carcass trade. They can shoot the kangaroos inhumanely as long as the skin itself is not damaged for the export markets and it is not detected (impossible to police).
Skin only shooting is not only more cruel but it is also open to many illegal abuses. The NSW NPWS fought a Court Case in 1996 to stop this trade and won. Now the landholders have friends in political circles who they are lobbying to reopen the skin only trade in NSW. Kangaroos are killed primarily for their leather and skins. Many millions of kangaroos are killed for the shoe leather trade to Italy and the USA.
NSW farmers have threatened to use political pressure to get what they want (that is, less kangaroos). The welfare of kangaroos is only paid lip service and are the scapegoats for falling prices and incomes. A Tibooburra, NSW farmer (1999) found over 139 kangaroos dead in his front garden from poisoning (the killing is not policed). NSW land holders want kangaroos to come under the control of the Department of Agriculture and taken away from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and they are using their political clout to ensure kangaroo numbers are reduced to tolerable levels, which may be zero numbers of kangaroos.
GOVERNMENT ‘PRO-KANGAROO INDUSTRY SCIENTISTS’ PROMOTE THE KILLING, THEY…
Fail to acknowledge different and specific needs of the four commercially killed species and ‘manage’ them as one
Use ‘guesstimates’ and changing correction factors to estimate populations
Totally disregard the biological and social needs of kangaroos
Ignore natural selection and manipulate kangaroo populations for artificial results to benefit the kangaroo industry
Do not monitor the legal or illegal killing of kangaroos
Ignore studies which prove kangaroos do not compete with cattle and sheep
Removed ‘damage mitigation’ as the sole reason for killing kangaroos
Ignore the Precautionary Principle
Ignore the $6 billion nature-based tourism industry
The kangaroo killing industry supplies leather for soccer cleats, handbags and baseball mitts, which is fueling the slaughter of millions of kangaroos and their babies every year. 6.9 million kangaroos will be shot this year – it is the biggest wildlife massacre in the world and it must be stopped.
Adidas is far and away the leader in ‘premier’ soccer cleats, with 70 percent of the market worldwide and by heavily marketing its highly-priced, kangaroo-skin, Predator football boots around the world. Headline stars such as David Beckham encourage the brutality by wearing and promoting Predator boots.
It is vital to the survival of kangaroos that we stop the trade in their skins, especially for the manufacturing of soccer cleats. According to Australia’s leading tanners of kangaroo leather, Parker Tanning, manufacturers prefer to use the largest skins to make athletic footwear. These skins come from the large red males who take 10 years to reach alpha status and are being continually massacred so few survive to pass on their superior genes to the next generation. This means that smaller, weaker and younger males are left to breed with the females, producing offspring who are less likely to survive a major drought or other natural disasters. We must reverse this trend before a major disaster strikes and Australian kangaroos are wiped out! It is frightening that leather suppliers are complaining that there are few large red males left in Australia. Skins are getting smaller and smaller as they now shoot juveniles.
WILDLIFE AND ECO-TOURISM HAVE TREMENDOUS NATIONAL WEALTH AND JOBS POTENTIAL
The kangaroo is a universally loved icon yet millions, now declared a resource, are slaughtered to accommodate destructive agricultural practices.
It is time for the tourism industry to maximize on the already established international reputation of the kangaroo as a major tourist icon.
Australia’s leaders hide behind a protective wall of propaganda and irresponsible legislation, so that a few may gain from the death of a species.
Australia has the highest rate of extinctions in the world but there appears to be no shame, only apathy about this appalling record.
The world community and the Australian people are told that kangaroos need to be killed for damage mitigation. This is a total misrepresentation of the truth, which is consistently propagandised by both Federal and State Governments. The official policy of Environment Australia is: “Australian native wildlife is a renewable resource. If managed in an ecologically sustainable manner, wildlife can provide a perpetual source of economic benefits for all Australians”.
Myth: Plagues of kangaroos – Australia is overrun by kangaroos?
Fact: Kangaroos were widespread and abundant at the time of early settlement. Now they are fugitives in their own country and Skippy is relentlessly pursued.
Myth: Kangaroos degrade and destroy the environment.
Fact: The soft padded feet and long tail of the kangaroo are integral to the ecological health of the land as regenerators of native grasses. It is destructive agricultural practices on marginal land that are proving to be unsustainable.
Myth: We need to kill and eat our wildlife to save it. Wildlife must ‘pay its way’.
Fact: It is imperative that we link wildlife corridors throughout Australia to restore kangaroo and wildlife habitat. Tourists want to see tourist icon Skippy… but kangaroos are being decimated and the outback is turning to dust. The ecological and economic value of wildlife nature-based tourism is ignored.
This is a breed of scientist who supports the escalating slaughter and is giving scant attention, if any consideration to the extreme cruelty, inherent in the kangaroo killing industry, except to pay it lip service. They have commissioned the RSPCA to tell us what we already know, that this is a brutally cruel industry which is impossible to police, and leaves behind a million or more dead joeys every year.
They are incapable of addressing the fate of the ex-pouch joeys, which are still dependent upon their mothers for survival, but which escape to face a lingering death, when their mothers are shot.
They dismiss the repugnance demonstrated by the international community of kangaroo killing, of stomping on joeys or bashing joeys to death.
We are witnessing a carnage of unsustainable proportions for commercial gain. Populations are being reduced to alarming levels in many regions and the species is subjected to ever increasing kill quotas.
The more kangaroos that are killed, the more there are and the cry goes out to kill more and more.
Red kangaroos are a threatened species
Red kangaroos are now being killed at a rate three times higher than they are reproducing. In the 1960’s their average age was 12; today it is 2. Their average weight was 35 kg in the 1960’s, which today is 18kg. Commercial killing has put insupportable pressure on Red kangaroos which now threatens the species.
The Australian scientific community is ignoring the most basic premise of sound objective science by turning a blind eye to the killing of the biggest and best kangaroos, designed by nature to maintain a healthy gene pool and their biological fitness.
“We need to know the effect of the slaughter of large male kangaroos on the future viability of the population, especially as the industry is now calling for the right to slaughter smaller and smaller animals all the time” , says Dr. Ian Gunn.
“People from the industry are reaping the profits without putting anything back”
Flying foxes are a keystone species- Their diet is nectar, pollen and fruit. Their ecological role is pollination and seed dispersal, flying long distances to carry (genetic material) valuable to our forests and ecosystems.
FLYING FOXES by bat expert Lawrence Pope
Flying foxes belong to chiroptera (hand-wing) or bats. Unlike small insect-eating “microbats” flying foxes do not have echolocation and use their eyes and ears like all other mammals. There are four species of native flying foxes on the Australian mainland. Little Red, Black, Grey-headed and Spectacled. Flying foxes are a keystone species. Their diet is nectar, pollen and fruit obtained at night when native tree flowers produce most of their nectar. Their ecological role is that of pollination and seed dispersal.
By flying long distances from their camps each evening (30-40 kilometres) and between camps (100’s of kilometres) the bats carry seed and pollen(genetic material) to other forests and trees. The out-cross pollination is valuable to our forests and ecosystems ensuring a healthy flow of new genes.
All flying foxes species have declined since European settlement. The Spectacled flying foxes (Range – Nth QLD) and Grey-headed flying foxes (range: east coast from northern NSW to Geelong) are the most endangered with declines of more than ninety-five percent in the past century. Both species are protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and high levels of state protection.
At the current rate of decline both species may be functionally extinct by 2030.
The greatest threats to flying foxes are :
-Shooting by orchardists. Both legal and illegal.
-Land clearing resulting in mass-starvation events.
-Flying fox camp disturbances and dispersal
-Domestic backyard fruit tree entanglement.
What is needed:
A ban on all shooting of flying foxes on the basis of environmental and cruelty grounds.
Flying foxes typically take hours or days to die when shot in orchards.
Very few are killed outright. Remember they are shot at night with shotguns.
Lactating females shot either with a pup on board or waiting for her to return to the colony increases the level of cruelty involved as these pups starve to death. NSW continues to issue permits for orchardists to shoot flying foxes. This system is currently under review. Shooting is banned elsewhere though it remains widespread. Prosecutions for illegal shooting are rare to non-existent.
– Govt’ subsidies to enable all commercial fruit growers to net their orchards. Netting increases profitability while eliminating the need to shoot flying foxes (and birds). In the interim a ban on shooting and some form of financial compensation for growers impacted on by flying foxes
Land Clearing
-Enforce state and local land clearing restrictions.
-Prosecute infringements.
-Reforest where possible.
Camp Dispersals
In most cases flying fox camp dispersals are not successful, unnecessary and very stressful to animals.
Illegal camp disturbances continue, with entire camps destroyed as in Dulguigan NSW 2008.
Sydney Botanic Gardens has plans to disperse its Grey headed flying fox colony, likely to result in bats dispersing to areas of Sydney where they are unwanted. Melbourne undertook a successful removal of its colony in 2003 with the colony re-established on the Yarra River in 30 hectares of bush-parkland. However Melbourne’s situation topographically and environmentally is significantly different to that of Sydney.
Domestic Back Yard Fruit Tree Netting
Thousands of flying foxes become entangled in backyard netting each year. It consumes considerable wildlife rescuer and carer’s time and energy. Many animals suffer serious injuries from the thin netting requiring expensive medications and long treatment times. Most animals are euthansed.
A ban on black netting.? A ban on monofilament netting The development of wildlife safer, heavier netting. Thin netting cuts and debrides tissue resulting in the worse injuries. Encourage the public to share at least some of their backyard fruit with wildlife as a contribution to conservation.
?Health Issues:
Flying foxes are clean healthy animals. But, like all animals they may carry organisms that can cause disease.
Lyssavirus: A small number of bats carry lyssavirus. It can only be transmitted by bite.
If bitten by an infected flying fox an effective post-exposure vaccine is available. See doctor as soon as possible.
Hendra Virus: There is no evidence that humans can contract hendra virus from flying foxes.
Consult relevant state and fed govt websites and health authorities for updated information.
90 million years of evolution to roam over vast tracks of land, with long powerful legs & camel like feet, emus are adapted for speed, not slabs of meat and merchandise.
EMUS belong to the oldest living family of birds on earth, the Ratites, or Flightless Fowl- Emus are good parents that do not deserve to be degraded to Meat and Merchandise.
They are gentle, friendly nomads, designed by 90 million years of evolution to roam over vast tracks of land. With their long powerful legs and camel-like feet adapted for speed, they can run up to 40 miles an hour, covering 9 feet in a single stride.
Emus can grow to be 5 to 6 feet tall, weigh up to 140 pounds and live for 25-30 years. They range widely into Australia’s interior, thriving on shoots, seeds, fruit, and insects. When food is abundant they store a thick layer of fat beneath the skin for a reserve for hard times.
If they appear awkward in captivity, it is because these flightless birds are meant for open spaces, where their grace and intelligence can be exercised.
Both parents help the chicks to hatch by pecking at the shell after 6 weeks of incubation. The family stays together for 10 months or more as young birds learn to fend for themselves. The normally peaceful emu will kick ferociously with their legs and bite with their beaks to protect eggs and young from enemies.
Degrading These Magnificent Birds to Meat and Merchandise
Transport Subjecting emus with their long thin necks and legs, and large fragile eyes, to transport is cruel and inhumane.
Feather removal Pulling feathers from the body of a living bird is cruel and painful. A Feather is firmly held in a follicle, the wall of which is richly supplied with sensory fibres, and nerves. Even clipping the feathers above the nerve endings pulls on the sensitive skin and muscle tissue to which the feathers are attached. Removing a feather from a bird requires a hard, steady pull. Feather removal is a barbaric act. It takes about five minutes for a blindfolded bird to be plucked. The bird is them released into a holding pen, joining a growing number of others, all plucked, covered in bumps where the feathers were ripped out, streaming blood,, and waiting …
Slaughter Slaughter – bound birds and mammals are typically starved for hours and even days before they are killed. Hauled in all kinds of weather they are forced to endure truck vibrations, heat, stress, cold, damp, thirst and terror. They are then shot with a captive bolt, like cattle, or, like poultry, they are electrically shocked (not stunned), and then hung upside down to have their throats cut, being kept alive when the blood drains. They are slaughtered at 12-15 months of age.
Trapped Birds To Be Poisoned
13.10.02 by Nick Taylor
email: letters@sundaytimes.newsltd.com.au
“Huge flocks of emus, driven south as drought grips the wheatbelt, are threatening to wipe out valuable crops. The invasion by thousands of the big birds is a double blow to farmers already struggling to grow crops in parched soil.”
” The birds, most in poor condition, are destroying crops and breaking fences in a desperate search for food. Rotting carcasses litter the track alongside the emu barrier, built originally as the rabbit proof fence.”
” Farmers along the fence that stretches from the Zuytdorp cliffs north of Kalbarri to Ravensthorpe in the south, have shot thousands of the birds. A further 2000 have been caught in a trap near Ravensthorpe and will be poisoned this week as thousands more move towards the fence. The cull will exceed last year’s figure when 7000 birds were killed by 62 farmers granted shooting licenses by the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). Emus are a protected species and can be culled only on private property and under license.”
Please Write to
Dr Judy Edwards
Minister for Environment,
29th Floor Allendale Sq.
St Georges Terrace
Perth 6000
West Australia
There are many good, dedicated people working in CALM and they do some excellent work, but it appears the Department is slack when it comes to protecting kangaroos and emus, which are considered pests and vermin in WA. Farmers trying to eke out a living on marginal, uneconomic land should not be there in the first place. They are trying to make fragile land produce
updated 21/11/02Save Ningaloo Reef – Stop The Resort
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT AT AN EMU FARM AT MT. GIBSON, W.A., FOUR YEARS AGO.
(This person has asked to remain anonymous) ” totally appalled at the conditions the emus had to endure…they were in yards without food or water, the ground was bare and a woman who was supposed to be running the place was trying to make it look as if she knew what she was doing…there was nothing on the ground but rocks and stones…the emus were in pens and there were a few hundred…the woman said they would be OK as they were eating the grasshoppers…there was NO vegetation to sustain anything and not a grasshopper in sight…we found some vegetable scraps and threw them over the fence to the emus, but felt so bad when the poor birds rushed to the food as we didn’t have enough for all, they were starving hungry.” “… the birds (emus) were in such poor condition with stunted growth…this I assume is a government endorsed operation and I doubt that even if the RSPCA had been informed it would have made any difference…wanted to take it further at the time but was hesitant about making trouble … …but I wish I had done something…I didn’t know then what the situation was with emu farming but that still doesn’t excuse my negligence in not taking it further.
Mt Gibson Station is now in the hands of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy who are using the land to establish new populations where threatened species have become locally extinct. Enquiries have confirmed that the emu farm has now been closed down.
The following accounts of animal cruelty are from people who wish to remain anonymous because of repercussions from some members of the aboriginal community. aboriginal children playing with joeys like a football, after their mothers have been killed some wildlife carers have received joeys from northern missions where they have been abused and starved and female joeys have had cigarette burns to the inside of their pouches wildlife carers have received joeys with injuries around the neck where they have been repeatedly chased by children and dogs into snare traps over and over again, until they are totally traumatised.
Some of these animals never recover psychologically and have had to be put down. Officers working within CALM have very little power in dealing with these issues and as no one dares to speak about such things they are not dealt with.
NO ONE in Australia should get away with cruelly treating any animal, let alone one of our native species. The way that some aboriginal communities treat joeys is wrong and must be addressed!
Our wildlife is in CRISIS and they NEED OUR HELP!
We maim and injure them, we harm and poison them , we turn a blind eye to abuses and cruelties to them and to their young. We run them down on our roads and we fail to provide for them. We FAIL to respect and treasure them. We all have a moral and ethical duty to act and EACH OF YOU CAN INSIST THAT CALM PROTECTS KANGAROOS AND EMUS, ALL OUR NATIVE ANIMALS, IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
A letter from Pat O’Brien National Kangaroo Protection Coalition Coordinator, and President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Society has been sent to Francis Logan MLA, ‘warning’ about the disastrous consequences for emus on emu farms and the failure of CALM in protecting our emus and kangaroos and crocodiles from abuses on so-called ‘farms’.. Pat said that allowing any further farms for emus, crocodiles and kangaroos or allowing the proposed kangaroo ‘farm’ at Chittering to go ahead, legal action will follow.
Together with the platypus, echidnas are the world’s only monotremes, or egg-laying mammals.
Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny ant eaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals.
The first detailed description of the echidna was published in England in 1792. A decade later, another account included a meticulous drawing by Captain William Bligh, who had feasted on roast echidna years earlier during a post-mutiny stopover in Australia.
There are two types of echidnas — the short-beaked echidna and the long-beaked echidna. Aside from the obvious fact that the short-beaked echidna has a shorter snout than its long-beaked cousin, there are other noticeable differences between the two species:
The short-beaked echidna is smaller and lighter than the long-beaked echidna. They have more spines on its back than the long-beaked echidna. The short-beaked echidna likes to use its sticky tongue to lick off ants and termites, whereas the long-beaked echidna prefers to use its gluey tongue to pick up earthworms.
Echidnas are very unusual mammals because they lay eggs. Mammals that lay eggs are called monotremes. The tiny echidna baby is called a puggle. It’s smaller than a jellybean. A single egg is laid two weeks after copulation and hatches after about ten days. The baby in the pouch sucks milk exuded from numerous pores as echidnas do not have well developed teats.
The echidna’s snout is between 7 and 8 cm long, and is stiffened to enable the animal to break up logs and termite mounds when searching for food. The body, with the exception of the underside, face and legs, is covered with cream coloured spines. These spines, which reach 50 mm in length, are in fact modified hairs.
For most of the year echidnas are solitary animals, although each animal’s territory is large and often overlaps with that of other echidnas. They are found throughout Australia; have overlapping home ranges but tend to be solitary except for mating.
The echidna is common throughout most of temperate Australia and lowland New Guinea.
The diet of echidnas is largely made up of ants and termites, although, they will eat other invertebrates especially grubs, larvae and worms.
The echidna’s neocortex, associated with reasoning and personality in humans, accounts for nearly half its brain’s volume, compared to about 30 percent in so-called higher mammals.
Threats: Echidnas did not have many predators before white man arrived in Australia, dingoes being about the only animal known to eat them on occasion, the goanna may also take puggle. Now there are cats, cars, foxes, dingoes, habitat destruction and alteration have undoubtedly affected the distribution and abundance of the Echidna despite still being regarded as common. Echidnas have a great memory, and it is unlikely that it will return, once realising that the area is not safe. Never relocate an Echidna, it is impossible to tell if it is a male or a female, and as they leave their young in the nest whilst foraging for food, it is important they are able to return.
