Category Archives: Petition

Pass legislation requiring all cat owners to confine cats to their property 24 hours a day, as well as sterilise, register and microchip all domesticated cats in Victoria

Petition:
Across Victoria and Australia we are losing millions of native animals each day as a direct result of feral and domesticated cats. Currently there is no suitable way to control the impacts of feral cats, but the impacts of domesticated cats can easily be halted by simply confining you cats to your property 24 hours a day, sterilising, registering and micro-chipping all domesticated cats. Cats are also able to kill multiple animals a night; the current consensus is that feral cats alone kill upwards of 75 million native animals a night.

There is no arguing that feral cats have massive impacts on the native environment, and this holds true for domesticated cats as they are not just night time hunters; they are opportunistic hunters and will hunt day or night for food or for pleasure. A priority of the Victorian Government should be to conserve what little of the natural environment that we have left, as cats have already devastated the local bird, mammal, reptile and insect populations. Further changes of the natural environment may have large flow on impacts, including a reduction in pollination, opening up areas to other exotic species and the loss of productivity.

Aside from the direct impacts on native flora and fauna, the next biggest problem associated with cats is their ability to spread Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease that can occur in most warm blooded animals including humans, and its primary host is cats. It is spread through cat faeces and can be transmitted by touching a cat or coming in contact with minute amounts of its faeces. The disease is known to cause a mild flu-like illness for a short period of time. However, those with weakened immune systems, such as the elderly or pregnant women, may become seriously ill leading to miscarriage or stillbirth. The parasite causes inflammation of the brain and a range of neurological diseases; it can also affect the heart, liver, inner ears, and eyes.

Many of Victoria’s mammals are highly susceptible to Toxoplasmosis and will die within weeks of contracting the parasite. For those who survive the initial infection residual effects have been found to alter the infected host’s behaviour, making it more susceptible to predation. Additionally, Toxoplasmosis also impacts the sheep industry causing ewes to abort lambs in the middle of their pregnancy.

By introducing a 24 hour state wide ban, sterilising, registering and micro-chipping all domesticated cats pressure will be taken off animal shelters who have to take in and euthanize many unwanted cats each day. Cat owners will not have to worry about their cat being injured on the road or by fighting which saves their vet fees. It stops the number of domesticated cats becoming feral cats, and mostly it shows that cats and cat owners are doing their bit to protect the unique flora and fauna that we are blessed with.

The argument that cats need to roam is invalid as a cat required less exercise than a dog, and yet they are locked up for obvious reasons. There are numerous items that can be purchased such as cat runs to let them exercise in their yards as well as owners taking them for walks. I must stress that this is not an attack on cat owners, but a cat ban benefits everyone in the community. It is know that cats that live inside the confines of their property live longer, are healthier and are just as active and stimulated as those which roam free.

Join with Grant Linley Melbourne, and AWPC and call for the Victorian state government to place a priority on banning cats from roaming our streets, sterilising, registering and micro-chipping all domesticated cats.

Petition: Pass legislation requiring all cat owners to confine cats to their property 24 hours a day, as well as sterilise, register and microchip all domesticated cats in Victoria

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Perth’s lethal urban sprawl killing off Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos

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Flocks of Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos winging their way to their evening roost sites has been a familiar sight around Perth for decades. Their days are numbered!
Updated research from BirdLife Australia shows that flocks are getting smaller as the population of these large, white-tailed, black-cockatoos declines each year.

600 people took part in Birdlife Australia’s Great Cocky Count, earlier this year, but the minimum number of Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos recorded in the Greater Perth–Peel Region was 5518 birds, continuing the drop in numbers from previous years’ counts. Records have shown a significant, ongoing decline in their population, a reduction in flock size as well as fewer occupied roost sites around Perth.

CBC-headshot
(image: Birdlife Australia- http://birdlife.org.au/projects/southwest-black-cockatoo-recovery)

This is not an evolutionary trend, due to climate change or other environmental trends, but deliberate habitat destruction! “Perth suburbs continue to expand into the bushland that traditionally supported black-cockatoos. So the black-cockatoos moved into the pine plantations for food and shelter, but now these plantations are being cleared and not replaced.” Thanks mainly to ridiculously high immigration levels, the human population continue to swell, and the deadly threat of urban sprawl spreads like the metastasis of cancer!

Perth’s deadly urban sprawl is heating up the metropolitan area and driving out native animal species, according to an Environmental Protection Authority report. The EPA said species that were present at the time of settlement had disappeared from the region, including 12 mammals such as the numbat, while 46 bird species were in decline and many plants were threatened with extinction. Between 2001 and 2009, some 6,812 hectares of natural bush were cleared within the Perth metropolitan region alone.

Perth’s human population grew by 2.5 per cent in the 12 months to June 2014 – an extra 48,400 people – with 2.02 million people now calling Greater Perth home. New plans mapping out locations to develop 800,000 new homes in Perth and Peel to accommodate for a future population of 3.5 million have been released by the WA Government. The cost of “progress” ignores the environmental costs, and the loss to native species!

Perth’s urban sprawl could be stopped if some of the city’s open space including parks and gardens – is sacrificed for housing! There’s never the option of slowing down our population growth! The pressure is to make the city “more compact”.

The Carnaby’s black cockatoo is one of only two species of white-tailed black cockatoo in the world. The other is the Baudin’s black cockatoo. Both are unique to Southwest Australia.

Half of Perth’s bird species have suffered declines since European settlement. Department of Parks and Wildlife senior wildlife officer Rick Dawson said at the time that 85 Carnaby’s Cockatoos had been killed on the road in eight weeks – a major blow for a species that’s declined from a wild population of 150,000 to between 20,000 and 60,0000 in 30 years.

Black Cockatoos are just another victim of ongoing human greed for economic growth, capitalistic growth, a Colonial frontier mentality, over-population destroying Nature and adding more species to our threatened/extinct list!

Take Action: sign the petition

Donate to Birdlife Australia

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Petition for a Great Forest National Park for Victoria

To: Premier Daniel Andrews
Petition for a Great Forest National Park for Victoria

Dear Premier and Ministers of Victoria

Victoria urgently needs a comprehensive, representative national park and conservation system. Major threats to nature such as habitat loss land degradation, invasive species, logging, harmful fire regimes, over-grazing, modified water flows still persist. 1

Precious habitat remnants are being bulldozed for urban expansion or roads. Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia, populations of native birds and animals are in free-fall, and less than 25% of our rivers and creeks are in good condition. 2

The Great Forest National Park proposes that Victorians create and add a new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

The tallest flowering trees on Earth grow north-east of Melbourne. In their high canopies dwell owls, gliders and the tiny Leadbeater’s (or Fairy) Possum. Victoria’s precious and endangered faunal emblem lives only in these ash forests of the Central Highlands. 3

We demand that the State government act on the overwhelming support for the creation of a Victorian Great Forest National Park.

1 VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION, September 2014, NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW: Overview and context

2
http://environmentvictoria.org.au/blog/posts/needles-haystack#.VTndPM2hSPo

3
http://www.greatforestnationalpark.com.au/

Why is this important?

Victoria is the most cleared State, and there are major threats to our native species and vegetation. There are ongoing issues such as habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, harmful fire regimes, over-grazing, logging of old growth forests, and modified water flows. Our faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s Possum, is critically endangered, and lives in the Central Highlands of Victoria. A new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria is urgently needed.

by Vivienne Ortega on behalf of AWPC

Sign the Petition

 

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Petition: Protect our native waterbirds – Ban duck shooting!

Please help our native waterbirds by lobbying to put an end to this cruelty and ban recreational duck shooting once and for all.

US ballistics expert and duck shooter, Tom Roster, has shown that at least one in four birds targeted are not killed but wounded (this figure was recognised by Victoria’s Department of Sustainability and Environment)

Shotguns spray hundreds of small pellets, resulting in ducks with fractured or broken legs, or legs shot off entirely, shattered bills, splintered wings, pellets through eyes and gunshot lodged in organs, muscles and tendons. This is grotesque cruelty and wounded birds face a slow, painful death. Rescuers have often seen birds stuffed into shooters’ bags while still alive.

Injured Eurasian Coot - Kerang -17.5 Kim Wormald

(image: This wounded protected Eurasian Coot was recovered by rescuers at Lake Murphy on May 17. It was treated by a wildlife carer and released at a sanctuary last weekend. Photo by Kim Wormald)

The opening weekend attracted 14,000 hunters across the state, with 26,000 people authorised to hunt ducks. The government says a survey of the state’s 47,000 licensed game hunters found the industry was worth almost $440 million a year. It seems that even the tiniest creature has economic value, equated in dollars!

Laurie Levy, the campaign director with the Coalition Against Duck Shooting, has been an outspoken critic of the industry. “We had rescuers out every weekend of the duck shooting season,” he said.

Again this year, as well as protected and threatened species, lots of so called ‘game’ birds were saved from the shooters’ guns or recovered by rescuers, either dead or wounded.

Despite the dry and quiet season, 10 illegally shot threatened Freckled Ducks, Blue-billed Ducks and Musk Ducks were recovered by rescuers, as well as Swans, Hoary-headed Grebes, over 20 Eurasian Coot and other protected species.

Previous Labor governments in WA, NSW and Queensland have banned the barbaric activity, yet the Victorian Labor party still supports this grotesque cruelty.

(featured image: Freckled duck, Victoria. During the season, rescuers recovered over 100 dead or wounded waterbirds, including illegally shot threatened species such as Freckled Ducks, Blue-billed Ducks and Musk Ducks, as well as protected Hoary-headed Grebes, Eurasian Coots and a Swan)


Petition: Protect our native waterbirds – Ban duck shooting!
Letter to: Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews, Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford

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Petition:Protect koala habitat in an effort to better ensure koalas will not die off.

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Koalas are declining in rapid numbers because the trees where they spend a majority of their time are being quickly chopped down.

Roads are being built where there were once trees, increasing the risk that the animals will be hit by cars. In addition, when houses are built in place of the trees that once covered the particular land, the animals are in greater danger of being attacked by the dogs of the people who now live in the newly built houses.
Cutest_Koala

Up here in Queensland and New South Wales, they’ve got koalas that are declining rapidly, population’s dropping off the face of the Earth right on their doorstep and we’re not able to do anything about it, seemingly. In South East Queensland, the human population is increasing by more than 1000 people a week. This rapid population growth and increased need for houses is placing considerable pressure on the limited remaining koala habitat.

Currently, about 80 percent of the koalas’ habitat is almost completely ruined due to human encroachment. Only a small portion of this land is now protected. This is ironic when one considers that the koala is a protected species. Yet, because the koala’s habitat is constantly being destroyed, about 4,000 of these animals are killed by cars and dogs every year.

The human population of the narrow strip between Noosa and the Gold Coast – South East Queensland’s “200km city” – will swell by 2.2 million to 5.5 million in 30 years. It’s all part of the “big Australia” policy! That extra development will finally get rid of koalas in SE Queensland, something governments been working very hard to achieve for decades. Massive immigration coupled with a PM who doles out infrastructure funding not on need but only to those who follow his radical political ideology on asset sales.

Urge officials to protect larger areas of the eucalyptus forests where these animals live in order to help save them. If we don’t do something now, koalas may soon have no place in the wild that solely belongs just to them.

Sign the Petition

The Redlands koala population, estimated in 1999 to be 6,200 animals, has plummeted by approximately 75% (in 15 years). The koala was recently listed by your government as ‘vulnerable’ in Queensland with South East Qld suffering the greatest loss of koala numbers.
Habitat loss (to property developers and infrastructure) is the greatest threat to the koala’s survival followed by disease, vehicle strikes and domestic dog attacks.

On Line Petition to save koalas in the southern area of Redlands

Since European settlement, hundreds of species have become extinct in Australia, including at least 50 bird and mammal, 4 frog and more than 60 plant species. It is likely that other species have disappeared but without our knowledge. Many other species are considered to be threatened and are listed under Australian Government legislation as endangered or vulnerable. More than 310 species of native animals and over 1180 species of native plants are at risk of disappearing forever.

As long ago as 1994 the Australian Academy of Sciences advocated a maximum population for Australia of 24 million, a figure we are fast approaching and will soon exceed. In 2010 the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University looked at different levels of net overseas migration – from zero up to 260,000 p.a. – and found that all levels lead to worryingly unsustainable positions, which worsen the higher the levels become.

(featured image: koala dead at Redlands- Queensland government)

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Please proclaim the Great Koala National Park!

Minister for the Environment, Minister for Heritage, and Assistant Minister for Planning The Hon. Mark Raymond SPEAKMAN, SC MP
Minister for Primary Industries, and Minister for Lands and Water The Hon. Niall BLAIR, MLC
Please proclaim the Great Koala National Park!

Dear Minister Speakman and Minister Blair,

In signing this petition I am writing to express my concern over the alarming decline of koalas in NSW and to pledge my support for the Great Koala National Park. I strongly believe that this park is the best chance we have of securing a future for this iconic species in NSW.

Koala numbers have plummeted by a third in just 20 years and habitat loss, due to land clearing and urban development, has already resulted in koalas disappearing from 75% of their former range.

Populations were under serious threat from land clearing, disease, dog attacks and cars.

The Victorian Government is on the verge of establishing a new national park to protect their faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum. Yet here in New South Wales and across Australia, the koala, our national icon is declining rapidly. Please don’t stand by and watch this happen.

Large  protected areas like the Great Koala National Park remain the single most effective tool for conserving biodiversity worldwide.

The proposed 315,000-hectare national park would protect the Bellingen-Nambucca-Macleay and the Coffs Harbour-Guy Fawkes koala meta-populations. It is estimated the area outlined for protection contains 4500 – or 20 per cent – of NSW’s remaining koalas. The proposal would add about 176,000 hectares of state forest to the existing 140,000 hectare local national parks estate.

Please consider that this new reserve would not only protect two nationally significant koala metapopulations containing 20% of NSW’s remaining wild koalas, but also the many threatened species that share their home, such as the Spotted-Tailed Quoll, Hastings River Mouse and Powerful Owl.

The short-term gains of unsustainable forest logging are far outweighed by the economic, social and biodiversity benefits the new park would bring.

I urge you to commit to creating the Great Koala National Park so that future generations can enjoy koalas in the wild, as we do today.


Sign the Petition

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