Australian wildlife protection

It is commonly accepted that the dingo arrived in Australia approximately 4,000 years ago, and that the current population of dingoes across Australia grew from just one pregnant female. However, this was just an hypothesis posited by geneticist Dr Alan Wilton (deceased), and was never meant to be taken as fact. In the last paper he wrote before he died, Dr Wilton suggested that dingoes were more likely to have been introduced some 11,000 – 18,000 years ago [1]. In a recent genetics study, Dr Wilton’s partner, Dr Kylie Cairns found that there were most likely two introductions of dingoes to Australia, not just one .[2] One introduction was to the North-west of the country, and the other was to the South-east.

#CED8F6;line-height:120%;">Candobetter.net editor: The remarkable photographs of dingos in this document were taken by the author, Jennifer Parkhurst. As well as being a naturalist with years of dingo-dedicated fieldwork behind her, Jennifer Parkhurst is a great photographer. She is the author of two illustrated books about Dingos, Vanishing Icon and the most recent, The Butchulla First Nations People of Fraser Island (K’Gari) and their dingoes.

It is also commonly thought that dingoes were brought to Australia by Asian seafarers, but another hypothesis is that dingoes spread into what is now Australia via the land bridge between Papua New Guinea and Australia, some 8,000 years ago. Dingoes were declared indigenous to Australia in 1992 and are protected under legislation. However, they are also classified as a pest animal due to their predation on livestock, and with varying legislation in each state, the complexities of protecting them as a native taxon can be very frustrating.

Current taxonomy classifies the dingo as a subspecies of Canis lupus (wolf) that is, Canis lupus dingo . However, the classification Canis dingo was proposed in a 2014 study that established a reference description of the dingo based on pre-20th century specimens that are unlikely to have been influenced by hybridisation. [3] Dingoes are now, therefore, increasingly considered a species in their own right. However, current methods of identifying dingoes are inadequate because natural variation within dingo populations is poorly understood. Skull morphology and DNA testing techniques are not reliable. Geneticist, Dr Alan Wilton, who developed the current dingo purity test, stipulated that dingoes which test between 75 and 100 per cent pure should be treated as ‘pure’ for the purposes of conservation in the wild. In addition, there is considerable differentiation in the colour of dingoes including numerous combinations of white, ginger, black, and black and tan. Most people expect dingoes to be ginger and deem anything of a different colour to be hybrid.

Hybridisation of dingoes is said to be the biggest threat to their survival. However there is little evidence that moderately hibridised dingoes are dangerous to the environment. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. Most all modern dingoes will have some genetic dog markers, but they behave and act like dingoes. Dingoes howl instead of barking, reproduce only once a year, and live in stable packs. It is only when these packs are fractured due to lethal control that hybridisation becomes more likely. A stable pack contains an alpha male and female, and offspring from the previous year plus pups. The alpha male and female suppress breeding by subordinate pack members, naturally keeping the population in balance. Dingoes can suppress breeding altogether in times of drought, fire, or when food is low for any other reason. A domestic dog would have a great deal of trouble infiltrating a stable dingo pack. However, if, due to lethal control, the pack is fractured, then the subordinate members would be more likely to mate with domestic dogs, thus creating a situation where there are more dingoes, not less. With no stable pack to teach the new parents and pups how to behave and what to hunt, they become like unruly teenagers and run amok, hunting anything and everything indiscriminately. Subsequently, the use of lethal control causes more problems than it solves.

Dingoes are territorial and are formidable in protecting their territories from intruders. Dingoes will only take farm stock if there is a shortage of natural food, and studies have shown that despite the fact that dingoes are regarded as predators of sheep and cattle, domestic livestock do not comprise a significant part of foods eaten. [4]

Stable dingo packs, therefore, offer a level of protection to farms from intruders such as free-ranging domestic dogs which are known to attack stock at will, not with the intention of eating what they kill, but killing without purpose. When a pack is fractured, these domestic dogs, which form into packs at night, predate on stock animals. Pastoralists who do not use lethal control on their properties find that they have less stock predation than those who do. [5]

Even so, there is little chance that severely hybridised offspring would survive in the wild. Without the characteristics of the dingo which are tailored to Australia’s harsh environment, hybrids would die out quickly. If they manage to survive and reproduce, eventually, after several generations, the genetics revert back to the ancestral dingo form.

Herein lies a conservation dilemma: some dingo conservationists want to preserve only pure dingoes, while others want to conserve dingo hybrids as well. There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that protecting dingo hybrids is beneficial for the environment as long as they are performing their role as top-order predator, protecting our native animals from introduced species like feral cats, foxes, pigs, goats and deer. They also keep native animals such as kangaroos at bay, which left unchecked, can cause just as many if not more problems for farmers as the dingoes themselves, by eating pasture grass and drinking stock water.

Dingoes are protected in national parks; however the same national parks are baited with sodium monofluoroacetate(1080 poison) to control foxes, paradoxically making national parks extremely hostile places for our top-order predator to live. This bait is indiscriminate and cruel, and not only kills foxes, but of course, dingoes, as well as other non-target animals like the endangered quoll, birds of prey, goannas and any carrion-eating animal. 1080 is said to be harmless to the environment because it is derived from native plants, but the bait is a synthetic substance which our native animals have no tolerance for. There is no antidote. 1080 can stay active in the environment, polluting waterways and flora, for 12 months or more. Again, baiting has the capacity to destroy dingo pack structure and cause social dysfunction within dingo populations, in turn undermining their ecosystem function. Despite unrelenting baiting, farmers are finding that they still have problems with dingoes. Efforts to eradicate dingoes are not working. Predator-friendly farming should be the way of the future.

Australia is the only country where its top-order predator is not safe anywhere.

Some states of Australia have a ‘wild dog’ bounty system in place, paying up to $120 per dingo scalp. Bounties have been found to be ineffective at reducing dingo numbers (or foxes or whatever else is targeted).

In a recent media release (17 Nov 2016) The Wilderness Society stated:

Previously, dingoes and wild dogs were targeted strategically, in areas where farmers were experiencing stock loss problems.

In contrast, the bounty system applies to very large areas – over half of the relevant public land in eastern Victoria is subject to the bounty – regardless of whether livestock protection is required.

The key issues are poorly informed members of the public unnecessarily killing dingoes and dingo hybrids, and the subsequent disruption of pack structures - believed to result in changes to territorial boundaries, and the increased risk of hybridisation and stock loss.

Lost in all of this is the importance the dingo holds for the Aboriginal First Nations People. Irrespective of when and how the dingo came to Australia, it was immediately adopted by the Aboriginal people and took on an important role in their lives. It is speculated that dingoes helped with hunting, but this sometimes questioned. We do know that the Aboriginal people were very fond of their dingoes; women nursed them from their own breasts as puppies, or expressed milk for them; when the adults went hunting, dingoes were left behind at camp to look after the children, keeping them safe from both evil spirits, and more corporeal dangers, like snakes and other intruders. Dingoes were often carried on walkabout, and were objects of great affection. In some tribes, dingoes were a totem animal; sacred. If a dingo was harmed in any way, punishment was often death. When a person died, often times his dingo companion was buried with him. [6]

The Aboriginal people have practically no voice in the ‘dingo: friend or foe’ debate, except perhaps on Fraser Island where they have stated that the white people first tried to eradicate them, and now they are trying to eradicate their dog.

‘They had us leave this Country, removed us, and it looks like they want to remove the dingoes. It is history repeating itself, only [now] it is the dingoes, which is part of our life. When the dingo is endangered, we feel like part of our culture is endangered.’ [7]

The dingo has always been an ancient semi-domesticate animal, living symbiotically with the Aboriginal people and up until recently, in places on Fraser Island, with white Australians. For the most part today the dingo is elusive, but historically dingoes often befriended wandering swaggies or cattlemen on their journeys across the country or around their properties.

So how do we save the dingoes? The National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program Inc (NDPRP) is currently focusing its energies on two places: Victoria, in the hope we can set precedents there, which we can then lobby other states with; and Fraser Island in Queensland because of the impending extinction of the iconic Fraser Island dingo which has its own unique characteristics.

The members of the NDPRP were instrumental in having the dingo listed as a threatened species in Victoria, under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. Although protections are in place for ‘pure’ dingoes under this Act, those protections are currently being undermined by the influence of two fishers and hunters members in the Victorian Legislative Council, who exercise disproportionate influence over the Victorian government. It is this influence which explains the recent reintroduction of a ‘wild dog’ bounty in Victoria despite Victoria having been the first state to list the dingo as threatened.

Over the past two decades or so, a body of research evidence has grown, which shows that stable, healthy dingo populations have a net beneficial effect upon ecosystem stability. This research coincided with a growing international focus on the importance of apex predators for ecosystem maintenance and presented a direct challenge to entrenched anti-dingo prejudice in Australia. More recently, there has been a concerted counter-reaction from extreme elements within the pastoral lobby in an attempt to discredit earlier apex predator research findings and to reassert anti-dingo dogma.

In collaboration with the Humane Society International, the Wilderness Society, the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, Save Fraser Island Dingoes, Eagle’s Nest Wildlife Sanctuary, scientists, and other groups, we are constantly lobbying for legislative change on a number of issues, the main two being 1/ to broaden the definition of the dingo, and 2/ to cease lethal control, or limit areas where it is deployed.

Other measures to protect livestock have been shown to be very effective, including the use of Maremma guard dogs. Financial compensation for stock loss might also be tried. The cost of lethal control would far outweigh the cost of reimbursing farmers for stock loss.

The most effective form of dingo control however, would be to leave dingoes alone, stop lethal control altogether, and let the ecosystem recover.

18 November 2016

Jennifer Parkhurst
Vice President – National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program Inc (A0051763G )
Consultant – Save Fraser Island Dingoes
Email the author http://www.fraserislandfootprints.com/

[1]Mattias C. R. Oskarsson1, Cornelya F. C. Klu¨ tsch, Ukadej Boonyaprakob, Alan Wilton, Yuichi Tanabe and Peter Savolainen. 2011. Mitochondrial DNA data indicate an introduction through Mainland Southeast Asia for Australian dingoes and Polynesian domestic dogs. Proc. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1395
[2] Cairns, Kylie M. Wilton, Alan N. New insights on the history of canids in Oceania based on mitochondrial and nuclear data
Genetica DOI 10.1007/s10709-016-9924-z
[3] Crowther, M. S.; M. Fillios; N. Colman; M. Letnic (27 Mar 2014). "An updated description of the Australian dingo (Canis dingo Meyer, 1793)". Journal of Zoology. 293 (3): 192. doi:10.1111/jzo.12134.
[4] SJO Whitehouse. 1977. The Diet of the Dingo in Western Australia. Aust Wildlife Res, 1977, 4, 145-50
[5] ABC Rural. 2013.Lee Allen: Surprise finding: dog baiting increases stock loss.
[6] Australian Dingo Conservation Foundation. http://www.dingoconservation.org.au/aboriginal.html
[7]Jennifer Parkhurst. 2015. The Butchulla First Nations People of Fraser Island (K’Gari) and their dingoes. Australian Wildlife Protection Council, Ross House, Melbourne Victoria.

President of the National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program Inc., research veterinarian and animal research ethics expert, Dr Ian Gunn, has called upon the Queensland Environment Minister, the Hon. Dr Steven Miles, to initiate and independent inquiry into cruelty and mismanagement of the dingo population on Fraser Island as a matter of urgency.

Collaring causing animals distress

Dr Gunn stated that the recent inappropriate collaring of a juvenile dingo, which had obviously put the animal in distress was the latest in a sequence of events which raise serious questions about animal welfare aspects of current dingo management practices on Fraser Island.

This incident involved the use of a cumbersome radio tracking collar on a juvenile dingo, which was purportedly being tracked for public safety reasons. Photographs taken by a tourist clearly show that the edges of the collar had worn away the fur on the dingo’s neck and would have unnecessarily interfered with the young dingo’s mobility and well-being. After pictures of the dingo were made public, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service decided to remove the collar. However the young dingo was killed by a vehicle strike, incurring massive internal injuries, before the collar could be removed. “These events raise serious animal welfare questions” Dr Gunn said.

Ethics and duplicate tracking devices

Dr Gunn stated: “Why was a radio tracking collar used when ear tag identification was already attached to the dingo? What animal ethics approval had been obtained by the QPWS to use the collar for non-research purposes? If ethics approval was acquired, questions need to be raised about thoroughness of the approval process. Why was a collar also applied to this juvenile dingo’s litter sister, when no radio tracking was intended for that animal? There appears to be no consistent rationale for the use of the collars and serious questions about animal welfare are left without adequate answers”.

Unanswered animal welfare questions

These events follow an incident, in 2015, when another juvenile dingo was ‘humanely’ euthanased after allegedly becoming aggressive. Necropsy photographs obtained through Queensland Right to Information legislation point to severe physical trauma prior to death. Dr Gunn, who conferred with senior veterinary colleagues over the photographic evidence, concluded that the dingo had suffered massive internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity consistent with a heavy blow or impact prior to being put down through lethal injection to the heart. Yet, there is no discussion of this evidence in the inadequate official necropsy report. Dr Gunn stated that: “Again, we have evidence of unacknowledged animal trauma and unanswered animal welfare questions.”

Necropsy report , October 2015

Internal bleeding within abdominal cavity – severe pre-death trauma

Possibly the most serious dingo cruelty incident at the hands of Queensland wildlife authorities occurred on Fraser Island in May 2011, as part of dingo trapping for radio collaring research. The necropsy report for this juvenile male dingo reads like a horror story. Upon examination of the report at the time, Dr Ian Gunn stated:

In all my years as a veterinary surgeon, I have never witnessed anything like this. This animal died in agony while trapped and restrained as part of ‘research’ being conducted by Queensland government authorities charged with its protection. The necropsy report stated that the otherwise healthy dingo had been restrained for ‘some period of time’. It had been pinned down by a pole noose and pinning device. It had chipped and fractured teeth, extensive internal bleeding, including widespread bruising and haemorrhaging to the thorax, limbs, neck and lumbar spine region, bleeding from the eye, tearing of the muscles between the ribs and the chest wall, and congested and collapsed lungs. In its final moments of life, the dingo vomited its stomach contents into its airways.

Necropsy report 2011

The National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program subsequently sent a solicitors letter to the relevant Queensland government departments and Ministers alleging serious breaches of the law and inadequate animal ethics practices relating to this incident. No acknowledgement was received, let alone action taken. Not one person was held to account.

“It is time for the buck to stop and it has to stop with either the Queensland Environment Minister, or the Federal Minister for the Environment who, because of Fraser Island’s World Heritage Listing, has compliance responsibilities under the EPBC Act”, Dr Gunn said. “The Queensland government’s claim that the Fraser Island dingo population is being managed ‘humanely’ is now in serious doubt. The only way to get to the bottom of this mess and possible cover up is to conduct a genuinely independent animal welfare inquiry into dingo management on Fraser Island.”

David Packham, former bushfire CSIRO scientist, is urging more 'fuel reduction' burns to our precious bushland. But more and more people are noticing that wildlife are not 'bouncing back' after the constant burning in Victoria. The yearly target of burning five per cent of public land, purportedly to reduce bushfire risk in Victoria (after the 2009 bushfires), means that within 20 years or even less, there will be no viable bushland left in this state on public land if people allow this to happen. Forests and their inhabitants just do not recover from this kind of assault, despite common propaganda that this is 'normal' for Australia. Kooris have since denied that this was their practice. People need to ask themselves, 'Who benefits?" when they hear calls for even more burning. The forestry industry benefits by replanting rows of straight pines which provide little habitat for animals and are in fact very flammable. The property development industry also benefits when bushland is razed by fire.

After the devastation of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission set a yearly target to burn five per cent of public land to reduce bushfire risk across the state.

According to former CSIRO bushfire scientist, David Packham, forest fuel levels have worsened over the past 30 years because of “misguided green ideology”, vested interests, political failure and mismanagement, creating a massive bushfire threat.

He is arguing that unless the annual fuel reduction burning target, currently at a minimum of 5 per cent of public land, “is doubled or preferably tripled, a massive bushfire disaster will occur”!

Rather than Victoria’s “failed forest management” being a threat, our State’s excessive and draconian response of 5% to be burnt each year is itself a threat to forest environments. We must live with Nature, not destroy it with draconian “management”.

This expert is failing to see the forests for the trees, and seems to think that the wholesale destruction of forests, with more burning, will “save” them – in a maligned effort to protect human lives and assets?

Many academics are promoting fire for forestry and mining. The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre shares a chairman with the cooperative Research Centre Mining and the forestry Co-operative research Centre based at Tasmania University.

State agencies will choose the easiest route of randomly burning sensitive environments, to fill quotas, and in the process kill off flora, fauna and habitat features as mere collateral damage!

Reports published by the CSIRO and BirdLife Australia cite “inappropriate fire regimes” as threatening more than 50 Australian mammal and 50 Australian bird species.

They concede that to some extent the old adage ‘fight fire with fire’ applies. Used well, fire is an effective, economical tool for land managers.

Reintroduction of occasional fire into some landscapes, and return to a finer mosaic of burning, will not prevent wildfires; it may, however, reduce their impact, by maintaining fire-dependent habitat and

protecting fire-sensitive birds. Kakadu National Park, subjected to decades of management burning, has all but lost its fauna from too frequent fire, which is likely the cause of the loss of the hollow dependent Gouldian Finch from vast areas of its frequently burned former range.

(image:”GouldianFinches” by Nigel Jacques (Kris) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons)

The original forests of Gippsland were not flammable, settlers of Fish Creek were not able to burn the forest to clear land until the railway line was cut through, bringing in a ‘draft’. This is a common story Australia wide in formerly wet forested areas.

Climate change is also said to be playing a role, with the biennial Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO State of the Climate Report 2014 finding that rising greenhouse gas emissions are causing fire seasons to lengthen and are contributing to an increase in the number of fire risk days, particularly in the south-east of Australia.

Bill Gammage is an Adjunct Professor at the Humanities Research Centre, studying Aboriginal land management at the time of contact. He has convinced quite a few environmentally concerned people through his book ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth’ that regular burning is needed. It contains many fundamental flaws and represents ‘blind advocacy’ for repeated burning’ because ‘Aboriginal people did it’. Mooney et. al. examined over 200 sediment cores of 70,000 years or more of age to determine fire frequency. They found that fire frequency increased 50 fold with the arrival of Europeans.

However, more fires to fight fire is like using a sledge hammer to drive in a tack, or killing fleas on a dog with a shotgun!

Joel Wright, a Gunditjmara Linguist, has found no evidence of landscape burning in the Victorian western district but outlined the use of fire for smoke signals, and as an effective weapon against settlers. Research shows that fires have increased 50 fold since European settlement, so “fuel reduction” to make the bush less flammable seems to be having the opposite effect.

Natural ecological functions have always existed to limit fires, such as fungi, bacteria, insects, native species, high forest densities and tree canopies.

The Andrews government will review the minimum 5 per cent burning target in response to a Inspector-General’s report. Five years ago, both major parties backed the “minimum of 5 per cent” target, a key recommendation of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission held after Black Saturday.

Fire management needs to be multidisciplinary, and not simply about human welfare, stock and property assets. The timing of the burns should also take heed of breeding times and seasons for the species present, particularly those that are already rare or threatened due to the loss of habitat, food or human encroachment. We need to work out how we carry out our works without disturbing the nesting, roosting and breeding times for those animals in that immediate areas near human settlements.

Fire management needs to be optimised and based on where the greatest risks are, not on the metrics of hectares or percentages of Victoria’s landscape.

What have Penrith Council done to address wild dog problem at the old ADI Site, where environmentalists attempted to resist Lend Lease clearing of wildlife rich, rare Cumberland Woodlands for years? Kangaroos killed by wild dogs metres from new houses at Jordan Springs. Lend Lease have been licenced by the NSW Environment Minister to manage the remnant Kangaroo population which is now contained within the proposed 900 ha Wianamatta Regional Park.

Western Sydney Conservation Alliance Inc
20th November 2013

The last remaining Kangaroos and Emus at the old ADI Site in Penrith are under attack from wild dogs with recent photo evidence showing one such attack on a large male Kangaroo took place only metres from new houses being developed by property giant Lend Lease. Lend Lease have been licenced by the NSW Environment Minister to manage the remnant Kangaroo population which is now contained within the proposed 900 ha Wianamatta Regional Park. The proposed Regional Park adjoins the Lend Lease housing development. Lend Lease, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and Penrith Council have known of the the wild dog problem on the ADI Site for many years.

In February this year when Emus were escaping from the ADI Site and wandering the streets of Penrith a report came before Penrith Council on the issue of Lend Leases macrofauna management practices. A WSCA member addressed the Council meeting and raised the issue of wild dogs hunting Kangaroos and Emus. Council at the time resolved to write to Lend Lease, National Parks and Wildlife and Robyn Parker the NSW Environment Minister about feral animal management. http://bizsearch.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/pccbps/Open/2013/CNL_04022013_MIN_WEB.HTM

Failure to maintain fencing endangers roos and children

“The fact that Kangaroos are being killed by dogs metres from new houses at Jordan Springs nine months after Penrith Council resolved to do something about the issue tells us that Penrith Council has failed to take this matter seriously. If a large male Kangaroo can be killed by dogs at the site so could a child. This is not just a matter of environmental destruction this is a matter of public health and safety involving the residents of Penrith. That risk is real as photo evidence shows Lend Lease are failing to maintain fencing between the houses and the proposed Regional Park”.

“The Jordan Springs development, supported by Penrith Council, has been an environmental and social disaster with hundreds of hectares of critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland turned to moonscape and our local roads in chaos due to traffic congestion and road works. And now Penrith Council is doing nothing to stop the poor old Kangaroos, that once called Jordan Springs home, being decimated by wild dogs.”

Council cheer-leader for Lend Lease, need to represent citizens

“Council must finally act on this matter and stop being a cheer leader for Lend Lease. Council is fully aware that Lend Lease and Robyn Parker the NSW Environment Minister have legal responsibilities for the welfare of Kangaroos of Emus at the ADI Site and to have a feral animal management plan in place to control animals such as dogs.”

Macrofauna reduction program and wild dogs

“In granting development zonings to Lend Lease over ten years ago the NSW Government required them to develop and implement a feral animal reduction program. This clearly is not happening as wild dogs have been on the site for years. The NSW Government also required Lend Lease to implement a Macrofauna population reduction program – a program meant to be overseen by the NSW Environment Minister. Lend Lease has spent millions of dollars on a sterilisation program and it is feared they are turning a blind eye to the wild dogs because the dogs are assisting them to quickly bring down the Kangaroo numbers.”

“Penrith Council, the NSW Government and Lend Lease appear complicit in this further attack on western Sydney's dwindling populations of macro fauna.”

Geoff Brown
President
Western Sydney Conservation Alliance Inc
0431 222602

The current system of protection is failing Australian wildlife. Too little too late. Does legislation claiming to protect really cause habitat destruction? Current legislation let wildlife numbers fall too low, creating genetic bottlenecks that reduce long term chance of species survival. Even the largest national park is just a gene puddle, rather than a gene pool, if it is not connected to other habitat.

Article by James Fitzgerald, NSW Wildlife Council

Photo of Koala Todd. James Fitzgerald looked after Todd for 3 months last year. Todd was found starving to the north of Cooma NSW, in open farmland without a gum tree in sight. A young dispersing male, he was looking for a new population to join but with so much habitat cleared he ended up lost in open grassland, underweight, dehydrated and starving. After Todd regained weight and was cleared by the Vet he was successfully released back into the wild on 30 November 2011.

Small step in the right direction

The federal government’s decision to list the koala as threatened in NSW and Queensland, is a small step in the right direction but unfortunately does not prevent logging in the koala forests of NSW or Queensland.

Pre 1788 koala population and fire reduction service

The Australian koala population prior to British settlement is estimated at having exceeded 10 million. A population of this size would reduce bushfire risk by providing over two million tonnes per year of hazard reduction eating of gum leaves. Gum leaves are the most explosively flammable part of the Australian bush. Too often little recognition is given to the positive services Australian wildlife would provide if normal population levels were re-established.

A significant factor in the fragmentation of the Australian koala population was the large-scale killing of koalas for their skins in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In Queensland in just one month August 1927, some 584,000 koala skins were sold.
Australia’s fragmented koala population could now be as low as 40,000 and declining.

habitat fragmentation reduces species survival chance

It is a long-established scientific fact that fragmented populations of animals become genetically weaker over time. The genetic weakness then causes the fragmented populations to start to die out as they are no longer able to fight diseases or adapt to changes in their environment. The correct approach to save the koala is to restore habitat within a system of wildlife corridors to enable the koala gene pool to flow via the normal dispersal of young males.

Australian laws hard to trust

There is a growing concern that the current system of protection is failing Australian wildlife. It is often too little too late. Some koala conservationists would go so far to claim that legislation aimed to protect actually enables the destruction of koala habitat.
In any case, current protections allow animal numbers to get down to low numbers, creating genetic bottlenecks that significantly reduce their long term survival prospects.

Need to restore koalas to at least 1 million - ten per cent of pre-1788 population

The NSW Wildlife Council believes that a benchmark based on pre-British settlement population estimates should be used to restore wildlife populations to at least 10 per cent of the estimate by re-establishing gene pools, habitat and wildlife corridors. Using pre-British estimates as a benchmark recognises the inter-relational connectivity of species. The current wildlife protection system does not provide for the many mutually beneficial relationships that exist in the natural world.

Gene puddles vs gene pools

It is important to consider that even the largest national park is just a gene puddle if it is not connected to other habitat.

Wildlife rehabilitation groups know that male animals are over represented in road kill because of their need to disperse and find other populations. Prior to the large-scale killing of koalas for their skins the koala gene pool flowed up and down and across most of eastern Australia. For koalas to survive in the long term, the fragmented populations need habitat restored and most likely a supplementary breeding program guided by geneticists to reconnect the populations. The aim to rebuild the koala population to at least 10 per cent of pre-British estimates using this method is not unachievable. All it needs is community and political will.

Restore habitat and wildlife corridors to rebuild the koala population

As the koala population is rebuilt it would be necessary to re-establish animals like the Powerful Owl, as this predator would play its role in ensuring survival of the fittest by taking the occasional young koala from an unfit or inattentive koala mother. Other animals like the glider possum that help pollinate trees and is also a prey species for the Powerful Owl would need to be rebuilt so that the Powerful Owl didn’t focus all of its attention on the koala. It is these types inter-relational connections across species and the roles they play in the natural world that are not recognised in the current system of wildlife protection in Australia.

Create buffer of wildlife-friendly business with incentives

Wildlife corridors need to be defined and wildlife-friendly people and businesses encouraged to buy land along the corridors with conservation agreements and reduced rates. The bang for the buck is that wildlife corridors of re-established and connected habitat will benefit not just the koala but many other native plants and animals. It might be appropriate to reduce some of the native vegetation controls outside wildlife corridors. People would then have a choice based on their belief systems and or business needs as to where it would be best for them to live and or own land.

The 2007 United Nations Global Environmental Outlook 4 report (GEO-4), identified species collapse as a major environmental threat. We are now in the world’s sixth great extinction event. Current man-made extinction rates are 100 times higher than the base level in the fossil record.

Australia has the worst record for animal extinctions. The failure of the current protection system will end up with more animals endangered… not a functioning ecosystem. Fertility is a product of nature that is needed to replenish depleted soils that farmers and human food production ultimately depends.

Is the Australian public happy that since British settlement we have destroyed 99.5 per cent of Australia’s koala population? Most Australians have not seen a koala in the wild because of this destruction. It is now well overdue for Australia to rectify the wrongs of the past and rebuild a one million strong healthy connected koala population.

James Fitzgerald is the NSW Wildlife Council media officer.