Well, it’s got to be the platypus. Everything about the platypus is utterly ridiculous. The fact that this animal even exists is is a defiant middle finger to everything we traditionally thought about how mammals work. It’s no secret that it looks weird, but I doubt many know just how weird it truly is, so let’s take a deep dive into the platypus world.
The Australia-India Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement reconfirms that Australian Prime Minister Albanese stands for an ‘Excessively Big Australia’, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). Voters are coming off third best.
Yesterday at 6.00pm about 200 people gathered on Parliament House steps, Spring Street, Melbourne to show their support for the proposed "Great Forest National Park" and to highlight the need for areas to be included to be protected from logging in the interim.
This rally was under the auspices of The Wilderness Society and of The Victorian National Parks Association. Other smaller groups joined in e.g. Rubicon Forest Protection Group Inc. This group has put out an excellent pamphlet about the need for forest conservation.
".....the extensive logging road network cuts though previously intact ash forests and Antarctic Beech/rainforest communities alongside waterways....many coupes show poor regeneration of mountain and alpine ash while others become a monoculture of ash trees lacking a diversity of understorey shrubs and ferns.......Logging or killing by fires of 1939 regrowth mountain ash forests, results in an initial rise in streamflow due to reduced transpiration, but aged 10-15 years the growing forest starts to use more water. Importantly, this effect of lower water yields lasts many decades...." rubiconforest.org
The Wilderness Society says
"...with Melbourne's population set to explode to over 7 million in the next few decades , water security is a huge issue. These Mountain Ash forests provide most of Melbourne's drinking water...intact forests produce conditions that actually increase rainfall and purify our air and water...... "
A point of interest is that parks surrounding Sydney total 1,094,207 ha. Parks surrounding Melbourne total 168,891 ha and, with the Great Forest National Park, would total 522,104ha
The great importance of this rally and the forest issue to the people of Melbourne is that it is all on the city's doorstep.
What can we do?
Participate in online poll "Should the Fairy Possums's forest habitat be protected from logging while the Great Forest National Park is being created?" wilderness.org.au/possumpoll
Show your support for the creation of The Great Forest National Park Text #GFNP to 0428029437
"Like" the GFNP on Facebook at Facebook.com/greatforestnp
"My question is: what is gained by delisting SBBs? Will the government be able to save some money on fox and cat control and will developers receive the green light to build houses in bandicoot habitat? We certainly have not been told everything. To declare SBBs safe because in one or two areas where fox control slightly increased their numbers is absolutely ridiculous. Take that money away and see what will happen." If readers want to make their voice heard on threatened species the address is species.consultation[at]environment.gov.au
The Director
Marine and Freshwater Species Conservation Section
Wildlife, Heritage and Marine Division
Department of the Environment
PO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601
Re: Delisting of the Southern Brown Bandicoot
I have been involved with Southern Brown Bandicoots (SBB) for more than 40 years. I live in Frankston where I remember finding SBBs all over the Mornington Peninsula, in the Frankston area and especially in the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve where they were recognised as the largest and strongest colony in the region. Sadly, I have observed them gradually disappearing from all of these areas and in many of these places they have become extinct.
How could this be allowed to happen? Since 2001, when the species was put on the endangered list, a SBB recovery group was established and SBBs were selected as the flagship species in the Western Port Biosphere Reserve so that they would receive special attention. At least five major workshops were held involving hundreds of people, among them many scientists, government agencies, private consultants and landholders. In addition, countless meetings of the SBB recovery team were held at many different places. During the same time the Victorian government created strategy after strategy for the recovery and protection of them but so far, none of them work.
Sadly, no SBBs or habitat areas were recovered anywhere in this region. At the Pines, where some SBBs were still remaining, at least $120,000 was spent on fox and cat control. It was unsuccessful and the last SBBs were lost as well. It is now high time to admit to the grand failure in protecting this species especially in this region.
As for my understanding, SBBs are not a corridor living species by nature and need to be provided with habitat in large reserves as is the case at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne and can be in the Pines Reserve, Briars Park in Mt Martha and several other reserves that are surrounded by a predator-proof fence. We desperately need some insurance colonies before we gamble with the rest that still survive in the wild.
If not, and if this current scenario goes on much longer, we will soon reach the point where the species will come down in numbers as the Eastern Barred Bandicoot did when, at the lowest stage, only 50 animals survived and where captive breeding had to prevent them from becoming totally extinct on the mainland. Even after some numbers were increased, the government managed to make some huge blunders with them (long story). Why have we not learned from this?
My question is: what is gained by delisting SBBs? Will the government be able to save some money on fox and cat control and will developers receive the green light to build houses in bandicoot habitat? We certainly have not been told everything. To declare SBBs safe because in one or two areas where fox control slightly increased their numbers is absolutely ridiculous. Take that money away and see what will happen.
Hans Brunner
M. App. Sc. Deakin University
The following article is based on an urgent communication from Friends of Leadbeater's Possum.
- Approx 43% of the Leadbeater's Possum Permanent Reserve System (30,000ha) was burnt in the 2009 fires.
- It is estimated remaining populations are around just 1,000 individuals in the wild.
- There are no Leadbeater's Possum in captivity in Australia, and there is no captive breeding program planned
to help increase their population.
- Massive scale salvage logging and new timber harvesting coupes in areas of un?burnt water catchments are compounding the effects of the bushfires by removing all LBP habitat elements for the next few hundred years!
What can you do to help LBPs this Threatened Species Day???
On September 7th please make the effort to contact Premier Brumby and let him know you are not happy with the way his government is treating our forests and that you want more to be done to protect these forests for threatened species like Leadbeater’s Possum.
- Demand a full scale review of our forest estate – before any more logging coupes or salvage logging coupes are approved.
We need to ensure our State Government is managing our forests for threatened species, biodiversity & ecological values,
carbon storage, water catchments and air quality – for all Australians, not just those benefiting from our destructive
timber harvesting industry.
- Demand an end to all logging in water catchments. Water scarcity is an increasingly alarming issue, and rather than building destructive pipelines and energy intensive desalination plants, Victoria should be protecting the water catchments
that have provided us with some of the best drinking water in the world!
- Demand more resources be spent on threatened species management, including broad scale monitoring programs, habitat enhancement measures & community engagement.
To Contact Premier John Brumby:
www.premier.vic.gov.au, Twitter: ‘vicpremier’
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JohnBrumbyMP
For more about saving the little Leadbeater's Possum contact
Friends of the Leadbeater's Possum
Email Friends of Leadbeater's Possum
PO Box 1175
Healesville VIC 3777
[email protected]
www.leadbeaters.org.au
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