Category: State by state

Share this page You can help. SINCE CHRISTMAS, WILDCARE, with the help of many affected property owners, and community volunteers, such as the Southern Tablelands 4WD Club, have been delivering essential food — grass, hay, pellets, bird seed, fruit/vegetables and ‘browse’ (native tree and shrub cuttings) — to known surviving animals, whose habitat has been destroyed. More than 40 food stations were positioned at strategic locations in and around the Tallaganda bushfire area, and in Michelago. These are being regularly replenished. Nesting boxes for possums and gliders have also been erected to provide shelter. It might appear that Wildcare is scratching the surface, but every animal saved will provide the nucleus to rejuvenate these areas in years to come. A Wildcare member’s wildlife sanctuary, destroyed by bushfire on 23 January, has used a koala-detection dog to seek out animals needing rescue. CAPTION: Peter, from Wildcare, installs a possum box. Wildcare has received some cash donations (they are always useful!) and has also been supported by the World Wildlife Fund. Local businesses have been tremendous with their donations of food and equipment. Hay continues to be available to support grass-eating native animals (to obtain hay contact haydrop@wildcare.com.au). On a weekly basis, Wildcare gathers native ‘browse’ (wattle, acacia, bottle brush, grevillea, flowers, new shoots etc) and fruit/vegetables. If you want to help please email haydrop@wildcare.com.au and find out what is needed and when. If you need local help and advice on wildlife issues, get in touch on Wildcare’s helpline 6299 1966 (put it in your Mobile phone) or via wildcare.com.au. Wildcare impacted by COVID-19 No areas of society are immune to the impact of COVID-19. Wildcare’s training program for current and new volunteers has also become a casualty with recently announced macropod and bird training courses being postponed. Indeed, all group training has been abandoned, until at least July. This does not mean Wildcare is shutting up shop — far from it. Providing a service to the community, in rescuing and rehabilitating injured and orphaned animals, is paramount and continues — albeit volunteers have to observe the government-directed social isolation rules, around people, just like anyone else. — Phillip Machin, Queanbeyan Wildcare, NSW

Share this page THE RECENT BUSHFIRES in eastern Australia have had an apocalyptic impact on the natural environment and wildlife, as the whole world now knows. What most Australians and overseas wildlife friends don’t know is some of the troubling response by state authorities. The NSW government has devised a plan called The Wildlife and Conservation Bushfire Recovery Plan put forward by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment with management by NSW National Parks. Sounds benign and much of it is. The suffering of some wildlife and the needs of citizen rescuers have been recognised in the plan’s proposed financial assistance to individuals and organisations, as well as with money for food drops and watering stations in areas of inaccessible bushland. Some good recovery actions are planned, see document link below for the department’s ‘Bushfire Recovery Plan’.   But there is a darker side — bringing new pain and death, thanks to Australia’s traditional lethal approach to managing predators and other animals inconvenient to agriculture, or indeed just Australian ideas of wildlife management. The department’s plan has a list of threatened and vulnerable native animals suffering from habitat loss, scarcity of food and water, and threats of predation by feral animals — including the Mountain Pygmy Possum, the Greater Glider, the White-footed Dunnart, the Stuttering Frog, and some wallabies. Rescue operations are named also for Platypus, Grey-headed flying foxes, Booroolong frogs, genetically important Koalas from the Blue Mountains region, Manning River Helmeted Turtles, Northern Corroboree Frogs. Well and good. But missing from the check list of animals that the authorities care about are more common species including larger kangaroos and wombats, birds of prey, and the Australian native dog the Dingo. Indeed, the dingo as a ‘wild dog’ and a list of non-native animals are the target of a shooting and poisoning campaign being launched on burned-out parks and reserves for the coming year, ostensibly to save the above threatened species. The poisoning blizzard has been spun by departmental aides armed with a barrage of statistics as being essential to benefit these vulnerable native animals. Is that so? History has made neighbouring landholders more enquiring and worried. One neighbouring landholder, worried for her own rescued animals and companion dogs, told the AWPC she learned from a state worker that the traditional motive for poisoning campaigns — sheep farmers lobbying National Parks to kill canine predators — is also at work here. It appears that dingos have simply been re-classified as wild dogs for the purposes of baiting which has been par for the course by the government’s Local Land Services for some time.     The Australian dingo among non-native animals targeted by shooting and poisoning campaign on burned-out public lands. Neighbours          worry. Animals listed to be killed are dogs, foxes, cats, deer, pigs, goats and rabbits. When broadscale lethal management is on the mind of authorities they reach for the gun and for 1080 poison. 1080 banned in most of the world 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) occurs naturally in some plants as a defence. It is considered so nasty a poison against mammals that it has been banned in most countries of the world nowadays and is accused of deleterious effects on a wider range of species beyond mammals. 1080 is used liberally in New Zealand and also in Australia because it is cheap and readily applied being colourless, odourless and tasteless so readily eaten by various species when in appealing baits. Animals that take in 1080 die a prolonged and agonising death whether directly or as non-target species including scavenging dogs and birds. A “scientific” experiment on the effects of 1080 poison on baited dingoes gave detailed accounts of vomiting, manic behaviour, convulsions and fits over a period of a time from hours to days. Many landholders have been agonised by a similar death of their pet dogs when living near baited state or private land. RELATED STORY: After the fires, 1080 baits pose new problem for animal sanctuary. By Michael Weaver, Riot Act! National Parks’ killing plan to run for 12 months, shooting and baiting. One million 1080 baits ready. Who pays and who benefits? 1,500–2,000 hours of aerial shooting localised follow-up and ground shooting up to 60,000 kilometres of aerial baiting deployment of up to 1,000,000 baits Dingo defender Susan Cruttenden from the NSW South Coast asks: How can dingoes and other carnivorous native animals such as the Spotted Quoll be given any sort of protection in what one official called “core areas” when they have been driven away from their regular habitats by fear, fire and hunger? The department said in response to questions from Cruttenden:  “Aerial baiting for wild dogs is designed to avoid core remote areas in parks where dingoes cause no harm, allowing dingoes to maintain their ecological function in these areas. “Scientific research has shown native animals including lace monitors and birds have a high tolerance to 1080. Research has also shown that aerial baiting does not significantly impact quolls populations. “Aerial baiting will comply with all relevant codes of practice and regulations, and will be informed by a risk assessment. Work will be carried out by an experienced National Parks and Wildlife Service staff team that has been delivering aerial baiting for two decades.” The responses add more questions and beg for sources of the Quoll research for example. Core areas and harm? Core areas of National Parks were burned as well, so recovering wildlife there no worry with wild dogs? Cruttenden repeats what other research has found — there are more effective and more humane ways of protecting farmers’ livestock from dingoes and other predatory animals. The apex predator role in nature is another issue. One sheep farmer we know of uses Alpaca guards and it works. A more holistic farming method includes the whole natural biodiversity from the soil up. Not killing native prey wallabies and kangaroos, or predators has worked on these farms with a balance established. In defence of the dingo and Australian biodiversity Canus lupus dingo has

Share this page Chris Gulaptis MP and the Nationals declare war on koalas CLARENCE NATIONAL PARTY MP Chris Gulaptis has opened a new front in the National Party’s war on koalas and conservation by demanding the new laws designed to prevent the species’ extinction be scrapped. [1] “On current trends, koalas are on track to become extinct in NSW by 2050,” Nature Conservation Council CEO Chris Gambian said. “The laws that Mr Gulaptis wants to tear up were drafted well before the summer bushfires, which killed thousands, wiped out local populations and pushed many others closer to extinction. “If anything, the government should be considering strengthening laws to protect this iconic species.” Mr Gambian said Mr Gulaptis’s threat to sit on the cross benches if the government didn’t scrap koala protections was the latest in a series of attacks by National MPs on koalas. “Nationals Leader John Barilaro has aggressively pushed to continue logging koala forests after the bushfires destroyed millions of hectares of prime habitat,” Mr Gambian said. “Several forests on the north coast that were among the last unburned koalas forests in the state have been targeted by Forestry Corporation for intensive logging with the state government’s blessing. “The Nationals are also behind moves to slash and burn national parks and allow cows to trample conservation reserves. “If we want our children and grandchildren to see koalas in the wild, we have to stop destroying their forests. “If Mr Gulaptis and John Barilaro get their way, the demise of the koala is guaranteed to happen even faster than projected.”

Share this page We join Sara Tilling and Gary Henderson once more, this time Sara talks about grief and loss and rebuilding the future from the caravan that is to be their temporary home. There is an impassioned thank you for the many of you from around the world that have given the support and kindness that will make a new future possible. “Like us, all living creatures don’t want to die and will fight to survive. Sometimes despite all odds we hang in there, not yet ready to leave for many reasons. Maybe just because you find someone that is prepared to sit with you, love you and give it their all to help you. To give you the strength to fight.” — Sara Tilling The money donated to the Cobargo Wildlife Sanctuary will be spent on rebuilding the wildlife care and rehabilitation infrastructure and equipment, compounds, sheds and the like. Money will also be spent on revegetating the property with the native plant species that will help to give the animals who come to live at the sanctuary in the future, the very best chance of a happy and successful life. There is a vast amount of work to be done. You can assist in this work by donating HERE. NOTE: Why it is critically important to donate to people and organisations working on the front line of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation in Australia. Sara mentions the attitudes of governments in Australia to wildlife and conservation. What has occurred over the last few days is telling. Some good, some very bad. The Commonwealth Government of Australia (Canberra) has pledged $50 million to assist wildlife in the firegrounds across this vast continent. The states most impacted at this time are New South Wales (Cobargo), Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. The $50 million in funding will be split between an expert advisory panel and community groups and Koalas will be a focus for restoration efforts, with as much as 30 per cent of Koala habitat destroyed. We shall see what happens. In New South Wales, where some 8.5 million hectares have been destroyed and whose current government’s attitudes to wildlife conservation are nothing less than egregious appear to be planning on businesses as usual with no changes to lax wildlife laws or the level of commercial or other permits being issued. “DPIE will be monitoring fire and harvesting activity within the commercial management zones and will be engaging with commercial harvesters and animal dealers that may operate within the affected zones,” the spokesperson said. “Our goal is to ensure that Kangaroo populations remain ecologically sustainable.” permit. This Government describes Koalas as overabundant (nonsense). In Victoria, the Victorian Government, although details and how these are to be enforced are vague, has suspended its relatively new and doomed Kangaroo Pet Food Industry. The commercial wildlife industry in Victoria is doomed because much of the populations of species being exploited are now gone because of the large numbers of animals killed in the last few years. As far as I can tell the Victorian Government has no plans to put a stop to the vast scale culling of wildlife it claims to be a nuisance or overabundant. In Victoria in the ten-year period 2009-2018 inclusive a total of 32,147 of these ATCW permits (not commercial) were issued for Australian species covering 1,513,605 animals across 82 native species including for 26,507 Wombats, in addition Wombats are unprotected in much of the state and killing them does not require a While not formally announced, the Victorian Government (its Ministers) have also flagged their intention to proceed with this year’s Duck shooting season despite the devastating impact on waterbird populations in Australia from heat events, long term and severe drought and now the horrific fires. South Australia has already announced that despite the devastating fires it will proceed with its Duck shooting season. Too little too late An area not that much smaller than Greece, has been destroyed in Australia over the last few weeks and because the firegrounds are so vast, the wildlife that does survive is in immediate danger of starvation and dehydration, all food has gone, and water sources, if they remain, are contaminated. The Australian Veterinary Association is desperately calling on the Victorian Government to airdrop food into inaccessible, bushfire-affected land in Victoria to save starving wildlife. “Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the Government was taking expert advice to get the best outcome for native wildlife and biodiversity. “We’re considering supplementary feeding for threatened species in targeted areas if and when it’s appropriate and safe to do so,” she said. As President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council I have called on the government to stop all wildlife killing activities and to begin food drops with immediate effect. Towards the end of 2019 it looked to me, with all the disasters and potential disasters that we describe here, that the Victorian Government were ‘culling’ wildlife in state and national parks in Victoria. The response I received beyond the usual spin was as follows: “If you require any more detailed information at this stage, we encourage you to submit your query through our Freedom of Information Process”. Something to hide perhaps? Australia’s ABC report that “Animals Australia director Lyn White said some species in fire-affected areas were critically endangered such as the mountain pygmy-possum and brush-tailed rock-wallaby found in Gippsland. The charity offered $100,000 to the Victorian Government last week to help purchase food, but said they have not received a response to the offer”.

Share this page MILLIONS OF NATIVE animals have been killed and survivors deprived of food, shelter and water thanks to the unprecedented bushfires sweeping the country, on the back of extensive drought. The drought is predicted to continue as well as the fires for some time. In our own backyard, Wildcare (Queanbeyan, Bungendore, and nearby rural areas) and the Native Animal Rescue Group NARG (Braidwood area), along with individual property owners, are ramping up efforts to provide food, water, and in some cases shelter. You can help. See how, below. The North Black Range bushfire, between Bungendore and Braidwood, is the nearest fire arena. Property owners on the periphery of the burnt-out area are seeing and reporting animals searching for food, water and shelter. Affected animals are turning up in unusual places. Food and shelter stations being set up Wildcare and NARG volunteers, with the help of the community, have started to deliver essential food — grass, hay, pellets, bird seed — and other food, such as fruit and native tree and shrub cuttings. Food stations are positioned in strategic locations. It’s reported to be working — with animals coming in to feed. Watering points have also been set up. Nesting boxes for possums and gliders have started to be erected to provide shelter. Property owners and members of the public have been extremely helpful in maintaining the food and water supply and for the cash donations needed to support this program. More needs to be done. Fire and drought-affected property owners who need assistance with the cost of helping can make use of the Food4Wildlife scheme. Food (pellets for macropods or possums and bird seed) can be picked up from one of four collection points in Bungendore and Braidwood. Visit wildcare.com.au for specific locations. For example, in Bungendore there are two bins outside Bungendore Produce on Gibraltar Street for that purpose. Hay is also available to support grass-eating animals (contact haydrop@wildcare.com.au). Wildcare thanks the many businesses who have donated food and material to support this effort, which will continue for many months until the native habitat recovers. Don’t forget the water With soaring temperatures, creeks and dams are drying out, so providing a water source for native animals is vital, including in our own drought-affected areas. Put out bowls and troughs, or similar large containers, in shady locations for our native friends and keep the birdbaths topped up. Place stones and branches in the container to allow access and exit by insects and smaller animals. CAPTION: Our main picture shows a friend of  The District Bulletin in Canberra, topping up water containers on Black Mountain, while guarding against the world’s most toxic hot air … the impact of the bushfires and government climate policy.  ON RIGHT: RFS-rescued possum receiving treatment from Wildcare. Images supplied. Cash donations to Wildcare or NARG are vital for the ongoing demand to resupply food and buy materials that support affected animals. If people wish to donate, visit wildcare.com.au and find out the ways that this can be done. Please give whatever you can to help save the surviving wildlife from the North Black Range bushfire. Call Wildcare on 6299 1966, or NARG on 4846 1900, for further advice. Humane Society International joins the helping hands Working particularly with wildlife carers on private property, Humane Society International (HSI) has opened an appeal for donations and an emergency hotline for carers needing assistance. Wildlife carers in need can call 1800 333 737. HSI has already assisted with delivering emergency water supplies and supplementary feed for rescued wombats, kangaroos and flying-foxes. HSI is also funding the building of additional rehabilitation enclosures for animals like koalas to ease the pressure on carers who are inundated with animals. Many of HSI-supported Wildlife Land Trust members are wildlife carers, and many have lost everything they worked so hard to build. The organisation is pledging it will be there for the long haul. For the many people who want to help animals in areas surrounding the fires, a simple start is to put out shallow bowls of fresh water. Fruits and vegetables can also be attached to trees to help flying-foxes, birds and possums, but some foods such as bread can be harmful to wildlife and should be avoided.

Share this page WHEN YOU THINK of lyrebirds, what comes to mind may be the sound of camera clicks, chainsaws and the songs of other birds. While the mimicry of lyrebirds is remarkable, it is not the only striking feature of this species. ABOVE: Male Superb Lyrebird in display.  Alex Maisey, Author provided. In research just published, we document the extraordinary changes that lyrebirds make to the ground layer in forests in their role as an ecosystem engineer. Ecosystem engineers change the environment in ways that impact on other species. Without lyrebirds, eastern Australia’s forests would be vastly different places. Male lyrebird in full tail display.  Alex Maisey What is an ecosystem engineer? Ecosystem engineers exist in many environments. By disturbing the soil, they create new habitats or alter existing habitats, in ways that affect other organisms, such as plants and fungi. A well-known example is the beaver, in North America, which uses logs and mud to dam a stream and create a deep pond. In doing so, it changes the aquatic habitat for many species, including frogs, herons, fish and aquatic plants. Other examples include bandicoots and bettongs.   The Superb Lyrebird acts as an ecosystem engineer by its displacement of leaf litter and soil when foraging for food. Lyrebirds use their powerful claws to rake the forest floor, exposing bare earth and mixing and burying litter, while seeking invertebrate prey such as worms, centipedes and spiders. Read more:Our helicopter rescue may seem a lot of effort for a plain little bird, but it was worth it To study the role of the lyrebird as an engineer, we carried out a two-year experiment in Victoria’s Central Highlands, with three experimental treatments. First, a fenced treatment, where lyrebirds were excluded from fenced square plots measuring 3m wide. Second, an identical fenced plot but in which we simulated lyrebird foraging with a three-pronged hand rake (about the width of a lyrebird’s foot). This mimicked soil disturbance by lyrebirds but without the birds eating the invertebrates that lived there. The third treatment was an unfenced, open plot (of the same size) in which wild lyrebirds were free to forage as they pleased. Over a two-year period, we tracked changes in the litter and soil, and measured the amount of soil displaced inside and outside of these plots. A colour-banded female lyrebird in Sherbrooke Forest, Victoria. Her powerful claws are used for foraging in litter and soil.  Meghan Lindsay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ciT2Oz6wU Lyrebirds dig up a lot of dirt in forests. Lyrebirds dig up a lot of dirt On average, foraging by wild lyrebirds resulted in a staggering 155 tonnes per hectare of litter and soil displaced each year throughout these forests. To the best of our knowledge, this is more than any other digging vertebrate, worldwide. To put this in context, most digging vertebrates around the world, such as pocket gophers, moles, bandicoots and bettongs, displace between 10–20 tonnes of material per hectare, per year. To picture what 155 tonnes of soil looks like, imagine the load carried by five medium-sized 30 tonne dump trucks — and this is just for one hectare! But how much does an individual lyrebird displace? At one study location we estimated the density of the lyrebird population to be approximately one lyrebird for every 2.3 hectares of forest, thanks to the work of citizen scientists led by the Sherbrooke Lyrebird Study Group. Based on this estimate, and to use our dump truck analogy, a single lyrebird will displace approximately 11 dump trucks of litter and soil in a single year. Changes to the ground layer After two years of lyrebird exclusion, leaf litter in the fenced plots was approximately three times deeper than in the unfenced plots. Soil compaction was also greater in the fenced plots. Where lyrebirds foraged, the soil easily crumbled and the litter layer never fully recovered to a lyrebird-free state before foraging re-occurred. This dynamic process of disturbance by lyrebirds has been going on for millennia, profoundly shaping these forests. For organisms such as centipedes, spiders and worms living in the litter and soil, the forest floor under the influence of lyrebirds may provide new opportunities that would not exist in their absence. Terraced soil where litter has been removed and roots exposed by foraging lyrebirds.  Alex Maisey Read more:After the bushfires, we helped choose the animals and plants in most need. Here’s how we did it.   Loss of lyrebird populations on this scale will have potentially far-reaching effects on forest ecology. In the face of climate change and a heightened risk of severe wildfire, understanding the role that species such as the Superb Lyrebird play in ecosystems is more important than ever. Without lyrebirds, eastern Australia’s forests would be vastly different places, with impacts extending well beyond the absence of their glorious song to other animals who rely on these “ecosystem engineers”. — Alex Maisey, PhD Candidate, La Trobe University and Andrew Bennett, Professor of Ecology, La Trobe University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Share this page From:  Mick Roderick — NSW Woodland Bird Program Manager here at BirdLife Australia. TODAY, on National Threatened Species Day, we wanted to share with you some of our work bringing threatened species back from the brink with this special footage of our first large-scale Regent Honeyeater Release in NSW. In June, BirdLife Australia and our partners released 20 of these Critically Endangered birds into NSW’s Hunter Valley, into one of the largest remaining Regent Honeyeater strongholds. Over the last few months, it’s been wonderful to observe captive birds interacting with wild birds. One of our transmitter birds led us to at least six wild Regents, and already four of these birds appeared to have paired up — a promising sign for spring! Join us in celebrating with this special video we’ve put together. For those that don’t know me, my name is Mick Roderick – and I’m the NSW Woodland Bird Program Manager here at BirdLife Australia. Today, on National Threatened Species Day, we wanted to share with you some of our work bringing threatened species back from the brink with this special footage of our first large-scale Regent Honeyeater Release in NSW. In June, BirdLife Australia and our partners released 20 of these Critically Endangered birds into NSW’s Hunter Valley, into one of the largest remaining Regent Honeyeater strongholds. Over the last few months, it’s been wonderful to observe captive birds interacting with wild birds. One of our transmitter birds led us to at least six wild Regents, and already four of these birds appeared to have paired up – a promising sign for spring! Join us in celebrating with this special video we’ve put together. https://youtu.be/nBPDocG_5agRegent Honeyeaters are a ‘flagship species’ — so supporting them helps improve the status of other birds that share their habitat. When you help save one bird from extinction, other birds will follow. We hope this will be the first of many NSW releases, and with only a few hundred Regents left, these releases could mean the difference between extinction and survival.Your voice can help us bring our precious birds back from the brink.Right now we need your voice more than ever to ensure our national environment laws actually protect nature. Our Federal politicians are considering these laws right now, and they need to know that Australians from all walks of life care. Can you help grow our campaign by sharing this video with your friends and family on social media?

Share this page Early in 2020, amidst the devastating bushfires that ravaged Australia, Bear, the USC x IFAW koala detection dog was deployed to Peak View in NSW, at the site of Two Thumbs Wildlife Sanctuary.The Sanctuary, run by James Fitzgerald, had been destroyed by the Good Good Fire on 23rd January and was dealt a second blow when a firefighting air tanker crashed while trying to protect the sanctuary, killing the three US firefighter crew onboard.The Hercules water bomber (an aircraft filled with water to dump thousands of litres of water and fire retardant on out-of-control blazes) had been deployed in an effort to regain control of the fires at Two Thumbs as the flames were too large to be dealt with by fire trucks. Rescuing Jessie and Amelia “When we heard the devastating news of Two Thumbs Wildlife Sanctuary being destroyed this past January, we deployed USC X IFAW’s detection dog, Bear, to help search for survivors” says IFAW’s Josey Sharrad. Bear and the team visited the area to look for surviving koalas in need of rescue. Using the scent of their fur, Bear located a mother koala and her joey. The koalas, named Jessie and Amelia (pictured above), were brought to the Australian National University, where they received emergency care and embarked on a specialized rehabilitation plan led by Dr. Karen Ford. During a checkup, the team performed an ultrasound and discovered exciting news — Jessie was pregnant! … CONTINUE READING  (ifaw website)