extinction

Researchers from Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne have CT scanned all 13 known Tasmanian tiger joey specimens to create 3D digital models which have allowed them to study their skeletons and internal organs, and reconstruct their growth and development. This has revealed important new information about how this unique extinct marsupial evolved to look so similar to the dingo, despite being very distantly related.

Wildlife rescuer and carer, Rebecca Koller, has observed an unprecedented number of Spectacled flying fox casualties in a traditional breeding site located near a new hotel construction in Cairnes. The spectacled flying fox is a threatened species.[1] Despite many attempts to get the Australian government to investigate and or intervene, the government has failed to get back to her. This is even though the problem has received extensive publicity and the species is about to have its threatened status upgraded from vulnerable to endangered. The source of this article is correspondence between Ms Koller and The Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

Clearing our Koalas Away is a damning new report by Dailan Pugh (North East Forest Alliance, July 2017) that puts together intensive logging maps recently obtained via Freedom of Information, and the EPAs new koala habitat model. [Candobetter.net Editor: This article is republished from The North East Forest Alliance site at nefa.org.au. There is also an article about this by Sue Arnold at Independent Australia: Koala extinction looms on NSW North Coast due to Government 'vandalism'.]

In 1996, on the sixtieth anniversary of the last Tasmanian tiger’s death in Hobart Zoo in 1936, 7 September was declared ‘National Threatened Species Day’ — a time to reflect on what happened to the thylacine and how similar fates could await other native plants and animals unless appropriate action is taken.

Image: Numbat, Perth Zoo, Western Australia

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) is gravely concerned by the ‘use and commercialisation of Australian native animals’, their extinction rates, cruelty inflicted on them, and recreational hunting. Even more so, given that Australia has the world’s highest extinction rate. Instead of apologising for crimes against nature, the Victorian State Government seeks to extend further exploitation.

This Friday, 7 December, the Federal Government plans to give away environmental assessment authority to the states. Candobetter readers should take any opportunity they can to avoid this devolution of our already semi-toothless legislation. Here is an opportunity to add your signature to a petition. There is also a Get-up campaign. Readers are invited to let us know of any other actions they are taking. Links to petitions etc inside.

PROTEST TODAY (Now!) 11 AM St Kilda Beach, behind Luna Park. See: http://stopthetrawler.net/national-day-of-action-to-stop-the-super-trawler/ So many threats to our oceans, bays and rivers….where to start? One of the most worrisome issues at present is the massive Super trawler Margiris on its way to Tasmania and set to start vacuuming up our mackerel and red bait fish stocks.

See also: Super Trawler protest photos of 12 August.

Save the tiger and save man's self-respect. I mean, if we can't save the tiger we aren't much good for anything are we? Cronulla Beach to Barrenjoey Lighthouse Tiger Trek starts Saturday 10th March. The Trekking Tiger is a man in a tiger mask - his identity is unimportant. His main purpose is to draw attention to this vital campaign which recognizes the tiger, a flagship species in the biodiversity crisis. The trekker will be barefoot or wearing thongs in sympathy with the poverty that accompanies human populations that encroach on tiger territory.

The Premier of China, Wen Jiabao has publicly stated that he is committed to saving the wild tiger. However, his government is allowing trade in tiger skins from tiger farms and skins taken before poaching was outlawed. This trade is acting as a smokescreen for skins taken by killing wild tigers. If China does not stop this trade, the wild tiger is doomed. See how they obtain the tigers and more tiger farm images. You can add your signature here.

On the northern coast of N.S.W. adjoining the Gold Coast and S.E.Queensland lies Tweed Shire, christened as the Green Caldera by once Environment Minister Peter Garrett. This area is famous for one of the highest biodiversity levels in Australia and infamous for the greatest level of biodiversity loss in N.S.W. thanks to the fact that the vast majority of Tweed councillors are pro-development. But in the case of Kings Forest, a massive housing development for 15,000 people worth $2 billion, NSW State Planning took control under the massively unpopular Part 3a legislation, depriving the council of all controls.
If this development is approved, it will be goodbye koalas on Tweed coast within 5-10 years. HAVE YOUR SAY!!

I am not, by nature, a conspiracy theorist. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But when people of my ilk consistently see our interviews, op-eds, and lecture invitations abruptly cancelled with feeble excuses given---if given at all---then random events suddenly take on a pattern. If we examine it, I think only one conclusion emerges as most plausible. We have been witnessing a slow strangulation of debate about overpopuation. It represents a mass die-off of open discussion of arguably the most important topic of our time by those upon whom our society most depends. Our scientists.

Victorian government plans to drop 1080 poison bait from an aircraft into forests could result in the extinction of the already critically endangered Spot-tailed quoll. The purpose of this antiquated and vandalistic method is to poison wild dogs. Article by Hans Brunner, Wildlife biologist.

Something very shonky is going on in Canberra with unjustified massacre of kangaroos. As the previous blog mentioned, no science to back it up.
Learn some more facts and take action! We can only stop this if lots of people take action!

Here is a lovely video about the hope in the lives of rescued baby orangutans in Indonesia.

A new report from Charles Darwin University shows that at 136 sites in the Kimberleys surveyed since 2001, mammal populations have crashed by an average of 75%. Sites devoid of mammal activity increased from 13% in 1996 to 55% in 2009.
Is any of this getting through to our governments or councils at all? It appears they only care about money, the economy, endless development and population expansion while remaining oblivious to the mass species extinction occurring around us. Or saying it's a serious problem while doing NOTHING.

'It may be tempting to believe our 4WD has bumped over a wombat.' (from an article in a magazine). Tempting? Roadkill is driving some species towards extinction. Too few safe corridors for animals to find more food. Too many cars and trucks on many more roads through their habitats. How about a campaign to stop carelessness about road-kill?

A common line of argument from those who favor population growth in Australia is that it's all a matter of optimism versus pessimism, and that environmentalists are much too negative. But there are situations where optimism would be better named meglomania.

Some claim kangaroo meat is 'green'. Some claim killing kangaroos is 'better' for Australia's environment. So what if Australian farmers of lamb, beef, pork and chicken transitioned to kangaroo?

To this author it is like employing Ivan Milat to skin platypus for tourist purses.

Personal bias aside, Australia's Federal Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, has highlighted the flawed presumptions of Australia's roo trade being unviable.

The following responses to questions were made by a self confessed wildlife killer in Dalby, western Queensland between 27th and 30th March 2010. So long as Australia’s Liberal and Labor governments permit wildlife shooting, there will be wildlife serial killers out there like 'Chris' who will exploit Australia's wildlife with impunity.

EEG trial update. The Brown Mountain landmark trial has begun.

Almost the entire Basin had been explored and occupied by Europeans within 50 years of the crossing of the Great Dividing Range. The development of a European way of life resulted in
unintentional degradation of many of the Basin’s natural resources. There have been warnings of impending disaster for the Murray–Darling Basin for more than a decade, but here near the mouth it is suddenly real and shockingly rapid. Inflows to the Murray system remain at record lows. The removal of water for last summer’s irrigation, coupled with evaporation, has seen lake levels plummet. The search for another food bowl is on!

Tweed Valley Community levied for unwanted and disastrous development in region's main koala habitat.
Koalas are in danger of extinction within two years in Queensland and NSW cannot be far behind. No state is keeping proper wildlife statistics and development is ruining their habitat and ours. See where to send objections inside article.

Traditional Chinese have deemed 2010 the Chinese Year of the Tiger. But some traditional Chinese medicine is based on superstition, and some Chinese men still think the bones of a tiger will increase their libido and so want to kill tigers to get a hard on. AdultShop should set up in Beijing and sort these misguided blokes out.

There is no need to send out a search party for the Growth Lobby. It lives in your neighbourhood and in your home town.

See also by Tim Murray: "What is a racist?" of 3 Jan 10, "The Green Badge of Courage" of 3 Jan 10 and "It is socially responsible to be socially irresponsible" of 4 Jan 10.

The growth lobby appears in new guises every day, constantly trying to make itself out to be the good guy. Now a new alliance of religious groups pretends we can go on growing indefinitely, the same way that the Citizens Electoral Lobby, the Australian Property Council, and the Prime Minister of Australia do. But Tim Murray asks, "If each one of God’s 214,000 miracles born each day is precious, what of the tens or hundreds of thousands of non human life forms that are murdered that day by our expansion? Yes, 100 species are lost each day. But many more life forms are killed than that each day. How many? Who knows? Each and every day we are breeding our life support system into the ground."

Through incompetence and neglect 110 ha which was recently added to the Pines Flora and Fauna reserve was mismanaged by Parks Victoria and Department of Sustainability Victoria to the point where nearly all the species it contained have become extinct. Now this land is due to be separated by a huge tollway from the rest of the reserve, despite many bitter protests and submissions from residents and other concerned people, whose hearts are nearly broken. See also related articles

(Eastern Quoll Black extinct in the mainland but still in Tasmania photo Wikipedia Commons)
Australia has the worst record of extinctions of any country having exterminated one third of its wildlife in just 200 years. The climate is a crucial factor in determining where animals and plants live and reproduce, and the types of ecosystems they form. Climate change spells disaster for the world's plants and animals, many of which are already suffering from a loss of habitat, pollution and over-exploitation.

“Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth”
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (2005)

An Italian evolutionary meta-theory says planetary health depends on humans and that humans will in the future free themselves from the unbearable weight of the world by stopping reproducing. "Si spegne, signori, si chiude” Review by Marisa Cohen

As the plight of Koalas injured and killed in Victoria's recent bushfires move people across the globe to act to save the Koala, now predicted to become extinct by 2020, a rare and relatively intact Koala colony in Northern New South Wales is threatened by a massive residential development. There are estimated to be less than 100,000 koalas remaining in Australia, considerably less due to the recent disastrous Victorian bush fires and Queensland floods.

See also: "Kings Forest Development threatens 21 Threatened Species of Fauna" on Blue Cray of 28 Feb 09.