You can watch Possum Wars on IView now at http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/78473727Every night around Australia, thousands of cute little native possums scamper across city rooftops seeking food and shelter in the great urban indoors that has tragically replaced the vast nurturing Australian forests. Forced out of their bush habitats by clearing and development, these brave marsupials must compete with noisy, destructive humans to survive in urban environments. "And when possums and people fight for real estate it’s war! Possum Wars lifts the lid on the private world of Australia’s most unwanted marsupial and its battle to survive in the big city." (ABC promotion for "Possum Wars," on Sunday, 15 December 2013)

Possum Activism

Readers of candobetter.net will be familiar with the possum wars at Catani Gardens and elsewhere in Victoria. Animal Active campaigner, Rheya Linden, features in this documentary on urban possums. She has long been a negotiator on behalf of possums with various councils.

Please ask that the woman who drowned a possum be prosecuted

By the way, advance information about this film, says that there is a human in it who boasts about drowning a possum. The name of this woman is not given out, but I am told that the RSPCA knows it. Do us a favour, write to the RSPCA, mentioning this film, and demand that they prosecute this woman for cruelty. If she is not prosecuted then people will watch this film and think that it is okay to do terrible things to possums. They might even get the idea that it is a good idea. Humans can be very dumb.

Some editorial advice for the ABC

As a possum insider, or an inside possum, (See my earlier article: "Living with humans - A possum responds to "Living with wild animals") I must say that the promoters of this ABC documentary are not doing us possums a favour with the following description as it was originally:

"Every night around Australia, thousands of native possums scamper across city rooftops in an endless quest for food and shelter. Forced out of their bush habitats by clearing and development, these mischievous marsupials swarm into cities where their raucous noise and destructive appetites bring them few friends. And when possums and people fight for real estate it’s war! Possum Wars lifts the lid on the private world of Australia’s most unwanted marsupial and its battle to survive in the big city." (ABC promotion for "Possum Wars," on Sunday, 15 December 2013).

Let's stand back and look at those statements objectively, shall we? In fact, let's look at the whole thing from a possum's perspective, high up in a tree, looking down at a bunch of urban humans at a BBQ, especially around Christmas. "Raucous noise and destructive appetites," describes these loud fatties to a T. No-one beats the human race for destructive appetites. Humans are so far to the forefront of fish depletion, forest destruction and noise creation that no other creature stands a chance in any competition with humans. Apart from some exceptions, they don't play fair with the rest of us. As for noise - have you tried to sleep up a telegraph pole by a road lately? It's impossible, yet, in some places, those are the only trees available, dead and strung with dangerous wires.

A final remark about noise. We possums are often lambasted for running loudly on roofs and whooping and wailing when we're feeling sexy or on nights of full moons. Humans claim not to be able to stand this. I am sure, however, that if we paid money to go into nightclubs and do the same thing, they would encourage our nocturnal celebrations. The bottom line with humans is, "Does it make money?" If it doesn't, then they want to replace it with something that does. Possums are not a commercial venture; they are a part of Life. We are pure. Our songs are not for sale. Our dances are not for copying. We're holding out for principles.

Once our beautiful banshee songs used to ring out so that we could find each other in the vast quiet of endless forests. Today we have to yell out even louder over the traffic noise to let each other know where we are. Bring back the forests, I say. Get rid of the houses. Australians used to live in modest bark huts and they didn't bother much more than we did with clothes. We got along then. Why can't this lot be more tolerant?

Please remember to write to the RSPCA asking that the woman who drowned the possum be prosecuted.

Pura Vida! as they say in Costa Rica (where they also have possums.)

The sadistic atrocities occurring against our indigenous inhabitants - kangaroos - at Morisset hospital is totally shameful and horrendous.  Why haven't these atrocities been stopped and the sadists captured?  It is disgraceful that the Morisset kangaroos have been slaughtered for years and the only people to help are a handful of wildlife volunteers.

Sadistic attacks on kangaroos at Morisset Hospital

 
The sadistic atrocities occurring against our indigenous inhabitants - kangaroos - at Morisset hospital is totally shameful and horrendous.  More than 100 have been horrifically massacred in blood-curdling ferocity, and people are worried for public safety?

Hoons have been entering the hospital grounds at night and running down the kangaroos. Why haven't these atrocities been stopped and the sadists captured? 

Security guards at the Hospital contacted the Wildlife Rescue Service at 11pm in May 2008 at night after at least five adult kangaroos were killed, orphaning three joeys.

It is disgraceful that the Morisset kangaroos have been slaughtered for years and the only people to help are a handful of wildlife volunteers.

These ferals need to be caught and cut down.  They could easily be motivated by people with vested interests in property development. 

Developments erode living conditions for kangaroos – and corruption abounds

In 1900, 1300 acres on the western side of Lake Macquarie were reserved for the construction of a psychiatric hospital. The Morisset section of the State Conservation Area in particular has an extensive degraded landscape formerly used for farming and grazing. Removal of livestock from this area is resulting in a proliferation of agricultural and environmental weeds.

2005 - After a four year fight, residents opposing a $90 million development at Morisset failed to stop it going ahead. Lake Macquarie council gave the Johnson Property Group approval to proceed with stage one of its development on the former St John of God site, meaning it could develop 31 residential lots.

2005 Lake Macquarie Council received an application from Terry Lawler, the administrator of Koompahtoo, to rezone about 100 hectares of the 850 hectare site original given to the Aboriginal land council by the State Government. The rezoning of the former Morisset hospital land would allow for the construction of up to 1,800 houses.

Lake Macquarie Mayor Greg Piper was going to write to the New South Wales Planning Minister outlining his concerns about the proposed $200 million Trinity Point marina near Morisset.

August 2008 - Councillors resolved to prepare a draft amendment to the city's local environment plan, paving the way for 305 houses to be built on land surrounding the course.

The Koompahtoo Land Council was plagued by corruption allegations in 2009, after it won the state's largest land grant, 850 hectares near the former Morisset hospital site.

Kangaroo “cull” for public safety?

June 2010 is was reported that kangaroos may have to be culled at Morisset amid rising fears for “public safety”, with the animals said to be increasing at an unsustainable rate. With kangaroos going further into nearby residential areas than ever before , authorities have urged the public to stop feeding them. The fact that residential areas are expanding is ignored!

The idea of "culling" kangaroos at Morisset for "fears of public safety" is deadly twisted logic and irrational.   Why shoot the victims? 

With Australia's population growth, the unsustainable growth comes from creatures on two legs that aren't macropods!   Our own population growth is forcing extinctions, stealing habitat and livelihoods from native species. 

Kangaroos have proved their suitability to Australia through evolution and millions of years of existence here.

Kangaroos are the victims of the public, not the threat

Lake Macquarie MP and mayor Greg Piper said he had heard anecdotal reports of offenders bragging at a Morisset pub (Dec 2010) about killing kangaroos in the hospital grounds. Two men entered the pub with kangaroo scrotums and a fight erupted after some people took offence.

Humans are encroaching, and the safety issues should be about kangaroos being mutilated and run down, not the contrary!   The police must arrest the perpetrators, and the hospital must ensure the safety of all living residents on their grounds.  As psychologists say, sadists who torture animals end up being criminals against humans, so the public are not safe while they are loose!

The police need to make sure the criminals are arrested and charged with the highest possible penalties for violating protected animals, and the hospital must upgrade their security and ensure the animals grazing on their grounds are  protected.

Both male & female kangaroos and their helpless babies have been subjected to acts of shocking depravity.

Up to $2000 in cash for information leading to a conviction is offered.

Leisa Moore area  S.A. representative of A.W.P.C. added: Please make a donation to stop the killing of these baby kangaroos and help us bring the criminals to justice. Just go to the A.W.P.C. website and include the word ‘Reward’ with your donation. We need your help and your support to catch these sadistic killers   

KINDNESS HOUSE, 2nd Floor, 288 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065 Australia
OR
If you are transferring/sending/depositing funds into AWPC’s account from overseas, you will also need the Bank’s ‘Swift Code’:
 
BSB   063535
Account 10090791
Swift Deposit CTBAAU2S
(Q. What is a SWIFT Code?
A. SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.  It is the unique identification code for a particular bank.  These codes are used when transferring money between banks, particularly for international wire transfers.  The SWIFT Code for Commonwealth Bank is CTBAAU2S. )

Please include your name as reference when making a deposit.
Also, email Maryland Wilson, kangaroo@ hotkey.net.au and leave your name and address so a receipt can be sent to you.

 Be sure to include your name and address for your Receipt.  

Photos by courtesy of Les Hutchinson - thanks!

High in the fork of the balding cypress tree, in a record heat wave on January 30th at 3.00pm Melbourne daylight saving time, the female possum was invisible to the people below sheltering from the sun in its sparse shade.

The temperature was officially 43 degrees , but in Catani Gardens, St. Kilda, it beat down fiercely on the little brush tail possum at well over 50 degrees. It scorched her fur, quickly penetrated it, blistered her skin beneath and dangerously heated the core of her body. She had slept in the early hours of that day but awoke in distress as the sun rose higher, pounding her mercilessly . Almost against her own will, she descended the branches, and the trunk of her tree reaching the hot ground below. She entered a strange daytime world which she had never seen before.
At first everything looked white .
She could not see in the intense light as, being a creature of the night, her eyes were adapted to darkness . She was disoriented with the strange world she saw and her own heat exhaustion.

Desperately she sought relief.

She looked across an expanse of dead crackling lawn and lines of palm trees (one of whose crown she once lived in) that had been made inaccessible with wide steel bands around the trunks. Around the sea edge edge of this domain were thin interrupted stands of heroic but struggling mirror bush.

There was no cool place in Catani Gardens.

No water relieved the overwhelming burning heat. The occasional splashes and drops from 3 drinking fountains (miles away from her, on a small possum scale) dried immediately as they fell on the burning bricks of the guttering below .

The little possum could find no relief from the intolerable heat. Groups of people laughed and chatted or lay on their beach towels in the shade of every cypress tree.
She could not go there. She must not be seen.

Humans had even staked out most of the pathetic alcoves in the mirror bush where ring tail possums have been seen occasionally at night.

The little possum had no choice. She lay down in the few inches of shade- too little for any human to shelter in -at the base of a palm tree.

She curled herself around the curve of the trunk so as not to be noticed by passing humans or dogs and waited for the end.

It came quickly.

See also: "Victorian Government shows no mercy for fauna and flora in Melbourne's heatwave" of 30 Jan 09.

Treasury Gardens when well-watered
At the same time as I received a report on Bob Brown's speech on endangered species at Brown Mountain Forest, I also heard really disturbing... awful... news of time spent in the adjacent Treasury Gardens on Wednesday, when temperatures were well over forty degrees.

These gardens are known for their fountains and ponds and large shady trees. Captain Cook's cottage was imported from England and now resides here.

Apparently birds were going around with their beaks open, their wings extended, parched and distressed because there was NO WATER in any of the fountains and ponds there.

I thought that the Parks and Gardens had some kind of water recycling program, to mitigate the awful damage that the governments forced population program is doing to our water reserves.

Apparently not.

The person reporting this to me was so appalled that she emptied her make-up purse and filled it with water from the taps in the Ladies' toilets and placed it on the ground for the animals.

If the commodification of water has come to the pass where we will allow all the animals and possibly the trees in our parks to die; if our governments are going to show this degree of callousness, they must be pursued to the wall.

The following action was reported to me: A representative of Melbourne City Council was rung yesterday and told of the situation. It is reported that "he sounded genuinely sorry about the birds and agreed that drinking fountains with receptacles for overflow water for birds and humans was a good idea and will initiate it."

He said, however, that it obviously can't be straight away but he said it sounded as though it should be done.

He was asked if he could get something rigged up as an interim measure for birds during this terrible heat and he said he would look into it.

Mind you, he also said that he was about to go on vacation.

He also agreed that there should be lot more water fountains all around the city.

Note: prompt action by this person will be greatly appreciated, but who is responsible for this situation arising?

There have also been reports that animals are falling into the new plastic lined waterways that the Victorian government has allowed to be constructed. They cannot climb out on the slippery plastic, and drown. It is hard for me to imagine a dialogue with public servants and politicians so far removed from the reality of natural hydraulics that they would actually deprive the earth of water. What destructive buffoons rule this State.

Yesterday I rescued a bird from a bathtub full of water and lilies in my garden. She had gone in and become too wet to get out. I placed some plastic netting in the bath, where it formed a good bird-platform. I put her on the platform and she sat there until her wings dried off. I had also placed bowls of water around the garden and on the garage roof, with rocks in them that birds and other creatures could sit on or climb out of the water on.

If people do not take these measures for wildlife, not only will the wildlife suffer, but they will become extinct even more rapidly.

Please be kind and responsible to our fellow creatures, even if the Victorian government is barbaric in this regard.

See also: "A Place to die" of 31 Jan 09, comment The last of our urban wild life of 22 Jan 2011.