Hi all,
I’ve had a couple spare moments and have been catching up a bit on some reading which included the “Into Oblivion – Northern Australian Mammal Decline” pamphlet which came out with Wingspan some time back. Not sure who had the idea to send it out, but I think it great to raise awareness of the problems the mammals are facing in northern Australia. If anyone hasn’t seen it they should really have a look, see link below.
http://wildaustralia.org/science/oblivion-disappearing-mammals-northern-australia
I was really shocked to see that that they are discussing extinction of many northern mammals in the next 10 to 20 years. I had sort of presumed that the big national parks and relativley undeveloped areas of the Territory, Cape York and the Kimberly would mean that the populations were relatively stable but it is sadly wrong and the somewhat scary thing about the changes is how fast they are occuring and that there is no obvious single reason that could be managed, rather it is probably a wide range of factors in combination.
However to get back to a birding connection, there are several savannah species such as Gouldian Finch and Hooded and Goulden Shouldered Parrots that have suffered major population declines but they appear to have occurred longer ago than the recent (10-20 years) population crashes being seen in the mammals(?.) I was wondering if the birds might have been an indicator that the mammals were also going to be in trouble, or could it be the other way round and the birds may be about to suffer another population crash and it is only their mobility that has prevented this being observed?
Whatever the reasons, certianly a potential tragedy and can only hope that ongoing research can help the mammals and their aassociated ecosytems, including the birds.
Tim
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Hi Tim and all, CBOC had Shauna Chadlowe from the Australian Wildlife Conservancy as our speaker last Tuesday who spoke too us on Saving Northern Australia’s threatened wildlife, she was brilliant.If you want to help halt these extinction’s AWC as the answer,take a look at their website and support them with donations Its our best chance in my opinion to save some of our species.
and see “Lost from Our Landscape: threatened species of the Northern Territory” a 2007 book by John Woinarski et al, published by the NT government. It includes all threatened species, from land snails to sawfish. And birds. There is so little known about the fauna of the NT. Helen
< ')/////==< ________________________________ href="mailto:birding-aus@vicnet.net.au">birding-aus@vicnet.net.au Sent: Thu, 18 November, 2010 9:33:39
Hi all,
I’ve had a couple spare moments and have been catching up a bit on some reading which included the “Into Oblivion – Northern Australian Mammal Decline” pamphlet which came out with Wingspan some time back. Not sure who had the idea to send it out, but I think it great to raise awareness of the problems the mammals are facing in northern Australia. If anyone hasn’t seen it they should really have a look, see link below.
http://wildaustralia.org/science/oblivion-disappearing-mammals-northern-australia
I was really shocked to see that that they are discussing extinction of many northern mammals in the next 10 to 20 years. I had sort of presumed that the big national parks and relativley undeveloped areas of the Territory, Cape York and the Kimberly would mean that the populations were relatively stable but it is sadly wrong and the somewhat scary thing about the changes is how fast they are occuring and that there is no obvious single reason that could be managed, rather it is probably a wide range of factors in combination.
However to get back to a birding connection, there are several savannah species such as Gouldian Finch and Hooded and Goulden Shouldered Parrots that have suffered major population declines but they appear to have occurred longer ago than the recent (10-20 years) population crashes being seen in the mammals(?.) I was wondering if the birds might have been an indicator that the mammals were also going to be in trouble, or could it be the other way round and the birds may be about to suffer another population crash and it is only their mobility that has prevented this being observed?
Whatever the reasons, certianly a potential tragedy and can only hope that ongoing research can help the mammals and their aassociated ecosytems, including the birds.
Tim
===============================
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http://birding-aus.org ===============================
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