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Wildlife
Conservation
We share
our
country
with a wonderful array of other species.Let's
hope we continue to enjoy
this diversity well into the future.
Many
species are far less common
than they once were, and some are declining
alarmingly. Conservation
groups throughout Australia are
attempting to tackle
some
of
the many issues
Conservation
problems
facing Australian wildlife include:
- habitat
loss - causing loss of species unable
to live in any other kind of habitat (the single
biggest threat to
wildlife both locally and globally)
- habitat
fragmentation - a fair bit of habitat
remaining, but fragmented, making
it difficult for animals to move
from one patch to another,
and
creating
edge problems (e.g. some forest edges are
occupied by
aggressive species such as noisy miners,
making it difficult for some
of the true forest species)
- habitat
alteration - loss of understorey shrubs,
logs, food plants, old trees
with
hollows etc.
- feral
animals - competitors, predators and - in
the case of the cane toad -
poisoners
- barriers
to movement - see 'Animals
Have
to
Move' on the Scenic Rim Wildlife pages
- hunting
(not as great a problem here as in some
countries, but there is some
illegal hunting and also a black market
trade) - see articles
on wildlife
trade, shooting
in
national
parks
- road-kill -
not a global threat to most species, but
could cause local
extinction in some regions, and is a
constant welfare problem
- disruptive
human activities - for instance
unsustainable tourism and recreational
activities,
as well as industrial practices in important
areas of habitat,
including anything noisy near nesting,
feeding or resting sites. See
Wildlife Tourism Australia
and our ecotourism
and tourism
and conservation pages
for some discussions on responsible wildlife
tourism
- climate
change - e.g. for a world view
see the WWF
climate change site
or this Australian
government
site,
and warnings on
effects on Australian wildlife by CANA's.
Also
daily monitoring by
CSIRO
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brush-tailed
rock-wallaby
(vulnerable, used to be common and far more
widespread,
now confined to rocky uplands due to habitat
clearing and introduced
predators)
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Local
conservation
groups
(Scenic Rim):
Elsewhere
in
Queensland:
Elsewhere
in
Australia:
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Climate
Change
Some
notes
on
climate change
A
new site by CSIRO let's us see the daily
monitoring of
greenhouse gases
This
was
my
concluding remark in a presentation by Ronda
Green at the Green
Travel, Climate
Change and Ecotourism in 2008, and following
are references she
used in preparing the talk:
"When
we
were
children, we thought the North Pole would always
be covered in ice and
the world would always have wild polar bears. It
is uncomfortable to
realise this is not necessarily so. It is
frightening to think of the
other, very great changes that may be happening
within our lifetimes.
But that is what we must do – think about them,
and the many
complexities involved, if we are to find any
solutions within the very
little time we have available."
References I found
useful in researching for
this presentation:
- Beaumont, L.J., I.A.W. McAllan, and I. Hughes.
2006.
A
matter of
timing: changes in the first date of arrival and
last date of departure
of Australian migratory birds. Global Change
Biology 12: 1339-135
- Burton, C. T. and Weather, W. W.2003.
Energetics and
thermo-regulation of the Gouldian Finch (Erythrura gouldiae).
Emu 103(1) 1 -
10
- Green K. and Pickering C. M. (2002) A scenario
for
mammal
and
bird diversity in the Australian Snowy Mountains
in relation to climate
change. pp241-249 in: C. Koerner and E.M. Spehn
(eds) Mountain
Biodiversity: a Global Assessment. Parthenon
Publishing, London
- Green, R.J. 1993 Avian seed dispersal in and
near
subtropical
rainforests. Wildlife Research 20: 535-557
- Hoegh-Guldberg, O. 1999. Climate change, coral
bleaching
and the
future of the world's coral reefs. Marine and
Freshwater Research 50:
839 – 86
- Hoegh-Guldberg, O. 2005. Low coral cover in a
high-CO2
world.
Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 110
- Hughes L (2000) Biological consequences of
global
warming:
is the
signal already apparent? Trends in Ecology and
Evolution, 15, 56–61
- Sands, D. 2008. Conserving the Richmond
Bird-wing
Butterfly
over
two decades: Where to next? Ecological
Management & Restoration 9:
4 – 16
- Welbergen, J. A., Klose, S. M., Markus, N. and
Eby,
P.
2007.
Climate change and the effects of temperature
extremes on Australian
flying-foxes. Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London Series
B:10.1098/rspb.2007.1385
- Williams S. E. , Bolitho E. E., and Fox S.
2003.
Climate
change
in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending
environmental
catastrophe. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London Series
B-Biological Sciences 270 (1527): 1887-1892
- WWF Threatened species network. Australian
threatened
species:
green turtle Chelonia
mydas.www.wwf.org.au/ts
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Wildlife Preservation Society of
Queensland:
main branch
From
the website of
the Wildlife
Preservation
Society of Queensland:
"The
Wildlife
Preservation
Society of Queensland is the oldest, largest
and most respected wildlife-focused conservation
group in Queensland.
We’ve
been
part
of all the major conservation issues in Queensland
for
almost 50 years"
The
Society
was
created as a community-based, non-profit
organisation,
founded in 1962 by well-known Australian poet Judith
Wright, publisher
Brian Clouston, zoologist David Fleay and
artist/author Kathleen MacArthur.
Their news page keeps us up-to-date with much of
what is happening to wildlife
in Queensland and
beyond
Wildlife Preservation Society of
Queensland: Scenic Rim group
 The Scenic
Rim group of WPSQ is so far
an informal group, planning to become a
fully-fledged branch some time
in 2010, covering the species-rich region of
Southeast Queensland
starting from abut 50km south of Brisbane, from (and
including)
Lamington National Park and Tamborine Mountain in
the east to the Main
Range in the west, its southern boundary running
along the
Queensland/NSW border.
A Wildlife Expo is to be held on Sunday 18th July,
in Beaudesert,
south-east Queensland, in conjunction with the Logan
and Albert Conservation Association
There are further links to other conservation
associations from the Scenic
Rim group of WPSQ website
Also visit the Scenic
Rim
Wildlife's Facebook page
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