Wildlife Bytes 7/7/11

Flying Foxes

Six horses are now dead from the latest Hendra virus outbreak.....amid strident calls to eradicate flying foxes......details below.....

Fraser Island Dingoes

Here is an interesting article about the FI dingoes, and you can make a comment about their management too.....
http://www.ecovoice.com.au/eco-news/4385-collaring-or-culling-the-fraser-island-dingo

Wildlife Trafficking

A Hong Kong couple has been arrested in Perth for attempting to smuggle wildlife out of Australia concealed in teddy bears. In a joint operation between Customs and the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), officers raided a home in the southern Perth suburb of St James on Wednesday night. They seized 31 lizards in the raid - 24 bobtails, six crevice skinks and one sand swimmer skink - along with several soft toys, packaging and postage material. Rick Dawson, a senior wildlife investigator with the DEC says bobtail lizards can fetch up to $7,500 on the Asian black market. "While common in Western Australia, these lizards are highly sought after in Asia because they are easy to care for, attractive, and exotic," he said. "In some instances the reptiles' eyes had been taped up, and the cold and cramped conditions they would have had to endure on a long journey without food or water in a cargo hold is abhorrent." Last night's seizure was the result of a 12-week investigation into the alleged wildlife smugglers. The 27-year-old man and 30-year-old woman were being monitored by officials after allegedly making several attempts to post teddy bears containing lizards overseas. Environment Minister Bill Marmion has congratulated the authorities for the arrest, describing it as a significant bust. "Wildlife smuggling is not only illegal, it is cruel and poses a risk to the state's native plants and animals, including rare or threatened species," he said. "The success of this operation sends a strong warning to people that if you attempt to smuggle wildlife out of Western Australia, the chances of getting caught are very good indeed." The maximum penalty for illegally importing and possessing wildlife under WA's Wildlife Conservation Act is $4,000 and smugglers can face up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $110,000 under environmental legislation. *ABC

Dingoes

High numbers of dingoes south of the dog fence in northern South Australia have prompted the SA Government to allow aerial baiting in some areas. Environment Minister Paul Caica says landowners had raised concern about the impact of rising dingo numbers on sheep. Mr Caica says the aerial baiting will be well coordinated. "I'm told that the best time to do it is at spring and around February, March, so we'll be taking advice from those that know more than I do about what is the best time to do it, but we'll do it to get the best bang we possibly can from our buck and indeed to ensure that we're able to hit as many dog-infested areas as we can," he said. Mr Caica has rejected calls from some to reintroduce a dingo bounty. "I'm not going to introduce a bounty. The evidence that I've been provided [with] to date is that bounties aren't anywhere near as effective as what some people think they are, so we believe that the resources that are available better off put into a coordinated baiting process," he said. *ABC

Arctic Megamine

Britain's richest man is planning a giant new open-cut mine 480 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle in a bid to extract a potential $US23 billion ($A21.4 billion) worth of iron ore. The ''mega-mine'' - which includes a 314-kilometre railway line and two new ports - is believed to be the largest mineral extraction project in the Arctic and highlights the huge commercial potential of the far north as global warming makes industrial development in the region easier. The billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who is behind the project, wants to exploit a commodity whose value has doubled due to soaring demand from China and India. But the wildlife group WWF describes the planned mine as a ''game changer'' and a test case that could affect future industrialisation of the far north. 'It is of a scale that would be massive anywhere in the world,'' said Martin von Mirbach, a director of the Arctic program at WWF in Canada. WWF is demanding that the company proceed with extreme caution. Documents show that Mr Mittal's company, the world's biggest steel-making group, ArcelorMittal, admits that the operations will be undertaken in an area inhabited by unique wildlife. *Guardian
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/conservation/wildlife-fears-over-british-billionaires-plans-for-arctic-megamine-20110705-1h0mf.html#ixzz1RGiWYsws

Giant Wombats

Imagine a wombat that's 3m tall and weighs about as much as a Hummer. That would be the diprotodon - the largest marsupial to walk the planet. Scientists in Outback Queensland have just discovered one of the most complete skeletons of the megafauna, which is believed to have roamed Australia between 2.5 million and 50,000 years ago. "It's a scientifically very important find," said Dr Sue Hand, the University of NSW paleontologist who oversaw the project. "The diprotodon overlapped with the first people that came to Australia and, as an iconic animal, is central to a lot of the debate and argument about what happened to megafauna and why they died out. There's going to be a lot of information that comes from this find." Dr Hand said while the diprotodon was the last surviving member of its family, its closest living relatives were wombats and koalas. The prehistoric marsupial is thought to have raised its young in a pouch, was a vegetarian, grazed savannahs and lived in herds. "We wouldn't be surprised to find more individuals in the area," Dr Hand said. The remains were found late last year at a paleontological dig at Floraville Station, about 70km south of Burketown in Queensland's Gulf country. Dr Hand said the local community, including school children and mining company Xstrata, were heavily involved in the project, helping to excavate the remains. Scientists hope the discovery will show what northern Australia looked like millions of years ago. The diprotodon skeleton will be exhibited at the Queensland Museum after tests on the remains. *Courier Mail

Cane toads

The classic example of an introduced-species-gone-awry gets even worse. Not only do living cane toads regularly kill many of Australia’s endemic predators that hunt and eat the hopping meals, dead toads—common roadkill along Australia’s highways—are threatening local aquatic fauna. Cane toads have blighted Australia every since the animals were introduced to the continent in order to control beetles that were damaging sugar cane crops. In addition to being largely unsuccessful in controlling the beetle population, the toads bred prolifically, decimating natural predators such as snakes and lizard, which were poisoned by toxins produced by the toad called bufatoxins. * TheScientist Read more ... http://the-scientist.com/2011/07/05/dead-cane-toads-are-deadly/



Marine Turtles

A green sea turtle found dead on an Australian beach had more than 300 pieces of plastic in its digestive system, a wildlife group said Thursday. The 16-inch (40 centimeter) turtle was found washed up at Ballina, on Australia's eastern coast earlier this month. Australian Seabird Rescue, which conducted a necropsy in a bid to determine what killed the turtle, released video footage of the 317 pieces of plastic which were removed from its stomach and intestines. The debris included three varieties of plastic bag, fishing line, packing tape, plastic-coated wire and several lollipop-style sticks. A spokeswoman for the group, Rochelle Ferris, said it was the most shocking case she had seen in 15 years and there was "no doubt" that plastic had killed the turtle. "We see 40 or 50 sea turtles each year that are suffering from plastic ingestion," Ferris said. The organization called for the Australian government to change stormwater systems to stem the flow of garbage into the ocean from urban waterways. *PoconaRecord

Kangaroos

Kangaroos adopt. It doesn't happen often, but to the astonishment of biologists at Wilsons Promontory National Park in Australia, sometimes a mother bends forward, opens her arms and invites someone else's youngster to hop into her pouch. Once made, the mix-up endures, lasting through the remaining weeks of "pouch life" and on during months of the "young-at-foot" stage, when the growing juvenile kangaroo continues to nurse. "It's a complete surprise to us," said Graeme Coulson, a zoology professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Coulson described the baby swapping -- in which two mothers end up with each other's young -- this month at a joint meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists and the Australian Mammal Society in Portland, Ore. Although rare cases of marsupial fostering have previously been reported in captivity, and biologists have used fostering in breeding programs, this appears to be the first documented report of spontaneous adoptions in the wild, said Roberta Bencini, vice president of the Australian Mammal Society and professor of animal biology at the University of Western Australia. "That's really quite an unusual discovery," said Bencini, who was not involved in Coulson's research. "I would like to find out why."
read more ..
http://www.livescience.com/14866-kangaroos-mysterious-offspring-swapping-habits.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29

Ed comment; This is a long article, but worth reading. It's been long known that on rare occcasions a kangaroo mum will adopt an orphaned joey, but why it should surprise these academics is unknown. Coulson does a lot of work for the kangaroo Industry, and he publicly supported the Belconnen kangaroo massacre. One does have to wonder how useful some of these "studies" are.......


Mother kangaroos face higher health risks to carry and raise their young than their non-reproducing sisters; a new University of Melbourne study has shown. The study, led by Dr Graeme Coulson and Professor Mark Elgar from the Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne demonstrated for the first time that mother Eastern Grey Kangaroos almost double their food intake and significantly reduce their time spent resting in order to meet the nutritional needs of their baby. “By increasing their food intake, mothers increase their risk of parasite infection because it is harder to avoid faecal-contaminated pasture whilst consuming so much more forage,” said Dr Coulson. “This elevated risk of parasite infection may be a very significant additional cost for reproducing females.” “We have been able to prove that reproducing females altered their behaviour in direct response to the energetic demands of reproduction.” Professor Elgar explained that scientists have long assumed that reproducing female mammals must adjust their behaviour to compensate for increased energetic demands, but no-one had been able to prove this until now. “This is the first field experiment that has been able to comprehensively compare the behaviour of females with young and females without young at the same time and place.” “In our novel study, we manipulated reproduction by giving some females within the group birth control but leaving others to reproduce naturally.” “This study has allowed us to develop a better understanding of the energetic and health costs in populations of kangaroos and other mammals more generally and can therefore help us better manage species.” The study will be published in the next issue of the international journal Biology Letters. * ScienceAlert

Tassie Devils

A leading tasmanian devil expert believes some of the animals in captive breeding programs should be released into the wild on the mainland. The deadly facial tumour disease wiping out the wild devil populations has led scientists to protect more than 100 of the carnivorous marsupials in interstate captive breeding programs. But the University of Tasmania's Menna Jones says there is a danger these devils will adapt to become a captive species. She says international programs with other species have found reintroduction from captive-bred animals has a fairly low success rate. Dr Jones says it is critically important to have healthy devils living in the wild. "Animals change when they live in captivity and they adapt to become not a domestic species but a captive species," she said. "They may be contained but if they're in 50 to 100 square kilometres or an enclosure that's at least 100 square kilometres, they're living as wild animals, they're retaining their natural behaviours and those animals are going to be the most suitable for repopulating the tasmanian devil population." She says devils could be released in areas where there are no dingoes and fox control measures are in place. *ABC
Ed comment; Sounds good, but there are very few places where some government agency is not dropping poison for wild dogs...and what happens when the devils move out of their allotted area?

Camels

The world's association of camel scientists fought back angrily over Australian plans to kill wild dromedaries on the grounds that their flatulence adds to global warming. The idea is "false and stupid... a scientific aberration", the International Society of Camelid Research and Development (ISOCARD) charged yesterday, saying camels were being made culprits for a man-made problem. "We believe that the good-hearted people and innovating nation of Australia can come up with better and smarter solutions than eradicating camels in inhumane ways," it said. The kill-a-camel suggestion is floated in a paper distributed by Australia's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, as part of consultations for reducing the country's carbon footprint.
Ed Comment; Australia is heavily reliant on coal-fired power and mining exports and has one of the highest per-capita carbon levels in the world, but we can save the Planet by killing the camels?
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/outrage-over-cull-of-farting-camels-20110704-1gzdm.html#ixzz1RAqqgpIW

Hendra Outbreak

Tests have confirmed a horse that died near Brisbane yesterday is the sixth victim in a worrying escalation of the Hendra virus. The horse fell ill and died at Park Ridge, south of Brisbane, on Monday night, not far from where other Hendra cases have been confirmed. Initial tests produced conflicting results. But results from further tests, returned late yesterday, confirmed the animal had Hendra virus. The horse's owner and a vet who had contact with the animal have joined the list of people waiting to learn if they've contracted the potentially deadly virus. They now number 17 in Queensland and nine in NSW. Queensland's chief veterinary officer Rick Symons said there was only one horse on the Park Ridge property, which was now under quarantine. "However there are horses on neighbouring properties so we are currently addressing the need to quarantine properties in the immediate area," he said. Since June 20, six horses have died or have been put down after contracting Hendra - five in southern Queensland and one in northern NSW. Park Ridge is about 70km from Mt Alford and 50km from Kerry, where other Hendra cases have been confirmed. A total of six properties are now under quarantine - five in southern Queensland, including the Park Ridge site, and one at Wollongbar, in northern NSW. *CourierMail

Ed Comment; Not surprisingly, there have been strident calls for flying foxes to not only be "culled" but some want them eradicated. I had a brief discussion with Campbell Newman, the Qld LNP leader, about flying foxes at the weekend. If elected, they have no intention of "culling" them, but may approve some relocations. I asked him to talk to us before they made any such decissions, and I have a meeting with the LNP Environment spokesperson Andrew Powell next week to discuss Flying Foxes and other issues.

Below is a comment from FF expert Les Hall

I can understand Biosecurity Queensland's concern over testing all horses that may have come in contact with the infected horse at Beaudesert and the implications for human health. However I hope that Biosercurity Queensland's field team takes the opportunity to thoroughly investigate all other animals that may have come into contact or could have passed on Hendra Virus to the horse. This list includes dogs, cats, rats, mice, brush-tailed possums, bandicoots, hares, carpet pythons and any blood sucking insects such as ticks, mosquitoes and march flies. This sampling should be done as close as possible to where the horse was kept. Previous random sampling for antibodies in some of these species from various localities should not exclude them from being tested at the site of the outbreak. Not enough is known about how Hendra Virus circulates in the environment to exclude any possible host or vector.

Logical science would indicate that the search should be made from the infected animal outwards, ie who or what was the horse exposed to where it may have contracted Hendra virus. We need to know if the horse was stabled every night (will reduce number of contact species), if it was being fed supplementary food (could be contaminated with cat, rat and mouse faeces) and if the horse was being medicated.
The current approach of trying to find a direct transmission route from a flying-fox to a horse is flawed and this should be very obvious after 15 years of searching and testing. It makes better science to start with the horse and work outwards. If this leads back to flying-foxes, then we have a culprit. The tenuous link between flying-fox urine containing Hendra Virus and the possible chance that this may infect horses seems to be preventing other investigations on possible infection routes or sources. As it has been previously noted - its possible that both horses and flying-foxes could be getting infected from a third source. While research is totally focussed on flying-foxes the real culprit could remain unidentified. Its important horse owners are able to protect their animals and we need to find the source that is responsible for horses contracting Hendra Virus. The research should forget about flying-foxes for awhile and concentrate on looking closer at horses and the environment at the stables.

The next comments are from me as a flying-fox biologist. The Beaudesert area is in rain shadow and not a particularly good area for flying-foxes. I know of camps at Mount Tambourine, Flinders Peak and near Woodenbong that are regularly used by flying-foxes and are within flying range of Kerry. It would be useful information to see if these camps are occupied at present, what species are present, what is their body condition and what are they feeding on locally. Has anyone seen flying-foxes feeding near the outbreak area in the last couple of nights? We need to know if there are any flying-foxes in the vicinity of the outbreak.
Its time to move on from the outbreaks of Hendra Virus being blamed solely on flying-foxes and concentrate on good investigative science. *


An operation to evict a colony of bats from Adelaide's Botanic Gardens has been a success, the Environment Department says. The colony of about 350 grey-headed flying foxes has moved from the Gardens to neighbouring Botanic Park. A scheme to unsettle the threatened mammals using noise started in May after it was found they were damaging rare plants. Environment Department ecologist Jason van Weenen says the bats are now roosting in trees that are less sensitive to defoliation. "If damage was to occur to them, it wouldn't be as significant as others within the Gardens." "We'll have some more discussions in the near future about whether or not it's going to be a suitable site in the long-term so at this stage we're just letting them settle down and have a bit of a break." "It's been about a month of the program so it's important that they get a bit of a rest from the whole disturbance activities," he said. The bats flew in from the eastern states last year. *ABC


Green Politics

Bob Irwin says Queensland must review its animal cruelty laws to stop the suffering of endangered species taken by indigenous hunters. The environmental campaigner, who's been asked to run for The Queensland Party at the next election, says the state has failed to stop the horrific deaths of endangered dugongs and turtles. In a joint statement, he and party leader Aidan McLindon said current provisions allowed such species to be hunted and suffer over several days before being cut up alive. "Our governments are no longer concerned in regards to blatant cruelty, whether it be domestic stock or native wildlife," Mr Irwin said in the statement. "Their motivation of greed and dominance at any cost is bringing shame and disgust around the world to all decent Australians." Mr McLindon said Queensland's laws lacked consistency. He said it was the only Australian state to ban ritual killings, but was also the only state or territory without animal cruelty protections related to indigenous hunting. "It is important to ensure the highest standards of animal protection in Queensland because it is the right thing to do," he said. "The Queensland government should get full marks for having the courage to ban cruel ritual slaughters, but it now needs to ensure that proper measures are in place to regulate indigenous hunting."

The statement noted some traditional owners had recognised the need to protect dugongs and turtles, despite having the right to hunt the endangered animals. The Mamu People, south of Innisfail, have enacted their own self-imposed hunting restrictions, the men said. Mr Irwin could reveal his political hand as early as Friday morning, when he'll hold a press conference alongside Mr McLindon in Tin Can Bay. On Sunday, Mr Irwin said that The Queensland Party wanted him to run in the Brisbane seat of Ashgrove which will be a critical seat at the next election as Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman must win it if he's to realise his ambition of becoming premier. Ashgrove is currently held by Labor's former environment minister Kate Jones and the former Brisbane lord mayor is leading the opposition to the election from the sidelines. The LNP has not said who'll be premier if the party defeats Labor, but Mr Newman fails to win Ashgrove. However, Mr Irwin - the father of the late adventurer, conservationist and "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin - has also indicated he might run as an independent. * AAP

Vultures

Police chiefs are to scrap a plan to use vultures to replace sniffer dogs after it turned out to be a miserable failure. Police in Germany imported the birds from Carinthia, Austria, in the hope their amazing eyesight, fantastic sense of smell and ability to find dead prey would help them to find missing bodies. But the three birds - named Sherlock, Miss Marples and Columbo - have failed to find a single cadaver laid out in the wild for them - unless put in front of their beaks. And one refuses to fly at all. Sherlock walks around at a speed similar to a waddling duck making him far less efficient than the average sniffer dog. In addition the other two birds - Miss Marple and Columbo - spend most of their time fighting. An insider working with the project at Walsrode in Lower Saxony, Germany, confirmed: "The project has been a disaster."

Early trials with the birds - which have a five foot wingspan - had already ruffled feathers with fans of more traditional methods. "Everyone knows what vultures do when they find a body and they're not going to be as easy to call off as a Labrador. You could find half the evidence disappearing down their beaks," said one. When contacted this week for a comment project creator Hermann Meyer said that the vultures were temporarily no longer available for journalistic access. Trainer German Alonso admitted: "They don't seem to be able to do anything other than attack each other." And he admitted they had done more research on the birds that indicated they might not have been the best choice. He said: "It seems they are rather cowardly birds - they would rather hide in the woods than be out and about in the open." *Orange.co.uk
Ed Comment; Perhaps they didnt pay them enough?

Powerful Owls

The nests are built, the eggs are laid and for Sydney's powerful owls it is time to hoot and be counted. Birds Australia is calling on the public to help locate and monitor breeding pairs of Australia's largest species of owl, Ninox strenua. The birds are listed as vulnerable in NSW and there are 20 to 30 breeding pairs living in the Sydney region, an owl expert from the Department of Primary Industries, Rod Kavanagh, said. ''But we don't know for sure and we don't know where they are breeding. We need to identify the critical roosting and breeding requirements of the owls and the locations of important areas requiring protection." The manager of the Birds in Backyards program at Birds Australia, Holly Parsons, said powerful owls are about 55 centimetres tall. They possess large yellow eyes, massive talons and white and grey-brown plumage. ''They're much larger than any other owl that we are likely to see in our suburbs,'' she said.

But people are more likely to hear the bird's slow resonant hoot than catch a glimpse of these nocturnal creatures. ''It's a very distinctive deep 'whoo-hoo' call.'' The breeding season lasts from April to September and the program is asking people who spot the birds to get in touch. The owls prefer forested areas, and nest in the hollows of large, old trees, such as Lilly Pillys, Turpentines and Coachwoods. They live in the same area year-round, and can range over more than 1000 hectares in search of food, such as possums, sugar gliders and grey-headed flying foxes. "We need to know where and when you saw or heard the bird and anything interesting you noticed about where it was or what it was doing,'' Dr Parsons said. Birds in Backyards is also training volunteers who are willing to regularly check on a breeding pair and report back what the birds are doing at their nests. To report a sighting or volunteer as an observer email birdsinbackyards@birdsaustralia.com.au *Age


LadyBirds

CSIRO research has revealed that the tremendous diversity of ladybird beetle species is linked to their ability to produce larvae which, with impunity, poach members of 'herds' of tiny, soft-bodied scale insects from under the noses of the aggressive ants that tend them. Reconstructing the evolutionary history of ladybird beetles (family Coccinellidae), the researchers found that the ladybirds' first major evolutionary shift was from feeding on hard-bodied ("armoured") scale insects to soft-bodied scale insects. "Soft-bodied scales are easier to eat, but present a whole new challenge," says Dr Ainsley Seago, a researcher with the CSIRO's Australian National Insect Collection. "These soft-bodied sap-feeding insects are tended by ants, which guard the defenceless scales and collect a 'reward' of sugary honeydew. The ant tenders aggressively defend their scale insect 'livestock' and are always ready to attack any predator that threatens their herd." Therein lay the evolutionary problem confronting ladybird beetles, whose larvae were highly vulnerable to ant attack.

To avoid being killed as they poach the ant's scales, ladybird larvae evolved to produce two anti-ant defences: an impregnable woolly coat of wax filaments, and glands which produce defensive chemicals. Most of the ladybird family's 6,000 species are found in lineages with one or both of these defences. "We found that most of ladybird species' richness is concentrated in groups with these special larval defences," Dr Seago said. "These groups are more successful than any other lineage of ladybird beetle. Furthermore, these defences have been 'lost' in the few species that have abandoned soft-scale poaching in favour of eating pollen or plant leaves. "This is an unusual way for diversity to arise in an insect group. "In most previous research, insect species richness has been linked to co-evolution or adaptive 'arms races' with plants." This research helps to place Australia's ladybirds in the evolutionary tree of life for insects, and helps us to understand the complex system of mechanisms by which beetle diversity has arisen. *SCIRO

Seals

Namibia plans to kill 86,000 seals this year, including 80,000 pups, for their fur pelts and to protect the southern African nation’s fishing industry, according to Bernand Esau, the minister of fisheries and marine resources. The government will allow 80,000 young seals and 6,000 bulls to be culled between July and November, about the same number as last year, he said in a telephone interview today. The exercise, which is condemned by animal rights groups, is necessary for the survival of Namibia’s fishing industry, the government has said. Namibia, together with Canada and Greenland, supplies most of the world’s seal-fur harvest, an industry it defends as necessary to preserve fisheries, one of its main exports. The Namibian government has said seals consume about 700,000 metric tons of fish a year, more than the total annual allowable catch for its entire fishing industry. The nation is the biggest supplier of hake to the European Union, which has banned the seal trade because it says the clubbing and skinning of seals causes unnecessary suffering to the animals.

The Namibian hunt isn’t adequately monitored and seals are treated in a less humane fashion than in some other culls, animal rights groups, including the International Fund for Animal Welfare, have said. In Namibia, the pups are clubbed to death while adults are shot, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Independent reported in 2006. The genitalia of adult bulls are exported to east Asia where they are sold as an aphrodisiac while the rest of the seals are used to make fur coats, gloves, handbags, seal oil and carcass meal, the newspaper said. At Cape Cross, Namibia’s biggest seal colony, a shop sells seal products ranging from seal-skin boots to hats. *Bloomfield Businessweek