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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
  • plastics and other pollution - seabirds, turtles, whales and other marine creatures often swallow large bits of plastic thinking they are jellyfish or large quantities of micro-plastics among the krill, often with fatal results. See Dangers of plastic to marine life
  • 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





brush-tailed rock wallaby

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)


          

Local conservation groups (Scenic Rim):

Elsewhere in Queensland:

Elsewhere in Australia:



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






superb fairy-wren





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

WPSQ
                      Scenic RimThe 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