Fine Art and Poetry IX~ Dancing in the Light

By Laurel Marie Sobol

Indian Elephant Calf

Eyes so big and full of life and wonder

Gentle baby with gentle ways soft as downy feathers

Little one full of fun may all your dreams come true

Staying close to your mama and having all the time in the world

To live your life in the wild with your herd of aunts and relatives

Living wild and free in nature as it should be

Fine Art and Poetry IX~ Dancing in the Light (Volume 9) by Laurel Marie Sobol  (May 22, 2012)

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Protests in France against Human Rights violations in China (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Snack food vending machine in Australia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bell Brand Snack Foods (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the last month, a team of Palm Oil Activists working with RAN has been going to grocery stores to put “Warning: this snack may contain orangutan extinction” stickers on products containing palm oil that may be tied to rainforest destruction. They’ve talked to store managers about the palm oil in the snack foods they sell, they’ve had conversations with their friends and family about the rainforest destruction that palm oil is driving, and they’ve generally been all-stars at putting the snack industry on notice.

PALMITATE SUPER GMO WITH HUNDREDS OF NAMES pdf share and save globally
Before we launch into our next round of calling out snack food containing destructive palm oil, we wanted to give you a quick update on where our campaign is at, and invite you to get in on the action: Sign up for the Palm Oil Action Team now and you can be a part of awesomeness like this:

In April, we sent letters to 20 of the leading snack food companies—makers of some of the most popular brand name products in America. We told them that we are giving them this one chance to come clean and commit to breaking the link between their snack foods and controversial palm oil production that is tied to rainforest destruction and human rights violations.

Since then, over 40,000 people have pledged to stand with RAN and demanded that the snack food industry take rainforest destruction and human rights violations out of our snacks. Hundreds of people have signed up to take action with us as part of the Palm Oil Action Team.

Our mission is to convince these 20 companies to commit to only purchasing palm oil that has been produced responsibly, without links to rainforest destruction and human rights violations. So far, nine of the 20 snack food companies responded to our letter. Eight of these companies have agreed to meet with us.

Eleven snack food companies have not responded to our letters. We need to let them know that they can not ignore this important issue any longer.

We’re off to a great start. But we need your help to get orangutan extinction out of America’s snack foods.

Related articles

If the tragic images of young elephant calf “Joe” tugging desperately at his poisoned mother’s carcass last January on the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo wasn’t heartbreaking enough, it’s happened again this week.  Three more Sumatran elephants were found dead on the nearby Indonesian island of Sumatra  -  and evidence points directly to…

• WARNING! Your snacks may contain Orangutan Extinction! (girrlearth.com)
• Your Supermarket is Selling Rainforest Destruction! Get the Facts On Palm Oil and the US Snack Food Industry. (understory.ran.org)
• Why ‘RSPO Sustainable Palm Oil’ is not responsible (understory.ran.org)
• Palm Oil Kills Three More Elephants in Sumatra (gettingonmysoapbox.wordpress.com)
• Avoid Products That Contain Unsustainable Palm Oil (gettingonmysoapbox.wordpress.com)

Elephant Safari Park Taro

A bit of background on elephants in this part of the world…they are not native to the island of Bali, but they are native to its sister island in Indonesia: Sumatra.  Sumatran elephants (the smallest of the Asian pachyderms) were once widespread on Sumatra, but today they survive only in highly fragmented populations due to extreme loss of habitat and poaching.  The resort in Taro, Bali was founded to help rescue this endangered species and is currently home to 30 beautiful elephants.

Fast asleep on my second night at the resort, I received a call from the resort owner at 4am, telling me that one of the elephants was in labor and expected to deliver within the hour – and did I want to come watch.  Are you kidding??

…of course!!

I grabbed a flashlight and headed over to a thatched roof stable on the other side of the resort where I arrived just in time to watch 28-year-old Yanti give birth to her first baby – a 200 pound girl, aptly named Fajar, which is Balinese for “dawn”.

Baby Fajar smiling for the camera

There were about 20 guests from the resort watching and we felt so privileged to witness something so amazing.

After many tries, Fajar was standing on her own 4 feet within 30 minutes of being born.  Her mother stood by patiently as she shakily took her first few steps, and we all stood by in awe watching.

First attempt at standing…

This is hard work…

Giving it another try…

…almost!!

Made it!

A few minutes later, trumpets of congratulation sounded from other elephants in the park.  Wow.

Yanti and baby Fajar – 1 hour after birth (pretty good family portrait!)

A bit later in the morning, I headed off to give another of the elephants in the park a “shower” scrubdown and then had the opportunity to take a bath (and a ride) with another.  So much fun!

Scrubbing down

Going for a bath…

Down…

Down further…

….and back up!

…and crashing back down (elephant rodeo!)

It was such a pleasure to spend time with these amazing, beautiful, intelligent animals.  A great final experience in Bali.

Next stop:  Bhutan.

sumatran elephant (Photo credit: Sree_)

When will this f-ing madness stop?  Palm oil — sustainable or otherwise — is just plain evil.

http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0601-elephants-killed-palm-oil.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Related articles

• Three Sumatran elephants poisoned (news.com.au)
• Three Rare Sumatran Elephants Found Dead Of Poisoning (rawstory.com)

palm oil plantation (Photo credit: angela7dreams)

I came across this article today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/poisoned-sumatran-elephant-dies-in-indonesian-palm-oil-plantation/2012/05/01/gIQAYO2mtT_story.html

A rare Sumatran elephant  — because of depleting habitat in Indonesia due to the insane quest for fuc$ing palm oil — was poisoned by villagers because it was apparently straying into cropland!

I mean they killed it instead of finding a more sane alternative!

Who the F does that?  Oh, I know — back-assward Indonesia does.  I am so enraged that I can’t see straight.

I have got to find a job where I can try to save such creatures and their habitat before  they’re gone!

Related articles

• Sumatran elephant found poisoned in Indonesia (sacbee.com)
• Deforestation and What is left of life (pandabones.wordpress.com)
• Indonesia to investigate contested oil palm concession as governor loses election in Sumatra (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)
• Orangutan Emergency in Indonesia: The Edge of Extinction (huffingtonpost.com)
• Governor of Aceh who signed palm oil permit: plantation in Tripa “morally wrong” (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)

Whilst in 2004 the establishment of the Tesso Nilo National Park brought hope for the elephants, the sad truth is that poor park management and rapid deforestation has made the concept of a ‘protected area’ a joke. The park is shared by the close to extinct Sumatran Tiger, but with Indonesia already losing the Java and Bali Tigers, the outlook for these species remains bleak. What can be done to help conservation efforts and to shift Indonesia away from the short-sighted self-destructive path it is currently on?

January 2012: WWF is calling for an immediate moratorium on habitat conversion in Sumatra in order to protect the future of the country’s elephants. The Sumatran elephant has been uplisted from ‘endangered’ to ‘critically endangered’ after losing nearly 70 per cent of its habitat and half its population in one generation. The decline is largely because of elephant habitat being deforested or converted for agricultural plantations.

IUCN has classified the Sumatran elephant subspecies as critically endangered on its Red List of Threatened Species. There are only an estimated 2,400 to 2,800 of the animals remaining in the wild, meaning numbers have halved since the 1985 population estimate. Scientists say that if current trends continue, Sumatran elephants could be extinct in the wild in less than 30 years.

Without action, these animals will be extinct within our lifetime The latest report from the IUCN Red List says: ‘Although as a species Sumatran elephants are protected under Indonesia law, 85 per cent of their habitats which are located outside of protected areas, are outside of the protection system and likely to be converted to agricultural and other purposes.’

Sumatra is thought to hold some of the most significant populations of Asian elephants outside of India and Sri Lanka. Yet within the Asian elephant’s range, Sumatra has experienced perhaps the most rapid deforestation rate. Sumatra has lost more than two-thirds of its natural lowland forest in the past 25 years – the most suitable habitat for elephants – resulting in local extinctions of the elephant from many areas.

‘The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger,’ said Dr Carlos Drews, director of WWF’s Global Species programme. ‘Unless urgent and effective conservation action is taken these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime.’

WWF is calling on the Indonesian government to prohibit all forest conversion in elephant habitats until an elephant conservation strategy is in place. The organization recommends that the government conduct an assessment to determine large habitat patches and designate them as protected areas. Additionally, smaller habitat areas should be linked with conservation corridors, and areas of possible habitat expansion or restoration explored.

Six out of nine herds have been lost Asian elephant expert Ajay Desai said: ‘It’s very important that the Government of Indonesia, conservation organizations and agro-forestry companies recognize the critical status of elephant and other wildlife in Sumatra and take effective steps to conserve them. Indonesia must act now before it’s too late to protect Sumatra’s last remaining natural forests, especially elephant habitats.’

In Sumatra’s Riau Province, where pulp and paper industries and oil palm plantations are causing the some of the world’s most rapid rates of deforestation, elephant numbers have declined by a staggering 80 per cent in less than 25 years. Habitat fragmentation has confined some herds to small forest patches, and these populations are not likely to survive in the long term.

‘Riau Province has already lost six of its nine herds to extinction. The last surviving elephants may soon disappear if the government doesn’t take steps to stop forest conversion and effectively protect the elephants,’ said Anwar Purwoto of WWF-Indonesia. ‘Forest concession holders such as pulp and paper companies and the palm oil industry have a legal and ethical obligation to protect endangered species within their concessions.’

Similarly, Lampung Province has seen its number of elephant herds decline from 12 in the 1980s to only three by 2002. Just two of the remaining herds are considered biologically viable.

‘In the mid-1980s, Sumatra had 44 elephant populations spread across all of its eight provinces, and the island still had half of its natural forests,’ said Dr A Christy Williams, who heads WWF’s Asian Elephant programme. ‘Due to conversions of those forests for human settlement and agricultural production, many elephant populations have come into serious conflicts with humans. As a result, a large number of elephants have been captured from the wild or killed.’

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/sumatran-elephants2012.html

Wikipedia

For more visit:
http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?203227

Sumatran elephants in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

The Sumatran elephant subspecies (Elephas maximus sumatranus) was downgraded to critically endangered on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species on Tuesday, prompting environmental group WWF to call for an immediate moratorium on destruction of its rainforest habitat, which is being rapidly lost to oil palm estates, timber plantations for pulp and paper production, and agricultural use.

“The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger,” said Dr. Carlos Drews, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme, in a statement. “Unless urgent and effective conservation action is taken these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime.”

By IUCN estimates, the population of Sumatran elephants has declined by more than 50 percent since 1985. During the same period, Sumatra lost nearly 70 percent of its lowland forest — the preferred habitat for elephants. The loss has been particularly steep in Riau province, where remaining lowland forests are increasingly at risk of conversion for industrial plantations. WWF says that less than 20 percent of Riau’s 1985 population of elephants remains.

“Riau Province has already lost six of its nine herds to extinction. The last surviving elephants may soon disappear if the government doesn’t take steps to stop forest conversion and effectively protect the elephants,” said Anwar Purwoto of WWF-Indonesia. “Forest concession holders such as pulp and paper companies and the palm oil industry have a legal and ethical obligation to protect endangered species within their concessions.”

Pulp and paper suppliers operating in key elephant habitat include Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings (APRIL) and Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), according to environmentalists. The paper giants have been criticized recently for ongoing conversion of natural forests for plantations, although both maintain their activities are legal under Indonesian law.

Sumatran elephants in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Photos by Rhett A. Butler

While Indonesia has taken steps to protect blocks of elephant habitat, forest loss and fragmentation exacerbates the risk of human-elephant conflict outside protected areas. WWF says “a large number” have been killed as a result of forest conversion and encroachment.

Accordingly, WWF is now calling for “an immediate moratorium on habitat conversion to secure a future for Sumatran elephants.” The group is urging the Indonesian government “to prohibit all forest conversion in elephant habitats until a conservation strategy is determined for protecting the animals.”

“Urgent measures are needed to protect Sumatra’s remaining natural forests so that future generations of Indonesians can inherit a natural heritage that includes wild elephants, tigers, orangutans and rhinos,” said the group.

Read more:http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0124-sumatran_elephant.html#ixzz1kSyzFf44

Sumatran elephant population plunges; WWF calls for moratorium on deforestation.

All finished – and again, like the white rhino, Nile crocodile, and mud woman sculptures, this is an experiment in depicting flowing water and mud evolving into the elephant’s bust. What’s a little different this time is the “water” part of the sculpture flows from the elephant’s trunk and not from some unknown source.  She’s creating herself!  When she’s glazed she’ll be mostly shades-of-blue for the water and earth-tones depicting the “mud” that forms her face and trunk.

In the “finished…a few more liberties taken…but, but…I’m an artist” category: I totally messed-up getting the tip of the trunk correct.  Sumatran elephants are known for having a very pronounced “finger” at the end of their trunks and I missed that.  Check out these sites for more interesting facts about Sumatran elephants; Wikipedia and EleAid.

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Indonesia serves as a good example of a country where the landscape is changing and in turn affecting wildlife and people.  Forests are being cut down at alarming rates for agricultural demands such as the palm oil industry.  Palm plantations cover 3,107,986 hectares of Indonesia and the government plans to expand plantations by an extra four million hectares in Sumatra alone.

The monoculture of palm decreases wildlife habitat and food resources pushing wildlife closer to human settlements.  Continuous forest conversion for the purpose of plantation development, wood extraction, and the opening of community gardens has virtually eliminated all lowland habitats.  This forces animals like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) endangered Sumatran elephant Elephas maximus sumatranus to forested slopes of mountain ranges where they more often will enter gardens and raid crops.

Many studies state that wildlife habitat destruction is the greatest cause for the occurrence of crop raiding.  At the same time like many parts of the world population growth is soaring which also increases wildlife and human niches to overlap.  Indonesia is a region of high human population density having the sixth largest human population in the world.  Lee & Priston (2005) state that there has been a spread of agriculture and human activity into areas that used to only be sustained by nonhuman primates and that most of the world’s subsistence farmers live in proximity to monkeys and apes.  Wildlife continually being forced to move will increase the scale and extent of encounters between humans and wildlife as well as crop raiding.

Journal articles were chosen specifically on crop raiding of all species in Indonesia but some references included general articles about Indonesia and other case examples in the world such as Africa.  Most crop raiding studies have been done in Africa.  Indonesia was an interesting location because of its high human population density, rapidly declining forests, and large variety of species that come into contact with crops.

Hockings (2009) describes crop raiding as wildlife venturing into cultivated areas to consume foods that humans see as belonging to them.  It can be an adaptation by wildlife to a loss of both natural habitat and wild foods and also an increase in access to new energy-rich food resources.  A study in four villages in North Sumatra showed that crop raiding by wildlife was reported by 94.9% of the interviewees as the single most important determinant of crop yields.  Thirteen vertebrates were reported causing damage to cultivars.  The most common were squirrels, porcupines, pigs, deer, elephants, and primates.  The ones perceived to be the most destructive were the primates.  Almost all families of nonhuman primates are shown by Lee & Priston (2005) to be crop raiders, cercopithecoids such as macaques being the largest culprit.  This is thought to be because they are intelligent opportunistic frugivores.  In addition, they often live near forest-edges.

Crop damage caused by raiding wildlife is a prevalent form of human-wildlife conflict along protected area boundaries and near logged areas on forest borders.  Primates tend to dominate as the major pests around reserves in Asia, responsible for over 70% of damage events.  Macaques on the Mentawai Islands comprise up to 35% of garden yield losses.  Macaques and other primates are clever, opportunistic, adaptable, and often manipulative.  Crop raiding is often an easy option for them.  In Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra wild elephants damaged 450,000 square meters of corn, rice, cassava, beans and other annual crops as well about 900 coconut, banana, and other perennial trees over an 18 month survey study of 13 villages.  Within a 12-year period elephants killed or injured 24 people near the park.

Specific culprits mentioned in the articles that raided Indonesian crops included wild boars (Sus scrofa), Thomas’ leaf monkeys (Presbytis thomasi), long tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), orangutans (Pongo abelii), tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana), Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus), Pagai Island macaques (Macaca pagensis), and sun bears (Helarctos malayanus).  Different species specialize in different crops and even plant parts of crops or development stages. Not just primates are known to cause severe damage.  Primates may be agile but elephants cause a great deal of damage due to their large size and nocturnal/crepuscular activity.  Raiding patterns can relate to population density, behavior of the species, wild food availability, rainfall, season, and proximity of farms to forests.  All these factors affect raiding frequency and intensity, which play a large role in the livelihoods of people and how they perceive wildlife.

Crop raiding can have large impacts on people such as human lives lost in human-elephant conflicts.  As seen from statistics above crop raiding can have large impacts on the livelihoods of farmers.  They experience devastating economic losses when crops are their only source of income.   Crop raiding impacts time spent away from tending crops in order to carry out mitigation techniques like guarding.  Schooling of children is disrupted in order to help guard family crops.  There is also risk of injuries and disease transmission from wildlife.

The perceptions of local people toward wildlife crop raiding species are extremely important for mitigating crop raiding and for wildlife conservation.  Areas with less human wildlife conflict and crop raiding as well as better management tended to perceive wildlife more positively and were more tolerant.  People said that they enjoyed seeing wildlife and having them around for their children especially if they were not damaging crops.  Riley & Priston (2010) observed farmers tolerating crop raiding because they saw macaques as helping them harvest crops like cashew nuts.  A Butonese farmer stated ,“ they eat only the fruit, letting the nut drop to the ground for us to collect.”  In the Mentawai Islands in Sumatra nonhuman primates are seen as “cousins” and magical sources of spirit and life force, and were believed to play integral roles in the governing system of Mentawai life cycle.  In Bali monkeys are treated with great tolerance because the Balinese culture emphasizes harmony between nature and mankind.  Tokean macaques have been regarded as kin and guardians although still feared.  Seeing the animals when they were not actively crop raiding resulted in more positive perceptions of the animals.

However, local people often reported being threatened both in terms of crop loss and personal safety.  People felt more at risk with larger species such as elephants and primates despite whether raidings were rare for that species.  For example, studies showed that people feared orangutans much more than smaller species and perceived them to cause the most damage even when it was not the case.  Articles continually showed fear of wildlife and often local legends of primates kidnapping women or children like that of the Sumatran orangutan which resulted in “an offspring which is restricted to the treetops and in the night you can still hear the cries of the this human-half-orangutan.”  If farmers and families felt they were in no physical threat they were more tolerant.

Mitigation techniques included fences, electric fences, dogs, chemical deterrents, taste aversion conditioning, playback alarms, guarding/chasing, noise/bells/shouting, contraception, painting individuals, stones/slingshots/spears, shooting/hunting, trapping/culling, translocation, change cropping patterns, and buffer zones.  All of which can be used in different contexts with advantages and disadvantages.  Shouting is often the most common.

Linkie et al. (2006) states that guarding is completely ineffective for a variety of species whereas Hedges & Gunaryadi (2010) concluded community-based guarding using conventional tools was more effective and less costly than sirens and chilli-grease fences in Way Kambas National Park.  However, the chillies could serve as an alternate elephant-resistant cash crop.  Lee & and Priston (2005) state traditional methods of mitigation are often ineffective because of dexterity and intelligence of primates.  Techniques largely depend on the crop raider and the region.  Many of the techniques are very costly and time consuming to farmers.  More research needs to be invested in monitoring techniques that are utilized.  Incorporating local input and views will have longstanding effective crop-raiding solutions.  Cooperation of local people is necessary to control pests and conserve wildlife.  Lee & Priston (2005) state that information about the attitudes and perceptions of wildlife as pests is a prerequisite to designing optimal and effective management schemes and introducing suitable preventative measures.

Education programs and community meetings that initiate management schemes are necessary.  Ecotourism can also be a used to supplement income to farmers and lessen tension between people and wildlife.  The value of forests to people and wildlife must be addressed.  Campaigns and policies lessening the rates of deforestation will decrease habitat overlap and crop raiding issues between people and wildlife.

As forests are cleared for demands in agricultural expansion and population growth continues to rise, human and wildlife habitats in Indonesia will continue overlapping.  Human wildlife interactions will increase as will the incidence of crop raiding.   Mitigation techniques have proved very difficult due to limited resources of famers and intelligence of animals.  Each location and species presents a particular scenario with different factors affecting the intensity and occurrence of crop raiding that will require unique methods or a combination of tactics.  Therefore, if crop raiding cannot be eradicated, it certainly must be minimized and managed to reduce conflict.  People’s perceptions are particularly important because crop raiding can reduce tolerance toward wildlife and affect actions taken by local farmers.  Local people play the key role in generating sustainable solutions and for conserving wildlife.

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/sumatran-elephant

I have just read a sad story about how five endangered Sumatran elephants have been killed by villagers because they most likely damaged their crops.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/five-dead-elephants-believed-poisoned/story-e6frfku0-1225962327660

It’s the same old story. The elephants’ habitat has now been chopped down so there’s nothing for them to eat. So they eat the villagers’ crops. The villagers get angry. They retaliate. They kill the culprits. Five endangered elephants are now dead.

Wild and native animals are now the enemies of mankind. We don’t want them. There’s no place for them in our lives except as zoo exhibits, or as in the case of the kangaroo – on our dinner plate. 

My friend Julia was driving up on the highway near Byron Bay on Friday night and she noticed a baby koala trying to cross the highway.  She jumped out and helped it cross (nearly getting herself run over by semi trailers in the process).  When it got to the other side it was so stressed out it immediately tried to go back the way it had come. She had no option but to grab it and take it to the police station where it was to be handed over to WIRES (Wildlife Information and Rescue Service) officers.

The reason for this catastrophe is that all over Australia we build double lane major highways through koala habitats. I have seen squashed koalas in Victoria where the Hume Highway goes right through koala homeland.  It’s really quite disgraceful.

Have a read of what I have already written about the way we treat our iconic koala http://roslynmotter.com/2010/03/11/pity-about-the-australian-koala/

As for kangaroos, they are now just considered pests and lean meat. We are being encouraged to overcome the childhood obesity epidemic by eating kangaroos. No mention of giving up junk food or exercising - just eat kangaroo meat! When I was a child, no one ate kangaroo meat but we were all thin and active.

A recent discussion on this very subject at the University of Technology, advertised it as follows -

UTSpeaks: Killing Skippy Will kangaroos survive being seen as lean, tender meat and damaging pests?       November 30th 2010 How did kangaroos stop being wonders of the Australian bush, becoming only good for food or sport? Why do conflicting opinions abound about how many kangaroos Australia should maintain and how many we can sustain, if these animals are intensively harvested in the wild for meat? Despite industry reassurances, do kangaroos and their pouch young suffer cruelly at the hands of hunters? Based on cutting-edge UTS research, this public lecture addresses the contentious issues of harvesting and eating kangaroos as a means to protect the environment and examines the laws and regulations that govern the well-being of one of our most treasured national icons.

I have previously written about this subject and the abhorrent way that joeys are ‘finished off’ after their mothers have been slaughtered. See http://roslynmotter.com/2010/03/27/baby-seals-and-joeys-a-head-splitting-issue/

I didn’t go to the talk so I don’t know what was said, however I think that the crux of the problem is that more than anything, we want their land.  Koalas are proving to be a jolly nuisance as they tend to live in highly desirable areas – Port Macquarie, Nelson Bay, the southern part of Queensland for example, where a lot of development is occuring.

All animals need a certain amount of space for their habitat before they become stressed.  It’s no use leaving a few trees with koalas on either side of a double lane highway and hoping that everything will work out. It won’t work out for the koalas anyway.

But then it’s not just koalas and kangaroos who are animals non gratis. It’s fruit bats, ibises, sharks, wombats, crocodiles, cockatoos, possums – the list goes on. 

I remember when the beautiful Christmas Beetle was a Christmas trademark. They’d be all over the place in summer. I haven’t seen one for years.  I read last week how Stephen Fellenberg has said that their disappearance is due to their habitat being destroyed. They have an incubation period of two years under the ground before they emerge, fully formed.  These incubation areas are being dug up to make way for housing developments. Same old story.

We’ve made life as miserable as we can for Australian wildlife. We’ve brought in Indian Mynah birds and cane toads which have decimated our birds and native animals. Whatever is left over is under serious stress.

Curiously, since I wrote this blog I’ve noticed a few people googling ‘are cows and sheep native Australian animals?’ Well the answer to this is a big NO. They, together with foxes, rabbits, dogs, cats and pigs were brought out to Australia from England after colonisation. Foxes were for ‘sport’ and I’m sure rabbits were for food, as were the pigs, cows and sheep. Cats and dogs were for pets. We’ve since helped by bringing in Myrna birds and cane toads.

I’ve spoken about biodiversity before. The links in the chain are fast coming apart and it won’t be long before we find out what the repercussions will be.

It looks like we can soon forget Australia’s native iconic animals. 

A report was recently released titled ‘Into Oblivion: The disappearing native mammals of northern Australia’. It estimates that the number of sites classified as empty of mammal activity rose from 13% in 1996 to 55% in 2009 and predicts that in 20 years native mammals will be extinct. Presumably that does not include the human mammal. However, how can we be sure? We are just one link in that biological chain and if we are the only link left, what will that mean for our survival?

We can expect that in a few years all that will remain in Australia will be people, cane toads, Indian mynahs, cows and sheep and strangely, the government doesn’t seem to care or maybe now it’s just all too hard.