There are some great ideas in this article, on how to eradicate feral cats .
http://www.smh.com.au/national/gone-feral-the-cats-devouring-our-wildlife-20140911-10fbs1.html
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Yet another interesting article on cats. Still little or no action. And to blithely say that we can't afford to fence off national parks is ridiculous. If we can afford to spend $50 billion on aircraft that don't fly then we can easily afford to fence off national parks.
I share your anger Woko
I just had an idea. Although the majority of people who care about wildlife are not wealthy, I wonder if a big campain to raise money to fence off a few areas would have any success? I can tell you, on the web site of "care2" , people make lots of donnations if there is a mistreated cat or dog somewhere in the world. Maybe this could work to buy some fencing?
In Lysterfield Park, not all that far from me, there are a few fenced off areas. Don't know how they hold up though?
M-L
Araminta can I suggest that if people wish to donate to such a worthy cause they should think about giving to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. This is what AWC does; fence off large areas from predators. They have the expertise and resources. They are an organisation that are actually doing something and getting results. And donations are tax-deductible. I get a statement from them every year that I send to the taxman. You can also subscribe to their quarterly magazine "Wildlife Matters".
http://www.australianwildlife.org/
That's a brilliant idea Night Parrot, I'm a member of a few organistions like this. But I think it might need a bigger solution. I'm also thinking about a "cats/ & dogowners levy", I think anybody that owns a cat or dog should pay a certain amount of money every year with their council registration, to help to repair the damage domestic animals do to our native wildlife. There are many more ways of financing this that I can think of.
M-L
Both are excellent ideas. However, instead of calling it a "levy" why not call it a "tax"? The word "tax" gives less panache to owning a cat & will contribute to developing a culture where, like smoking, owning a cat is frowned on.
Fencing off areas isn't a good long term solution and it's very costly. Fences need constant maintenance and are prone to vandalism. A better solution would be to substitute the pet cat with another native animal that people could keep as a pet, eg a quoll. People attitudes need to change, putting up fences all over the place won't do that. I've seen people dump their kittens in state forests and drive away. Such people could easily throw a cat or box full of kittens over a fence and so you have the problem starting again. Don't forget that cats are excellent climbers as well. So after considering these facts I would suggest that keeping cats should be limited to zoos and that the cat should be replaced with a similar native animal that people could enjoy keeping.
For Australian birds, natives=life, exotics=death, so do them a favour and go plant some natives and save their lives.
I do appreciate your point , but years and years of experience in trying to defend native wildlife, I can tell you, there is almost no point in convincing cat owners to keep their cats indoors. There are many who are very responsible, either keeping their cats inside, or having a safe cat run installed.
Even if we would only keep cats in Zoos, wouldn't solve the problem of how to manage the millions of cats that have turned feral and are roaming our forrests.
There are also fences that cats can’t climb, they just have to bend over enough on the top. Sanctuaries like Healesville had them for years.
As far as expenses are concerned, the question here remains, how much value do we put on the protection of our native wildlife???
M-L
I have to agree with Araminta. One can't change the world or peoples attitudes/apathy towards the environment, so creating sanctuaries is the only real alternative. They do work. I don't want to keep on about the AWC and its work, but that organisation is now managing 3 million hectares of wildlife sanctuaries around Australia. Its expensive yes but its money very well spent in my view. AWC don't do "little" sanctuaries but I think they should, maybe in concert with councils and community groups.
http://www.australianwildlife.org/
Creating sanctuaries creates other problems, like increasIng the incident of diseases, inbreeding, loss of both animals and habitat if a bush fire happens to run wild, increase in competition for space causing more stress. Sanctuaries are only a very short term solution, everyone in Australia should turn their home into a sanctuary for it to work unfortunately people don't consider the impact of their actions when it comes to animals and their habitat and we have plenty of examples of this.
For Australian birds, natives=life, exotics=death, so do them a favour and go plant some natives and save their lives.
Now that this turns into a more specific discussion, I have to say, I very strongly disagree with the Sanctuaries having disease and fire problems. I don’t think Healesville has had an incident of a bush fire running through, my property on the other hand has had two bushfires . Healesville has breed many Helmeted Honeyeaters and Orange – bellied Parrots,both endangered, and have released many back into the Bunyip State Park. Even if they, heaven forbid, would never have any more success, they already have done a great job preserving our native wildlife.. Over the years we had fires, Ash Wednesday on our property, and Black Saturday very close behind us. (less than 2km) In my opinions even a few saved species justify the effort. If we would always say, too expensive , too difficult…. Nothing would ever change. To me, every single animal saved, or any breeding success is important.
As Woko always says, the one you might be saving could be the last of this species on the planet .
M-L
Doesn't it all just come down to good planning and good management? We should strive for perfection even if we can't attain it. I can't see a good alternative to sanctuaries. The "do nothing" option means doom for many (more) species in the long run.
M-L
To quote my clever mother yet again, she always said: you have to ask for a lot......and might get a little bit. But if you ask for a little bit......you might get nothing. If you think about what she said, the longer you think about it, the more interpretations you come up with.
It also applies to what you ask of yourself.
M-L
Guys I don't want to critize anybody's attempts at rectifying the problems that past actions have created for our wildlife and it's habitat, and my opinion is only that an opinion and I didn't set out to offend anyone for their attempts at doing good things for our wildlife, and I appreciate that very much and I'm sure that the wildlife does too, but I'm trying to look far into the future when we are faced with our wildlife confined to isolated pockets of habitat surrounded by either urban development with a completely unnatural habitat where nothing can adapt to it accept for exotics or natural habitat that has been so degraded that it has become ecologically dead and unable to support anything. I still believe that much much more could be done through education and better management of our urban/rural development to help wildlife reestablish itself, the lack of concern from people who are in positions to help create this change is truly frighting, especially when you think of extinction. I love the natural world but I don't like what we're doing to it. Confining nature and restricting its natural spread, is like saying, out of sight out of mind, its out of our way and "safe" we have nothing to worry about just keep doing what we've always done.
For Australian birds, natives=life, exotics=death, so do them a favour and go plant some natives and save their lives.
I can't see why both approaches can't be adopted. We certainly need to immediately protect what wildlife & it's habitat we have left but we also need a complete reversal in the culture of development at any cost.
As far as the cost of wildlife protection is concerned I note that the federal government has again decided on military involvement in a land far, far away with, yet again, no consideration of the cost. I can only conclude that cost is not a genuine issue when it comes to conserving our wildlife & the habitats on which it depends.
There is no other way than to preserve and revegetate now, so we can have a strategy for tomorrow. No long term plan for the future is going to work if we don’t have anything left by the time we get there.
There is also no point in expecting anything from any government, governments don’t have any visions or plans beyond their terms. Sadly the only vision they have is from one election to the next, gaining enough glory and money for themselves. Natur relies on people like you and me to try their best, educating the next generation and preserving what we can.
I find myself quoting my mother a lot lately, she’d be very pleased , by indoctrinating (?) me with many of her ideas. She always said: there are three groups of people, but there is only one to bring about change. One group is the one at the bottom of society, they are poor and have to put all their effort into surviving, (where is my next meal coming from?), then there is the group that thinks they are superior, they only have time to look after themselves by lining their pockets (that takes up all their time).
The one in the middle is the one, for all sorts of different reasons, they can afford to take the time to think.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it's up you and meto do something.
M-L
I agree with Doublebar's comment about the importance of education and management of rural and urban development.
ML your mother taught you well.
Woko re military spending you might make yourself feel better by imagining that if the islamist thugs take over the world it will be jihad against the wildlife, not just us.
My point about military spending is that I see no evidence that when a war beckons no one asks "how much will it cost?"
The war to save the environment consists of a few mild skirmishes in contrast with what's needed because people generally say "It costs too much." However, in the long run the cost of not waging all out "war" to save the environment will far outweigh the cost of waging it now.
Well said Woko
M-L
This is relevant to the discussion about fencing off areas for sanctuaries:
http://australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/mt-gibson-sanctuary/mt-gibson-endangered-wildlife-restoration-project.aspx
Night Parrot, this Australian Wildlife Conservancy prospectus for its Mt Gibson Project is a brilliant reminder of what's involved in ecological restoration.