| WILDLIFE AUSTRALIA Magazine - Winter 2009 |
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On The Road
Many animals travel to find shelter, food or mates. People travel for those reasons and more. This issue is full of rich pickings for the armchair traveller, but many of our readers are also proactive participants in wildlife programs.
Our contributors in this issue have gone on the road in a wonderful variety of ways. Tyrone Lavery and Ben Nottidge take a drive in the slow lane at night with frequent stops. Their reward, and ours, is a collection of stunning photographs of geckoes emerging for a nocturnal hunt, snakes soaking up the last of the day’s warmth and, if there’s rain about, booming bevies of hopeful frogs. |
| FEATURES |
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| Pole vaulters: can gliders use poles to cross roads? |
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By Brendan Taylor and Ross Goldingay
The global reach of roads is enormous. More than 30 million kilometres of roads stretch out across the continents. This global system fragments landscapes and consumes habitat and the cars that run on them kill countless wildlife. Once roads are embedded in the landscape, they also function as ‘filters’ to the movement of wildlife.
Roads are major barriers to movement for many wildlife species. We are assisting a range of animals with overpasses and underpasses, but for gliders, pole vaulting could be the way. |
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Oh deer: 'conservation hunting' in Australia
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By Carol Booth
Is licensed recreational hunting of feral animals an effective way to reduce their impact? It may look good at first glance, but further investigation reveals many flaws.
'Voluntary Conservation Hunting' is a new guise for recreational hunting, used recently to justify granting hunters access to vast areas of public lands, including national parks, in eastern Australia. Announcing the start of the deer hunting season in March 2009, the New South Wales Game Council’s large, full-colour newspaper ads carried the tagline 'Hunters – First in Conservation' |
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| A rewarding holiday: ecotourism in Australia |
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By Johanne Barthes
Some tourists just want to get away from it all; ecotourists want to get up close, learn more and help. Ecotourism Australia makes it easier.
As Lisa, a 28-year-old visitor from England explains: 'I arrived in australia just after the victorian bush fires. I really wanted to give assistance to help the communities recover from the disaster. I decided to take part in a week-long conservation project called the "Bushfire Recovery Program". The project involved reconstruction of fences to ensure protection of native bushland; removal of tree branch debris to ensure erosion control; and collection of gum leaves to feed koalas who have lost their habitat. It was an amazing experience and the highlight of my holidays. It was a great feeling to not be just a tourist!' |
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| Bald and beautiful in the Bunyas |
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By Geoffrey C. Smith and Don Butler
baldness was once something to be hidden under wigs, weaves, slippery toupés, the unfortunate comb-over or stylish hats and scarves, but in Queensland’s Bunya Mountains, bald is bold, beautiful and important.
The rainforests of the Bunya Mountains contain the largest relict forests of bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) in the world. These rainforests are interspersed with eucalypt woodlands and with patches of native grassland known locally as 'balds'. The balds are both beautiful and fascinating. They contrast sharply in their appearance to the forests and woodlands and typically, the vegetation boundaries are sharp. |
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| Twitching for herps |
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By Tyrone Lavery and Ben Nottidge
A dark and winding road on a warm, damp evening: welcome to the perfect meeting place for reptiles and herpophiles.
Who are those annoying people on that quiet country road? Not only are they driving far more slowly than anyone else, they keep stopping and leaping out of the car. The key to herp spotting is to be alert for any movement. A gecko may only scurry a short distance before stopping, but this brief movement is often the only thing that will tip you off to their presence. |
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| Sex, food and travel: stories behind From Fire to Ice |
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An interview with Ross Isaacs
Bred and born in Hawaii, northern Pacific humpback whales move on to feast in Alaskan waters.
Sex and food are two of life’s driving forces, inspiring millions of stories. For a group of north Pacific humpback whales, Hawaii is sex, Alaska is food and their annual migration between the two locations inspired filmmaker Ross Isaacs to capture their story in the documentary Humpbacks – From Fire to Ice |
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| Six Species Series - Kangaroos and wallabies |
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By Lee K. Curtis
Europeans arrived in Australia to find 49 native species of kangaroos and wallabies well-adapted to grazing and browsing in a wide range of Australian conditions.
Four are now extinct; more than half the remainder are threatened. Kangaroos and wallabies are known for their large hind legs and energy efficient hopping gait for fast or long distance travel.
You can also download [858kb PDF] the Six Species Series poster on Kangaroos and wallabies. |
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| Wildlife Australia CyberJungle |
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| Also in this edition |
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Editorial, CityAnimal, Trekabout Photography, Six Species, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Winter Skies, Young and Wild, Scratchings and Rustlings, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.
Subscribe to Wildlife Australia today - your subscription helps many worthwhile wildlife projects and contributes to a successful education campaign that has been an effective voice for Australian wildlife since 1963. |
