| WILDLIFE AUSTRALIA Magazine - Autumn 2010 |
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Disasters
What distinguishes a disaster from any other event?
Recent news has been filled with disastrous situations, most notably in Haiti and Chile, with Victorian bushfires still a vivid memory. It’s rarely possible to predict the exact timing or extent of earthquakes, tsunamis, torrential rains or severe bushfire conditions. However, for human safety, we can work towards building appropriate infrastructure and setting up and maintaining timely warning systems, good communications, and effective safety, evacuation, rescue and clean-up procedures to reduce the devastation. Many governments and community groups are doing this, to their immense credit.
What about disasters focused on natural landscapes and wildlife? From fires and floods to tooth wear and picnic debris, join WAM in exploring situations and impacts.
We also welcome Martin Cohen to the WAM team. Martin has joined us to compile our regular NatureWatch column. |
| FEATURES |
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| Burning Beaches |
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By Robert Ashdown
It started out as a quiet, pleasant coastal holiday, until dust storms and bushfires turned it into a series of dramatic images and events.
‘On a family break in Wooli (on the New South Wales coast, south-east of Grafton), we awoke to a strange orange light and a beach blanketed in fine particles of dirt. The huge dust storm that had swept over most of the country's eastern coast had arrived...’ |
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| Get your beak into this: white ibises in public places |
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By Steve Van Dyck
Do mudflats and picnic areas have anything in common? It could depend on the shape of your beak.
Adapted to probe for protein wherever they find it, enterprising white ibises rule out on mudflats pock-marked with the deep burrows of small crabs. However, they are equally adept at using their precision-built, 180mm, slightly down-curved, tapering, razor-sharp along the sides, streamlined probe, with its narrow tip enriched with sensory receptors wrest saveloys from rubbish bins and wreak havoc on picnickers. |
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| You're only as old as your teeth: koala dentition and nutrition |
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By Rachael Attard
In Pam Ayres' wonderful lament, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth, she regrets all the toffee, gobstoppers, sherbets and allsorts that have put her in the dentist chair. At least she had choices.
For koalas, chewing is vitally important in that it breaks down the fibrous cells of the eucalyptus leaf that comprise their diet and makes it more digestible. But the tooth wear from chewing their fibrous natural diet has a profound influence on how long they can live. |
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| And wombats may fly: a new home for yaminon |
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By Nigel Jacobs
Populations in two locations could improve security for this critically endangered species.
May 9, 2009 marked a milestone in Queensland's conservation history as the government announced a three-year partnership with global mining company Xstrata to save the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat.
What has happened since then? |
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| Strength from adversity: disasters and tropical ecosystems |
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By Damon Ramsey
To someone in the grip of icy cold winter weather, tropical ecosystems such as islands, reefs and rainforests may seem like paradises. Often they are, but like any natural system, they have their share of disasters. Devastating as they are to individuals, natural disasters in tropical Australia are part of a bigger picture. |
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| Designed for danger |
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By Martin Fingland
If you asked a computer to design the most efficient, effective predatory animal - one that kills swiftly, has advanced features and weaponry, performs well under a wide range of situations, is tolerant of harsh conditions, has few body parts that could break or fail - chances are that it would produce something that would look and operate like a snake.
A bite from a snake, venomous or otherwise, can be disastrous for the victim, but with care, humans can avoid the hit list and find much to admire in these sleek and proficient predators.
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| Six Species Series - Bats |
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By Lee K Curtis, Bruce Thomson and Sue Churchill
Why hang upside down to rest? From this position, in elevated locations, bats can drop and launch quickly into the night.
In this edition, Six Species focuses on six of Australia's only flying mammals. The poster for six species bat can be downloaded here. |
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| Wildlife Australia CyberJungle |
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| Also in this edition |
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Editorial, City Animal, Considering, Trekabout Photography, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Autumn 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. |
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