Chained to a tree

[Heather]

I heard on the news last night (or maybe the night before?) that there are only two Leadbeater Possums still alive in an area where Black Saturday burnt - possibly in the area around Toolangi although it wasn't mentioned. The aim is to capture the possums and breed with them in captivity. Pretty sad when there's only two left. Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention so can't elaborate on the area they are living in. There were supposedly hundreds there before the fire - still not a huge population, but way more than two.

Heather

[Stephen Whiteside]

The forests around Toolangi are not generally regarded as prime Leadbeater habitat, but a number of the biologists believe that the possums may have been forced to move there following Black Saturday. These forests escaped the fires in 2009 - which is exactly why people are so frustrated at seeing them being cut down now.

[Maureen K Clifford]

It's not right is it - where are the poor possums supposed to go now??? Onto suburban blocks with suburban roof cavities and dogs and cats - sure receipe for disaster .

What is the timber being logged for anyway - why aren't we using recycled timber for building - it would be far better quality and already dried with no shrinkage which is one of the causes of cracks in so many new homes

Do hope it can be stopped - I'll sign a petition if one is going.

Cheers

Maureen

[Heather]

There's no suburbia where those little possums live Maureen.

Must have been a different area I heard about on the news the other night.

[croc]

...
... and hopefully the suburban brush tailed roof possum.

...c
p/s I sincerley hope if this is the case that the two remaing suburban brush tailed roof possums are of the same gender, preferably male and then there is no doubt....

[croc]

Leadbeater's Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) is an endangered possum restricted to small pockets of remaining old growth mountain ash forests in the central highlands of Victoria (Australia) north-east of Melbourne

The Black Friday fires of 13 January 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were considered one of the worst natural bushfires (wildfires) in the world, and certainly the single worst in Australian history as a measure of land affected. Almost 20,000 km² (4,942,000 acres,

With its known habitat[11] destroyed in the disastrous bushfires of February 2009 - large areas of forest around Marysville, Narbethong and Healesville - the species status is currently in doubt.[6] The mapped distribution of the Leadbeater's possum was within the area burnt by the fires. Since the fires, the surviving population has been estimated at fewer than 100, with the entire distribution confined to a 70 by 80 kilometre area..

Female offspring disperse at an earlier age (10 months) than males (15 months) and suffer a high mortality due to their exclusion from established colonies (Smith 1984).

Due to the success of recent cases preventing logging of remaining possum habitat, the Baillieu State government has proposed changes that will allow loggers to ignore existing legislation protecting threatened species, virtually signing the death warrant of the Leadbeater's possum [16]. These variations to the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2007 [17] allow the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment to exempt logging operations from the requirements of a Flora and Fauna Guarantee Action Statement[18].

... would I let this bloke look after my dog... it might be of some interest to note that the inviromentalists put their case first, and old mate can get his old mate to '...ignore existing legislation...' and the possum's toast. That would be a real shame.

Following the death of Kasia, the last captive Leadbeater's Possum, at Toronto Zoo in January 2010, there are now no Leadbeater's Possums in captivity anywhere in the world and so no breeding program to assist this animal's survival.[19] The last Australian specimen held at Healesville Sanctuary died in May 2006. The formation of the Friends of Leadbeater's Possum group is seen as a positive step towards raising the profile of this diminishing animal

Distribution map.... i didn't think the map would show up, but it's all there in the link for anyone interested in this animal

Endangered (Schedule 1, Endangered Species Protection Act 1992, IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals 1994, ANZECC 1991, CNR 1995). In Victoria, Leadbeater's Possum is listed as a threatened taxon on Schedule 2 of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. Leadbeater's Possum was thought to be extinct following no records for 50 years when it was rediscovered in the Central Highlands of Victoria (Wilkinson 1961).

Since then it has been recorded at approximately 300 localities, over an area of approximately 80 km east to west and 65 km north to south (Macfarlane and Seebeck 1991). The species is now primarily restricted to the tall eucalypt forests of Mountain Ash, Alpine Ash and Shining Gum in the Central Highlands, where it occurs in numerous scattered patches throughout the area

Overall Objective:
To downlist Leadbeater's Possum from endangered to vulnerable within 10 years based on the IUCN (1994) criteria of population trend and size, extent of occurrence, probability of extinction, and the management of habitat towards a target of no more than a 1% probability of extinction over 250 years throughout the forest within its current range.

Habitat
The most important components of Leadbeater's Possum habitat are nest-tree abundance, vegetation structure and food availability. Large old hollow trees (either dead or alive) for nesting and shelter are essential for the survival of Leadbeater's Possum. Leadbeater's Possum prefer short, fat trees with numerous holes and a large quantity of dense surrounding vegetation. Smith and Lindenmayer (1988) asserted that, since Leadbeater's Possum does not prefer living mature trees as nest sites until they exceed 2 m dbh (approximately 200 years old), the loss of dead hollow-bearing trees due to natural fall would render much existing regrowth forest unsuitable during the next 140 years .

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodivers ... index.html

This stuff came straight orf the net... see if you can get the above link to work... it’s page written the Oz government... Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. it’s written in places where only a poly could understand it, but I have cut and toasted some of the highlights that I thought were immediately relevant.

This site goes into massive lengths about what is was going to do about the Leadbeater possum decline in round about 1991 and it was updated today... I can’t see which bit was ‘updated’ ... however, I was not the ‘updater’
Apparently, this pretty little creature is not much bigger than a rat, and goes back in time a very long way.. Leadbeater's Possum is the only member of the genus Gymnobelideus
Hopefully it is nowhere near related to the Suburban brush tailed roof possum, as I have little regard for that one.

In reality, these little beauties have been around for a very long time. Where there is one seen, very likely there are a few more that remain unseen. They have come back from ‘extinction’ a few times now, and as far as I am concerned they should get the bloody machines out, get the lumber jacks out... get everything out... and leave the little marsupial to get on with what it knows best how to do... survive.

However, if the government departments and the timber companies don’t see eye to eye in the next two and a half years, pretty near all the breeding females will have died orf, leaving infant/juvenile females and then the species is in real trouble unless, the females can be caught and used as a breeding programme.

Seeing as how they nest up in pretty much identifiable conditions, a dog with a good nose for the job should find a good few possums in hollow logs.

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodivers ... d/publicat
ions/recovery/leadbeaters-possum/index.html

All the above is taken from an internet site with the attitude of ‘if we lived in a real world’... but we don’t.
Here’s hoping it survives...
...croc

[Glenny Palmer]

I reckon an old snarly bloke with his teeth 'in his pocket' & little or no regard for fashion or bobbed haircuts....& definitely no time for 'political correctness' would sit a bloody sight better in our PM's chair than the current wide bummed 'options'.....don't you?

VOTE 1 for croc!.....

[croc]

Bless you sweetheart.

...c xx

[Stephen Whiteside]

Beaten Leadbeater’s?

© Stephen Whiteside 26.07.2011

A pretty little possum with a black stripe down its back,
It darts throughout the forest tops through depths of darkest night.
It forages for sugars, grabbing insects for a snack,
Then slips back to its hollow with arrival of the light.

It was named ‘Leadbeater’s Possum’ for a past museum worker,
A famous taxidermist (little creatures he would stuff),
But the story of this possum is a genuine tear jerker.
Oh, life has not been easy for this precious ball of fluff.

It thrives, you see, on forests, but its habitat is narrow.
From Marysville to Baw Baw, thereabouts, denotes its range.
It’s Victoria’s state emblem so, in part, we push its barrow,
But we challenge without mercy its capacity for change.

For we chopped and hacked the forest lands that were its sole dominion.
We plundered and we butchered and we put it on the run.
We reached the point where scientists were of the broad opinion
It was done for. Then it re-emerged in 1961.

Though we scarcely did deserve it, we’d been granted a reprieve,
A chance to right a wrong, to mend the errors of our ways
But, alas, we mended nothing, so we’re forced once more to grieve,
And face the harsh reality that crime just never pays.


A crime? Am I mistaken? You can check the regulations
And the statutes in the law books on the dim and dusty shelves.
You will never find it mentioned, though you search through many nations.
It’s a crime against sweet Nature. It’s a crime against ourselves.

For it seems we’ve missed our moment. It would seem Leadbeater’s Possum
Is living now on borrowed time, it’s fate forever sealed.
We could have ceased all logging and allowed the beast to blossom,
But a vision such as this, alas, shall never be revealed.

Then let us throw the dice once more. The odds, it’s true, aren’t pretty.
Let us do at last what’s right, and put an end to crime.
The human soul needs more than just the bright lights of the city.
Let us let the forests stand, and leave the rest to time.

Who knows what magic beckons if we put aside our blunders,
If we down the screaming chainsaws and revert to Nature’s dance?
What panoply awaits us, what array of shining wonders?
Perhaps Leadbeater’s Possum, too, still has a fighting chance!

[Maureen K Clifford]

Is there a petition going for that Glenny?

There's no suburbia where those little possums live Maureen.

Chop down the trees and clear the forests and there bloody well soon might be - that is usually step one.


Thanks croc for that info - I knew you were a tad out of sorts with the rings - one of which sits on my TV somewhat stuffed

What arrogance man shows to think he has a God given right to exterminate to extinction knowingly any species on this earth. And then not happy with that lovely little human trait then proceeds to apply the same principle to his 'human' brothers as well - we forget I suspect sometimes that we are descendants of the 'great apes' with the orang-utan being our closest relative and perhaps we should always bear in mind - cows with guns.

http://www.cowswithguns.com/cwglyrics.htm