Adventure Ausrama Blog

Corals at high-latitude locations in Australia, i.e., towards the south, can change their chemistry in order to adapt to colder conditions. Unfortunately, the sea is heating up not cooling down. The analysis was done by the Australian Research Centre (ARC) at the University of WA. (Australia western). A warmer ocean could be expected to slow down coral growth in Bremer Bay but the animals altered their chemical composition. Indeed, they are flourishing. It seems that growing in a cold condition is what they do best. The two-year study showed that it is only tropical reefs that are under threat. There is more food available in cooler regions. By extrapolation it can be surmised that corals situated in hotter areas get less nutrition with global warming. % ai corals za high-latitude oh reefs gu internal ex coral el chemistry oi growth ta temperatures % + a corals i high-latitude oh reefs ah internal by coral id chemistry my growth ax temperatures as ross an cooler am wester...

Could daylight saving reduce the number of koalas killed on roads. Researchers are asking the Queensland government to seriously consider this change. It will have to be put to yet another referendum that the majority of Queensland do not want. Any political party that goes to the polls with this policy would definitely lose votes.   koalas   Tracking collars were put on koalas to monitor their movements. The idea behind the theory is that koala are more active at twilight, beginning in the late afternoon. Having traffic peak an hour earlier would lessen the number of impacts with koalas wandering across roads.    daylight paraphernalia miscellaneous accouterments daylight saving store materiel funny koalas belongings tools furniture kit saving and kaboodle fixtures material koalas daylight accompaniments things tackle impedimenta accessories shebang koalas daylight saving setup equipage facilities utensils fittings stuff stock koalas it daylight  c...

Conservation has always been ideologically polarized in Australia. There are those who seem to want to stop all development to prevent any deleterious change and those who want to rape the environment in search of the holy dollar - and ne'er the twain shall meet! With the Greens now gaining a handful of seats in the Senate they have voting power beyond their number. All shades of national government will have to compromise. Even state governments are not free of the Green "scourge", as they see it. There is an issue with a planned coalmine in Queensland, the Carmichael mine near Bowen. Former premier Campbell Newman was fully supportive of the development and showed an intention to introduce new legislation to achieve it. This has changed. Labor is not so enamored with new projects at any cost. This is the case even though the Greens do not have the balance of power in the Queensland parliament. Like medication you get from your doctor - there are alway...

Australia is again ignoring advice and is pushing an endangered bird to extinction. There are fewer than 2,000 swift parrots left. Most are taken by sugar gliders. However, destruction of habitat is a major threat. They could be extinct in 15 years. Logging is being allowed in the bird's breeding areas. They do not nest if their natural environment is changed. People have lobbied the Tasmanian government with no success. There is high unemployment in Tasmania and job creation takes priority over birdlife. The swift parrot is already on the endangered list. This does not guarantee any work to save it. If it is put on the critically endangered list something will be done. An application has already been submitted to the federal government. It will take time to get this through the government bureaucracy. ✴ Conservation by Ty Buchanan ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot....

It is amazing how little we know about supposedly common animals, ones that are easily seen and in contact with us. Rabbits were thought to be the main diet for the wedge-tailed eagle. However, the bird consumes other things as well. It should be noted that rabbits were introduced and the eagle must have have relied on other prey before the nuisance animal arrived. When viral haemorrhagic disease (VHD) wiped out the rabbit population the wedge-tailed eagle actually fared better. Castings, the vomit of eagles, showed that their diet consisted of 20 bird species, seven reptiles, 19 mammals and a crustacean. Some mammals they ate were large such as the eastern grey kangaroo. The common Galah was a native bird high on the diet. Rabbits are easy to catch when they are plentiful. A fall in rabbit numbers pushed them back to their traditional food sources. Despite the move, native animals have survived. Nature seems to be in balance. ✴ Conservation by Ty Buchanan ✴ h...

As fertile land becomes "all used up" with increasing demand for food we will rely more on the sea for nourishment, after we experiment with eating insects of course. Marine-based industries care little about the consequences of their actions at the moment. This has to change to make the oceans a renewable resource. Australia has the third largest controlled ocean territory in the world. This country has more responsibility than most countries. We allow nations to fish our waters but foreign fishing fleets seldom stay within the rules that are set. Overfishing is common. The Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo are World Heritage Areas. We will have to protect and regulate more region around the coast of this vast continent. This may be selfish as we have a low population that enjoys to swim, dive, surf, sail and fish on an individual basis. However, with control comes responsibility. Australia's marine industry will rise from about A$40 billion to A$100 ...

Despite the fairytale stuff put forward about delivering things to houses in built up areas of large cities, drone can be useful. Patrolling of protected regions for environmental damage is efficient and less costly than other methods. Conservation Drones a US company is mass producing drones to meet projected demand. Accidents will occur even though the drones will not land away from the operator, but injuries should be rare. Drones zooming around above our head will become the norm. Will there be complaints? Yes there will. The first major project will be to protect elephants in Africa. The distance that drones can travel will have to be significantly improved to do the job properly. At the moment helicopters are used. These can be expensive as well. They do have better range, however. Maximum range for non-military drones is about 40kms. High resolution videos can be taken. Preprogramming is possible to carry out surveillance and data collection. A test to ...

Australia is one the world's major producers of wheat. If climate change reduces national output there will be widespread consequences. The economy will suffer with the need to import wheat. Internationally, a wheat shortage will put prices up and many poor people will have to go without. On the positive side some regions of Australia will get more rain. People will still be able to "fatten up" on sugar and rice, despite research showing that sugar contains no nourishment whatsoever for the human body. Two centuries ago a group of British sailors was shipwrecked on the west coast of Africa. The ship was beached. Even though the ship had a full load of West Indian sugar they all died of malnutrition. Getting back to the main point. There will be competition for arable land pushing land prices up. There is also a link between the land and sea. Climate change will reduce the fish catch. Living in the bush will become impossible with farming failing to prop...

Animals are going extinct, though some are still turning up. This is true. In the past 100 years many species have been declared extinct. Oddly, a third of these have been found still living. Many have not been seen for a very long time. This is the reason for them still being around. The okapi a zebra-like animal was recently re-found in the Congo. In Cuba the solenodon "rat" was seen jumping around. Another find was the Indonesian Talaud Flying Fox. In Australia the rock rat was identified. And the Christmas Island shrew came to light. This is embarrassing for the conservationists about to meet in Japan at the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity. It appears that emotion has won out over rationality. It is too easy to make predictions about what will happen in the future. With climate change, little real knowledge is available to researchers, though change is occurring. Perhaps now more cautious steps will be taken. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http...

Though there are worries over extinction of all animals, it is reptiles who are in most danger. Some reptiles are pretty, but for the most part they are seen as ugly. Because of this they lose out on conservation funding. This is serious with one in five reptile species predicted to die out. People are moving into previously pristine regions of the tropics to log valuable trees and to practice logging. The conclusion about endangered reptiles has been reached by 200 of the world's scientific experts. Funding is not enough. We need to change human behavior. This of course means changing human needs, which is more challenging. Concentrating on saving turtles is good for them. Other reptiles, however, remain at risk. The living and reproductive systems of many reptiles is still unknown. Out of sight, out of mind leads to extinction. Reptiles tend to live in the toughest of environments. Such specialization does result in their demise when humans change the habitat. Tho...

Human impact on native flora and fauna is real. There seems to be no way the detrimental affects can be ameliorated. Aboriginals have been in Australia for 40,000 years. apart from the unanswered question about extinction of mega fauna Aboriginals did not alter the external environment at all. Sedentary agriculture is the major contributing factor to habitat damage. Planting mono-crops seriously changes land features. In Western Australia, for example, water points are located at 50 sq km on average. In its pre-European natural state water holes could be found 2.5 sq km apart. This is serious change with species of native birds declining. Unless we set areas aside as pristine, protected sectors only introduced pest species will remain. Even without the pest birds, the proportion of native birds is altered. Some die out while others increase in number. The ecosystem is no longer in balance. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.bl...

Not much can be done about saving endangered species when the great majority of people "don't give a damn". Like global warming many just do not want to hear the truth. Money is not forthcoming for conservation. Stopping animals from going extinct is only being done on a piecemeal basis. We have to choose what to save. This really means that the blame for the loss of some animals lies solely with Mankind. Just who is to decide the fate of creatures is not yet known. It will have to be bodies that receive funding for such purposes. They are probably doing the selection process as we speak. If what is to be saved and what is to be lost was publicly known there would probably be an outcry - everyone has their favorites. More funding is the answer of course. Whether times be good or bad giving money for conservation has never been popular. Other things seem more important. It is really inevitable that prioritizing what goes extinct will occur. The global warming ...

An Australian bird has flown a long way. Scientists were studying birds on the shores of western Alaska in the Arctic. They saw a bartailed godwit and examined the bird believing it to be a local inhabitant. The tag on its leg, however, showed that it had flown a very long way. Australian scientists had banded the bird earlier in Victoria. The small creature had travelled more than 8,000 miles. Studies had shown that bartailed godwits usually spend their life in the same local area where they were born, though many presumed that they flew to the Arctic to breed. This has now been substantiated by the discovery. It is known that banded dunlin and semipalmated sandpipers fly to the Arctic from Asia and South America. With the Arctic thawing, damage could be done to future breeding populations of birds. The hotter Arctic summer could affect the survival of the young. Migratory shorebirds are decreasing in number. This is due, it is believed, to habitat loss and global warming. More resear...