Adventure Ausrama Blog

Humans can be such a problem for native wildlife. We build roads over wildlife trails so we can zoom down to the ski fields, not worrying about the native casualties that get squashed along the way.  But humans can also be the solution - as we have been with the endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum ( Burramys parvus ). There are possibly only a few thousand of these amazing animals left in the wild. They live in the snow-covered alpine and subalpine regions of New South Wales and Victoria, above 1400 metres. They are the only Australian mammals found here and nowhere else. For most of the year male and female possums live separate lives scurrying among rook crevices, boulder fields and alpine shrubs. Adult females live in the best locations on rocky slopes. Males live further down the hill. Come breeding time, these males make the hazardous trek across the roadways, attempting to avoid all the human-made obstacles in their way. Only when they have made it to the other side of the ...

About the only way for a business to succeed in this day and age is to improve productivity by developing new technology not by breaking employees' backs. Increasing productivity by making people work harder has never worked. It is only successful in the short term. The Costa Group which exports high quality citrus fruit to Japan has installed an infrared Brix sensor system to improve the selection of the best for export. There will be no rejection by customers because the Brix scale shows how sweet an orange is for example. There is also higher sales of blemished fruit that are very sweet according to the scale. It seems odd that the Brix system is not shown to domestic customers. There is a down side: minerals and trace elements are not measured. However, there is no doubt that Australian consumers would like the Brix scale placed on the sales price ticket of fruit. Like keeping out New Zealand apples, Australian growers will go to extremes to sell low quality produce....

The bowerbird is unusual to say the least.  A fancy structure is built by the male to attract females.  It is an arch of still growing undergrowth with a walk through from one side to the other.  In the middle and to one side is a collection of leaves, fruit, shells, dead insects and odd glistening objects manufactured by humans. When a female is in range the male "screeches" at the female to make her look at his handiwork. Males often wave fruit at females.  The male stays in the area of the bower for up to ten years so he has an investment in that location.  Researchers have found that males do not just pick up fruit laying around.  The spotted bowerbird actually grows his own fruit. As the male tends to his "plot" he throws out dried fruit of the bush tomato and clears the ground, thus leaving healthy seeds to sprout and grow into bushes.  The area around the bower is full of bushes in fruit with green tomatoes.  This symbiosis is pa...

"Us cats don't eat candy." http://vistacomputersolutions.blogspot.com/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Funny Animal Photos

It fails me the means people will go to in order to maintain something of benefit. The courts have recently made a decision in favor of New Zealand importing apples into Australia. For decades Australian growers have been crying wolf about the danger of diseases from New Zealand apples. This is despite the fact that all requirements asked of New Zealand growers have been met. Now it is claimed that the new antibiotic resistant infection can be spread this way. Fair shake of the sauce bottle mate! This is a silly supposition. There isn't much doubt that superbug infection can occur with people having plastic surgery in Asia. But how do you prevent this by toughening quarantine regulations? It is impossible to stop people travelling. The real danger is consumption of meat injected with antibiotics to improve growth rates. Even with this it will take many years of food intake to detrimentally affect a human being. Just a mention to New Zealand to stop spraying antibiotics on apples fo...