The Woylie and the Fox

And under the trees I saw Brown Barbaloots
Frisking about in their Barbaloot Suits
As they played in the shade and ate truffula fruits
The Lorax, Dr Seuss 1971.


How quickly things change. One hundred years ago the floor of our great jarrah and wandoo forests was churned up nightly like a freshly ploughed field by millions of small digging animals called Woylies. The Woylie, or Brush-tailed Bettong, spent its nights digging for truffles, which are the underground fruit of mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi attach to the roots of trees and act as root hairs to provide the trees with phosphate, nitrate and other nutrients in return for sugars. They also protect the trees from pathogenic Phytophthora fungi. Woylies and other small digging mammals like bandicoots would spread the mycorrhizal fungi through the forest as well as burying the leaf litter needed by the fungi as a source of food and reducing the fire risk to the forest. The forest was alive with Woylies. Each of an estimated 300 million Woylies in the southern forests of Western Australia would turn over about 6 tonnes of soil a year, aerating the ground and allowing rainwater to infiltrate into the naturally water repellent soils. It was a marvellous three-way symbiosis that sustained a healthy forest. And then in a blink the Woylies were gone, or almost so and the great forests began to sicken and die because of the feral fox.

The feral fox followed the rabbit across the country from Victoria and arrived in Western Australia in the 1930’s. In a few short decades the small forest mammals including Woylies, Numbats, Tammar Wallabies and bandicoots were wiped out. By 1997 the last of the Critically Endangered Woylies were hanging on by the skin of their teeth in a couple of isolated forest pockets containing Gastrolobium Poison Pea. This Pea, which was once widespread through the forests, is deadly to sheep and had been systematically eradicated by sheep farmers for 100 years. It is also deadly to foxes. Western Australian native mammals had evolved a resistance to the fluoroacetate poison in the pea and could survive with high levels of the toxin in their bodies. Foxes were often poisoned when they consumed these animals. This discovery and the consequent use of fluoroacetate in 1080 Poison Baits had enormous implications for the Woylie. Targeted baiting programmes under the Western Shield Fox Control Programme provided effective fox control and the Woylie and his mates are now on the road to recovery in many places. If you want to see this marvelous animal and other fox vulnerable species like Numbats I strongly recommend a visit to the Dryandra Woodland near Narrogin. Here you will experience a shadow of the ecological marvel that once sustained the southern forests and may one day do so again if we can eradicate the fox. I believe that the eradication of the fox is the single greatest ecological priority in Western Australia.

Endless woylies without rest
Dug truffles where they pleased
And protected the great forest
From fire and disease

But then the greedy feral fox
Ate woylies by the score
As they quickly like the pox
Spread from England’s shore

But now we halt this great decline
Of woylie and his mates
By killing off the fox malign
With potent poison baits

Fishy tales

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was established in 1975 to prevent international trade contributing to the extinction of endangered species. CITES has worked well but there is an increasing trend of economic opportunists hijacking the agenda to the detriment of conservation.This was demonstrated yesterday with two poor decisions taken at the CITES meeting in Doha. The first was the defeat of a US proposal to ban the trade of polar bear skins and the second the defeat of a Monaco proposal backed by the US to ban the export of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna. The polar bear decision was dissapointing because polar bears are in enough trouble already from the loss of Arctic ice due to climate change without being subjected to hunting as well. It was, however, a decision made with the interests of poor people relying on subsistence hunting at heart.There was no such justification for the rejection of the Atlantic Tuna proposal which was the result of the active lobbying and coercion of small dependent nations by Japan. The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna population has reduced by 80% since 1970 and is in danger of complete collapse. Japan consumes 80% of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna catch to feed their insatiable appetite for Bluefin Sushi and do not want their supply jeopordized.

It is fascinating to see that Canada was one of the countries that voted with Japan against the proposal, apparently learning nothing from their 1992 experience with the collapse of the Canadian Cod Fishery. Canada refused to heed warnings from scientists prior to the collapse and just did not believe that their multi-billion dollar cod fishery could ever collapse. They continued to allow overfishing with destructive habitat destroying "draggers" until the fishery totally collapsed in 1992 with 40,000 people losing their jobs and many communities economically destroyed. The ecological changes as a result of cod fishery collapse make it unlikley that it will ever recover. We will never again see, like the exlorer John Cabot in 1497, fish so thick around the rocky shores of Newfoundland that they almost blocked his ship. If you are interested in the cod story I strongly recommend that you read the fascinating book by Mark Kurlansky written in 1998 titled "Cod".

Japan and Canada argue that the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna can be sustainably managed through the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICATT)and that it is unnecessary to impose a CITES trade ban but they ignore the fact that the fishery has not been managed well and this is not going to change. Japan has a lot to lose from the collapse of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna fishery but unfortunately they will then move on to other tuna fisheries that have not yet collapsed like those off the coasts of Somalia and Australia. In the absence of consequences for mismanagement and over-exploitation bad behaviour by selfish nations is not going to change.

The sun was glinting off the sea
Reflecting brightly back to me
And I was squinting through the glare
Trying to see what’s hidden there

When scaly mirrors flaring bright
With a silver brilliant light
Glittered briefly in the blue
Dazzling as he flashed through

Echidna

The Visitor
I normally don’t appreciate being woken up at 1:00 am but last night was an exception. The dogs were barking and growling outside our bedroom window so I got up to investigate. It was a beautiful balmy night. The stars were blazing in the clear sky and the ghostly Wandoo gleamed in the silvery moonlight. There was just enough light to make out a low dark shape about half a metre long being harassed by the dogs. I put the dogs inside and took a closer look at our interesting visitor. He was an Australian short beaked echidna out foraging for termites.

We have a lot of echidnas on our property but we don’t often see them. We see their diggings everywhere but they are secretive and elusive and during the day will be hiding in a hollow log or buried in the leaf litter. They are very powerful diggers and use their strong short legs and claws to break open fallen timber in their search for termites which they mop up by the thousands with their sticky tongues. They are found in all parts of Australia but their numbers have plummeted in many places due to land clearing and predation from introduced foxes, despite their spiky armour which gives them some protection.

The echidna, along with its enigmatic platypus cousin, is a descendent of an early group of mammals called monotremes with reptilian characteristics such as fused shoulders and egg laying reproduction. It is a mistake, however, to think of an echidna as a primitive animal. It evolved relatively recently from a platypus ancestor between 19 and 48 million years ago and it has an exceptionally large brain and high intelligence. It is interesting to speculate how natural selection could have transformed an aquatic worm eating platypus type creature with a rubbery “duck bill” into a terrestrial animal with a fused beak feeding almost exclusively on termites. The intermediates are no longer with us but the worm eating long beaked echidna of Papua New Guinea is much closer to the platypus in its appearance and behavior gives us some clue as to how it could have happened.


I saw this evening magnificent
Echidna busy bustling
Pushing through leaves rustling
On the termite scent
A vision heaven sent
Glorious creature muscling
Single minded hustling
Nemesis of the white ant

Dense fur and white spines glistening
Powerful claw foot digger
With head cocked as though listening

Spiky fox repeller
With hidden eyes and snout protruding
Most welcome visitor

Opportunities to reduce emissions

While the debate on the reality of climate change rages, calls for action to curb emissions are being largely ignored. It is understandable that people are fearful of potential new taxes but there is much that can be done at no cost and in fact to the financial advantage of all. What individual or business would would knock back an offer from someone offering to pay 15-20% of their energy costs? For most individuals and businesses this is the general level of energy and emission savings up for grabs. In the case of large businesses this amounts to millions of dollars and in fact the larger the business the greater the potential for inefficiency. I know this to be true because I have helped a number of companies make these kind of savings. And if you don't believe it I challenge you to look closely at your patterns of energy consumption. When you do so you will be astonished at how much unnecessary energy is wasted. Careful tracking of energy use is the first step in identifying improvement opportunity. Managing energy is of course no different to managing the household budget. If you don't track your spending you will have no hope of living within your means. Once you understand your patterns of energy use you can take steps to reduce consumption. If you are consuming a lot of energy in hot water use for example it may be opportune to install a solar water heater, or to have shorter showers, or to install a pressure head on the shower nozzle, or get the kids out of the shower quicker. I am sure you get the idea. And then think about opportunities in design of the house. East west oriented houses with passive heating and cooling and good insulation for example will slash your heating and cooling bills. The point is that eliminating unnecessary waste is good for the environment and good for the budget. I will conclude with a poem which I have titled the Global Warming Rap.

Our heated world is stewin
And we’re on the way to ruin
If we don’t change what we’re doin
And cut the crap we’re spewin

But our Politicians roared
The Kyoto protocol is flawed
And the nation can’t afford
To sign to this accord

We don’t need revolution
When a technical solution
And a bit of resolution
Will cut the worlds pollution

They work on the assumption
Which is a huge presumption
That we have the gumption
To cut down our consumption

We must not give up trying
To stop our planet frying
And our farmland slowly drying
And our coral reefs from dying