Sepik River Piranha

The people of the Sepik
Are hungry and need fish
Let's introduce the Pacu
That's a tasty dish

It may be a piranha
But it doesn't feed on meat
It mostly crushes nuts
With its large and fearsome teeth

Now the ball-cutter piranha
Feeds on other nuts
As it lurks in shallow water
Close to peoples huts

No one likes to see hungry people but the decision to introduce piranha into Papua New Guinea's Sepik River as a food source beggers belief. Yes, they may be vegetarian in their native Amazon but they are still piranha and nobody should have been surprised when they became carnivorous when their natural diet of nuts and river vegeation became scarce. Referred to a "The Mutilator" in Jeremy Wade's River Monster programme they appear to be responsible for at least two deaths in the Sepik when they bit off the genitals of men wading in the shallows. It is unsurprisingly now referred to as the "ball-cutter" throughout PNG and it is greatly feared. It is a large and hardy species that has spread throughout theSepik River system since fingerlings were introduced into the river by the misguided "FishAid" Project in 1994 and then into the Ramu in 1997. They will undoubtably infest all PNG rivers in the longer term.

The ecological and social cost of active introductions of invasive exotic fish species into Papua New Guinea's river systems has been enormous and yet the introduction programmes continue with the latest menace being the genetically modified GIFT Tilapia. Crocodile populations have plummeted as the river vegetation that they need for nesting is consumed by introduced tilapia and carp. Freshwater prawns are also vanishing and so are iconic game fish species such as the Black Bass and the Sepik Grunter. It is a tragedy unfolding.

We seem incapable of learning and keep making the same mistakes again and again with the same predictable consequences. The long term answer lies in education but by then it will be far too late for many river catchments and their unique species of fish.

Mangroves

The rhythm of the sea
Pulses through the trees
While the leafy canopy
Rustles in the breeze

The fish and crabs are feeding
Among the mangrove roots
While birds and bats are breeding
In their leafy roosts

But now the trees are dying

In a smelly stagnant pond
Because their roots need drying
And they’ve lost their tidal bond

 Mangroves are marvellous! A productive tidal forest adapted to the rhythm of the sea. But to conquer this niche they had to first overcome the challenges of salt and waterlogging. Salt is excluded at the roots but also accumulates in the leaves which shed and in turn support a detritus food chain feeding crabs, prawns and fish. The tidal pulses on the other hand provide regular respite from waterlogging.

Marvellously adapted they may be but like many organisms living on the edge they are close to their upper tolerance limits. They are hence vulnerable to both waterlogging and hyper-salinity should the tidal flushing be inhibited. Great care is therefore necessary in the construction of causeways and other tidal barriers to ensure adequate flushing and complete drainage which in turn will prevent the death of mangroves and the loss of fish, crabs and prawns. It is very sad to see a marvel of nature transformed into a stagnant, foul smelling and mosquito infested swamp dotted with dead skeleton trees.

Soldier Crabs

You will not see the blue crabs
When the tide is high
They are hiding in their burrows
Safe from fishy eyes

 And even when the tide is low
There still are hungry spies
And the blue crabs in their borrows
Avoid the sea-birds eyes

But sometimes if you’re  lucky
When the tide is on the ebb
You may see the blue crab army
Emerging from their beds

They march across the mud flats
Grazing as they go
Before retreating to their borrows
Before the tide is low

The behaviour of the blue Soldier Crabs of Coochiemudlo Island in many ways mirrors that of the human inhabitants of the island. For most of the time both are snug inside their houses and the streets and sandy mudflats are still and quiet.  But at set times both groups emerge from their homes to forage before retreating to the safety of their houses. For the human inhabitants the sound of the barge is the signal to emerge and go shopping. For the crabs it is ebbing of the tide.

The sight of the blue crab army emerging from their burrows on the ebb tide is truly amazing. The grey sandy mudflats transform to glittering blue as the soldier crabs march across the mudflats grazing on the algae scum and leaving behind small balls of sandy waste. They feed quickly ever alert for avian predators before retreating to their burrows before the bird tom-tom triggers the arrival of  all kinds of hungry birds looking for a feed of crab. And there they remain through the tidal change until the next ebb tide.

Flying fox lament

People do not like me
They hate my noise and smell
And many batty orchardists
Wish I was in hell

Some may think me vermin
And a vector for disease
But I really am quite useful
As I pollinate the trees

I'm intelligent and sociable
And pretty as can be
And turning sunset sky to black
Is marvellous to see

Few creatures are as unfairly maligned as the flying fox.  In a country awash with ferals it is a great irony that a protected and ecologically important native animal is the brunt of so much hatred and hysteria.  The media has a lot to answer for by deliberately stirring up controversy and giving air time to the profoundly ignorant. And then the politicians get involved and it is a free for all. The one group no one listens to are the scientific experts.  If the experts state that you won’t catch Hendra Virus from a from a flying fox you will be sure to see an opinion piece by someone with no credentials  shrilly denouncing the flying fox as a danger to public health. The current trend of opinion taking precedence over science in a host of areas including climate change, ecology and even medicine and sociology is extremely worrying. We are headed back to the dark ages when a Galileo could be imprisoned for daring to suggest that the earth travelled around the sun.

Yes, flying foxes are noisy and messy but few ask the right question of why they are establishing colonies in towns. They falsely assume that the population is too high and demand that they be culled when the real reason for their presence is that their habitat is vanishing and they are looking for food and a place to live.   Far from being overpopulated the flying foxes are in decline despite their increasing presence in towns. And yes they will maraud fruit crops but many species of flying foxes are primarily nectar feeders and they are important pollinators. They are intelligent and  sociable and the sight of them taking to the sky in their hundreds at dusk is magnificent.  I’ll bat for the flying fox any day.

The Curlews of Coochie

Does the sound of eerie shrieking
As you lie there in your bed
Wake you from your sleeping
And fill your soul with dread

Your terror is in error
There is nobody dying
Relax enjoy the pleasure
Of the Coochie curlews crying

We have recently relocated to beautiful Coochiemudlo Island nestling in a sheltered corner of Moreton Bay. It’s a place of sun soaked beaches, clear seas and lazy days. It is also home to a large population of Bush Stone Curlews who spend their days hiding in the thick forest which covers much of the island and emerge at dusk. They are strange long legged ground-dwelling birds with large yellow eyes and stand about 55 cm high. They are very graceful and have the capacity to stand very still and blend into the background and their screeching call has to be heard to be believed. At intermittent times throughout the night the silence of the Coochie night is shattered by a chorus of piercing shrieks and wails that sound like someone is being murdered. Long term residents no longer notice them but visitors can find them very disturbing. I love their eerie call and the reminder of wild nature outside our window in this special place. 

Most residents of Coochie would be very surprised to learn that their “Curlews” are not really curlews but Bush Stone Curlews or Thick-knees. It is a dry-land species despite its relationship to Oyster -catchers and Avocets. They are common across NE Australia where they forages for frogs, spiders, insects, molluscs, crustaceans, snakes, lizards and small mammals and particularly on moon-lit nights but are now rare and endangered in Victoria due to predation from foxes.

Carbon tax

Remember when the earth was cool
And consequences rare
When we could burn up energy
Without a thought or care

We did not know the Piper
Who piped his Siren’s song
Would one day demand payment
To make us right the wrong

We must now pay the Piper
Who piped our song of greed
And now demands his payment
If we are to be freed



The sea-level rose an average 1.8 mm a year last century but the rate of increase is accelerating alarmingly and currently exceeds 3 mm a year and three times that in some places. And as the icecaps melt and the warming seawater expands it is set to get a lot worse. Modelling showing metres of seawater rise by 2100 was recently considered pessimistic by but increasingly looks like being in right ball park. We are on the verge of global catastrophe. And if you doubt that, spare a thought for the people of PNG’s Carteret Atoll who are the world’s first Climate Change refugees. They have already relocated to Bougainville as their islands disappear beneath the waves and they will soon be followed by many others across the rising Pacific. This is a key point that seems to be lost in the current carbon tax debate. We don’t have time to argue the point about disadvantage or to delay action until other nations take action. We must start moving to a low carbon economy and Australia as a world eco-power with so much to lose from sea-level rise and climate change in general must show leadership.

I think the government is going about it the right way. Put a price on carbon to provide reasonable incentives to industry to reduce emissions without wrecking the economy whilst protecting the vulnerable as we transit to a low carbon economy. Moving too far too quickly will be political suicide and doing nothing is not an option. My guess is that we will end up with a carbon price of about $25/tonne similar to Europe. Australia missed a golden opportunity to take bipartisan action on climate change a couple of years ago and history will vilify those responsible for the demise of the Emissions Trading Scheme that followed the demise of the then Leader of the Opposition.

But while we consider the negative consequences of a carbon tax we should also think about opportunities. Investments in alternate energy and agro-forestry will likely prosper but our real advantages are in less obvious areas such as environmental science and technological leadership. Our geographical location close to the booming economies of China, India and SE Asia also gives us a significant advantage over our competitors with respect to mineral resources. The embodied emissions in a tonne of Pilbara iron-ore over its life cycle from mine to China will for example be much less than a tonne mined in central Brazil and shipped half way around the world.

Yes, it will be difficult to ensure adequate compensation for vulnerable groups impacted by a carbon tax. Industry will also be disadvantaged in the short term by moving more quickly than our competitors but there is a place for leadership and most industrial leaders understand the opportunities associated with first mover advantage. What should be obvious to everyone is that this is not an issue which will go away. We can take decisive and early (already a bit late for that) action or we can play catch up later when forced by circumstance. The main difference between climate change and natural disasters like cyclones and floods is the time scale. But unlike a flood or cyclone situation when everyone pitches in and helps regardless of cost we seem content to sit back and ignore the situation. We have enjoyed the dance and it is now time to pay the band.

The stuff of life

Place soil in pot
Then add seed
Add  light and water
Wait

Take tree from pot
Shake off soil
Weigh tree
Weigh soil

Invisible to visible
Air to wood
Light to dark
Death to life




Photosynthesis is the miracle of life. Light and air and water transforming to sugar and then to wood. Water molecules split by light release oxygen and hydrogen which combines with carbon dioxide to form sugar. Imagine a world where we could grow our own homes from Carbon dioxide. Just paint the ground with photosynthetic paint and wait for the house to grow. Wouldn’t that be miraculous and wonderful? Almost as marvellous as a forest! We do take a lot for granted and are often blind to the obvious.

When the experiment described in the poem was undertaken by early experimenters they found that the soil volume remained the same. They therefore concluded, almost rightly, that the tree that grew in the pot was somehow made of air. The carbon that ultimately formed the wood in fact came from carbon dioxide. Carbon, invisible and odourless in carbon dioxide gas, transformed to wood with the energy of light. Light trapped in darkness as the lifeless becomes living matter. And it can all be reversed.

When we burn fossil fuels we release the fossilised light energy trapped for eons, reversing photosynthesis and releasing carbon dioxide. And we burn so much so quickly that the world has no time to adjust. The solution to global warming and climate change is really quite simple. We must slow down the rate that we are releasing carbon dioxide and we must increase the rate it is absorbed. In other words we need to drive less and plant more trees. But we all have to do it. The problem is many of us don’t want to do it. We are addicted to energy and a soft life and rarely worry much about tomorrow or the fate of our children. We need an international carbon tax and we need to understand that sacrifice is necessary. But will a democratic society vote for hardship and sacrifice? Not likely, and definitely not when a sizable portion of a self-interested and gullible population has been persuaded to be sceptical by greedy and evil people! And so we continue to rapidly transform darkness to light as we rush headlong to the inevitable consequence of life to death.

Spot that cat

Spot that
Spot cat
That spot
Cat spot

That cat
Tree cat
That tree
Cat tree

There are many spotted cats in the Congo rainforest or at least cat like creatures. The spots break up their outline in the dappled light of the forest and assist with the camouflage necessary for a successful predator. The largest and best known is the leopard. This is a true feline and despite weighing up to 90 kg it climbs extremely well. They are incredibly powerful and can drag quite large antelopes up a tree where they can enjoy their meal in peace. Next step down are the civet cats in the Family Viverridae which is the same family as the Mongoose. These are superficially catlike and good climbers but they are not true felines. They weigh in at between 10 and 15 kg and have non-retractable claws , a pointed snout and dark eye patches giving them a racoon appearance. Civets make excellent pets and are both intelligent and affectionate. We recently released some orphaned civets from the Mefou Primate Centre in Mbalmayo in Cameroon back into the wild. And as you can see from the photo they did not appreciate their new freedom.

Civet cats are omnivorous and in Sumatra are famous for their role in creating the highly regarded and very expensive coffee called Kopi Luwak. Kopi Luwak is made from partially digested coffee beans salvaged from the dung of civet cats.

Kopi Luwak is expensive and rare

But just one thing you must beware

The digested beans for this caffeine hit

Are carefully sieved from civet something or other

The smallest of the spotted jungle cats are the Genets weighing in at between 1 and 2 kg. These are also viverrids and not felines. These have long banded tails which they use as a counterweight and are extremely agile as they hunt birds, reptiles and small mammals in the forest canopy.

Chuditch or Western Quoll

The whiskery, sleek and streamlined

Chuditch, is a marsupial that

Is often mistakenly felined
As the Western Native Cat

He is also called the Western Quoll

And with his spotted coat and nose of pink

He looks both cute and droll

But he may not be what you think

Like most ferocious carnivores

He can be very frightening

When razor teeth and tearing claws

Flash out like greasy lightning

I was horrified to see a dead Chuditch on Julimar Road last week. Julimar Road runs though the Julimar State Forest and is littered with corpses. Kangaroo’s, parrots, foxes, rabbits by the hundred, and the occasional echidna and Black Gloved Wallaby all turned into road-kill. But this was the first Chuditch I had seen. My heart sank as I saw the thick based tail and the distinctive spotted coat. But then I thought, perhaps this is an indication that the local population is increasing. Impossible to tell from a single animal but it is a comforting thought.

The Chuditch (Dasyurus geoffroii) is Western Australia’s largest marsupial predator and was officially Endangered (IUCN red list) in 1994. Active fox baiting has enabled it to recover somewhat but it is still classified as Near Threatened and its survival depends totally on ongoing active fox baiting. Its fragmented habitat through the wheat belt in particular is not helping because not all small pockets of remnant bush are fox baited and there are still local population declines.

We have a bush-block adjacent the Julimar Forest and occasionally capture images of the nocturnal Chuditch on a sensor camera. The bad news is that we also capture many fox images. We seem to have reached a balance with respect to fox control and need to urgently extend the baiting programme. The problem of course is extreme reluctance to extend baiting into farmland or near residential areas where there is a risk of family pets being baited. The consequence is huge fox populations in unbaited areas marauding into our National Parks and consuming our endangered wildlife. And the general level of community and political awareness about just how serious this problem is and the need for ongoing vigilance, is very low. The Western Shield fox baiting programmes is not receiving either the level of attention or funding that it needs.

Climate change denial

The climate is changing alas alas
And we are stuck in a deep morass
While politicians dull and crass
Argue the point about greenhouse gas

Some have knives at their backs,
Others ears full of wax
As they decry a carbon tax
And say go slow, just relax

How has this come to pass?
Can we break this sad impasse?
With sound debate turned to farce
While icecaps crack like broken glass

I was astonished to hear Liberal Senator Nick Minchin on yesterdays news state that global warming is a myth.

“Not only has there been no temperature increase since the record in 1999, it is now clear from satellite imagery that the earth is starting to cool.”

It is not surprising that a Liberal politician supporting his parties “anti carbon tax” stance would attempt to discredit the science but to hear someone lie so blatantly was breathtaking. And more astonishingly these kinds of outright lies are told daily with impunity by many otherwise respected and intelligent people. And they succeed in keeping the average citizen confused! This of course is the whole point! So where do people go for accurate information? The answer is to the source data. In this case, Senator Minchin has stated that the evidence for a cooling earth is from recent satellite data. So what does NASA say? The latest information on the NASA website (http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/jan/HQ_11-014_Warmest_Year.html ) says:

Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie. In the new analysis, the next warmest years are 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009, which are statistically tied for third warmest year. The GISS records begin in 1880. "If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long," said James Hansen, the director of GISS.

So there you have it. We know that politicians lie but usually it is just broken promises which may have been sincere at the time they were made. People should not be allowed to get away with the outright misrepresentation of science. This is not the time to be arguing about the science. The science was settled years ago. Now is the time for bipartisanship and international accord. We are in trouble and we need to do something about it. The debate should now be centred on alternatives for action and we need to work together.

Avon Descent

Descending down the slippery track
Dodging ruts and boulders
Careful not to get too close
To sheer drops on the shoulders

And in the valley far below
Gleaming like a jewell
The ancient home of catfish
The famous Cobbler’s Pool

But the pool is still and fishless
And ringed with dying trees
And the smell of rotting algae
Is fetid on the breeze

Few of the hundreds of kayakers participating in the Avon Descent in August each year would be aware of the poor health of the river. It is still spectacularly beautiful when it is swollen with winter rain and cascades through the magnificent Avon Valley. Few would realise as they pitch their tents at the Cobbler’s Pool camping ground that there are no longer any fish in the pool. The catfish that thrived in the pool for millions of years before the coming of the Aborigines and for 50,000 years since are long gone and the Avon is as dead as the Dodo.

I stand on the banks of Cobbler's Pool under a dying Flooded Gum and look wistfully at the stagnant green water scummed with blue-green algae. It is a hot summer’s day but you would have to be desperate to dive into that toxic brew. Can this be the same clean fresh pool teeming with catfish that sustained Aboriginal people for millennia? Is this the same pool that provided clean freshwater for the boilers of the steam engines as the steam trains made their way down the Avon last century? A more fundamental question is can we bring it back to life? Now that it has descended as far it can, can we help it to ascend? The answer to that one is possibly, but no time soon.

The problem with the Avon is dry-land salinity. The death of the Avon and many other wheat-belt rivers is a consequence of over-clearing for wheat farming. Excessive removal of native vegetation has increased rates of rainwater infiltration into the soil causing ground-water levels to rise and bringing salt to the surface. Much of this ends up in the river system. The once fresh Avon now has a salinity of about half seawater. The mussels, insect larvae, worms and crustaceans that once supported the food chain are gone along with the cobblers and the many other species of fish that once inhabited the river. The irony is that much of the excessive clearing that has killed the Avon has not occurred anywhere near the Avon. Once again it demonstrates the connectedness of things and the unpredictability of consequences.

Sanctuary

Our enemies besiege us
As aimlessly we roam
Wandering tired and hungry
Looking for a home

Once we could have travelled
To the valley nearby

But now that too has gone

We hold our heads and cry

Is there a place of shelter

Where we can carry on

And safely raise a family

In a place we call our own?

It is a terrible thing for an individual to be displaced with nowhere to go but for a species it is a tragedy. And it is happening everywhere. With relentless removal of habitat and hunting pressure it is now no longer possible for many displaced animals to find sanctuary in the untouched nearby forest.

When I was a child growing up in the mountains of Papua New Guinea Long Beaked Echidnas were common but they have now all but disappeared. The locals whilst acknowledging that they haven’t seen any for decades will invariably tell you that there are plenty in the next valley. And so it goes, valley by valley, with each group not particularly worried because there are plenty elsewhere. The trouble is elsewhere no longer exists.

It is very difficult to separate people from the forest that sustains their culture and livelihood. Much has been done in many parts of the world to develop sustainable forest use areas but there is also a place for true sanctuaries. Fully protected areas of critical habitat serving as sanctuaries for endangered wildlife! These areas will in fact be the reservoir areas for wildlife into the sustainable forest use areas where sustainable hunting is allowed. The reservoir areas not only protect species from extinction but will also sustain the heritage and culture of native peoples.

Australia is blessed with one of the best National and Marine Park systems in the world. These areas are of great ecological importance as well as supporting an economically important tourist industry. Similar parks can be found throughout the world but unfortunately many third world countries do not have the resources to properly manage their protected areas. These areas will always have poor biodiversity outcomes without proper funding and management. This in fact is the most urgent priority in many parts of the world.

Eye Worms and other Tropical Diseases

Nasty biting insects
Are a wretched curse
But the diseases that they carry
Are infinitely worse

Those Loa Loa Worms
Wriggling in your eyes
Are the lasting legacy
Of biting Deer Flies

Malaria and filaria
Are diseases we must purge
From the poorest folk in Africa
Living with this scourge

The jungles of Central Africa are a cauldron for new diseases including many strains of HIV and nasty haemorrhagic Ebola Virus. Many of these diseases have recently jumped the species barrier from primates to humans and the Global Viral Institute is working hard to prevent the next pandemic but it is not just new diseases that are a problem. The clearing of forest and the migration of people into new areas is increasing contact with mosquitoes, biting flies other vectors of disease. Cerebral malaria and several types of filarial infection in particular are increasing rapidly. Trypanosomiasis which causes sleeping sickness in humans as well as Cattle Trypanosomiasis through the bite of the Tsetse Fly (Glossina)is also on the rise despite the development of Trypanasome resistant cattle and mass spraying of insecticide to kill the vector.

Climate change is also having an impact. River Blindness, or Onchocerciasis is a filarial infection spread by the Black Fly which is rapidly spreading south into the tropical jungle areas from the savannah Sahel where it results in blindness rates of 3-5%. The problem is exacerbated by land clearing in combination with a drying climate which creates suitable conditions for the Black Fly vector. Loa Loa Eye Worm infections caused by a filaria spread by Deer and Mango Flies is also on the increase with 70% infection rates in some parts of Cameroon.

But what can be done? It is unthinkable that we don’t do all we can to eradicate these diseases and alleviate the immense suffering of local populations but we also have to be mindful of the environmental consequences of our actions. The eradication of the Tsetse Fly for example would result in large areas of rainforest being cleared for cattle grazing. Large scale insecticide spraying programmes will similarly have devastating ecological impacts. Neither strategy is the long term answer to achieving an appropriate balance between development and conservation. In the longer term a combination of education, poverty alleviation and medical treatment of impacted populations is likely to secure the best outcomes. And if you happen to be visiting these areas make sure you have your shots and always protect yourself from mosquitoes and biting flies.