Koalas found dead on Australia logging plantation

Dozens of koalas have been found dead or injured at a timber plantation in the Australian state of Victoria, sparking an investigation by officials.

Blue gum trees - an important koala habitat - were harvested from the plantation in December, leaving only a few isolated stands of trees.

Some koalas had starved to death in the remaining trees. Others were apparently killed by bulldozers.

About 80 surviving koalas have been removed and are being cared for.

The deaths come after tens of thousands of koalas were killed in the bushfires that have ravaged Australia. The marsupial is listed as "vulnerable" by Australia's Environment Ministry.

'Australia should be ashamed'

After the plantation was logged in December, reports of hundreds of starving koalas came in, environmental group Friends of the Earth Australia said.

"People apparently witnessed the bulldozing of many dead koalas into slash piles," it said.

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning said it was prepared to prosecute over the incident.

Continued

'Falling out of trees': dozens of dead possums blamed on extreme heat stress

Rescuers found 127 ringtail possums along the shoreline and in the water on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula

Lisa Cox

Thu 7 Mar 2019 07.07 GMT Last modified on Thu 7 Mar 2019 07.09 GMT

More than 100 dead and injured ringtail possums have been found by wildlife rescuers along a single stretch of beach in Victoria in what ecologists say is becoming an annual occurrence due to extreme heat.

Rescuers and wildlife carers discovered 127 ringtail possums along the shoreline and in the water at Somers Beach on the Mornington Peninsula on Saturday during a four-day period that saw consistent temperatures in the high 30s, warm nights and bushfires in parts of the state.

Melanie Attard, a wildlife rescuer and foster carer with Aware Wildlife in Frankston, said rescuers suspected the animals had become so dehydrated and desperate they had left an area of scrub and come down to the beach and attempted to drink salt water.

“We assume they’ve come out due to the heat stress heading for the water in desperation,” she said.

 “It’s not nice seeing a possum throwing itself into the beach and drinking seawater. It’s really desperate.”

Attard said 100 of the animals had died while the remaining possums had been taken into care. Only half had survived and would be released back into the wild when they had recovered.

Veterinary staff working with Wildlife Health Victoria: Surveillance at Melbourne University are investigating the cause of the deaths.

Malcolm Legg, a Mornington Peninsula-based ecologist who has been monitoring the situation for a decade, said: “It’s pretty much an annual event now whenever we get heatwaves of two days or more.

“The possums are just collapsing, out of trees, run down by cars, taken by cats and dogs.

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Victoria pledges to remove 1,200 brumbies to protect alps and calls on NSW to act

Environment minister says up to 2,500 wild horses are causing ‘significant damage’ to plant and animal species

Lisa Cox

Fri 1 Jun 2018 21.00 BSTLast modified on Sat 2 Jun 2018 01.01 BST

The Victorian government has signed off on a plan to remove more than 1,200 feral horses from the Alpine national park, saying the impact of the animals on sensitive ecosystems has reached critical levels.

Two weeks ago the New South Wales government announced a proposal to protect Kosciuszko national park brumbies, which conservation advocates have labelled a “disaster” for Australia’s environmental heritage.

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The Victorian environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, has endorsed a plan to remove up to 400 feral horses a year for three years from Victoria’s eastern alps, where as many as 2,500 of the animals are causing “significant damage” to threatened plant and animal species.

A smaller population of 80 to 100 horses in the Bogong high plains will be removed entirely.

The government’s preference is to trap and rehome the animals but where that is not possible, it says they will be humanely euthanised.

Continued  

Wildlife officers search for rare whale stranded on Victorian beach

Severe weather and dangerous swells hamper search for 2.5m pygmy or dwarf sperm whale found at Logans Beach

Melissa Davey

Tuesday 10 May 201603.30 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 10 May 201604.25 BST

Wildlife officers are trying to find a small and rare whale that was found stranded at a Victorian beach on Monday evening, however their search efforts are being hampered by severe weather and dangerous swells.

The adult whale, about 2.5m long, was found at Logans Beach in Victoria’s south-west and rescuers believe it to be either a pygmy sperm whale or a dwarf sperm whale.

The whale was refloated but immediately stranded itself again. When rescuers returned to the beach to continue their rescue efforts on Tuesday morning, the whale could not be found.

A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning told Guardian Australia the search was made difficult by high winds, rough swells and high tides. If the whale is located, department wildlife officers will work with Melbourne Zoo and Melbourne Museum to decided the best course of action.

A senior wildlife emergencies project officer said the team’s strategy would be to stabilise the whale in shallow water so that a veterinary examination could occur.

“The fact that the whale re-stranded itself may be an indicator that the whale is not healthy and its stranding was not accidental,” she said.

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Thousands of corroboree frog eggs released in fight to save endangered species

Hopes species will recover as eggs bred in captivity at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and Zoos Victoria enter the wild

Scientists say that without a captive breeding program the critically endangered corroboree frog would be two years from extinction. Photograph: John Lane/Zoos Victoria

Michael Slezak

Tuesday 26 April 201608.17 BST

After 10 years of captive breeding, the critically endangered corroboree frog   might be on its way back from the brink of extinction.

Fewer than 50 mature corroboree frogs live in the wild in alpine New South Wales and scientists have estimated that without a captive breeding program that began 10 years ago they would be a mere two years from extinction. In fact, most of the frogs currently in the wild are the result of previous captive releases.

But, this month, thousands of eggs bred in captivity at Taronga Zoo in Sydney andZoos Victoria are being released into the wild – the largest release to date.

Last week the first batch of about 1,850 was released, with the rest planned for release in coming weeks.

“The eggs we released this month will take six months to metamorphose into frogs and then a further four years for them to mature,” said Taronga native fauna curator Michael McFadden. “It’s hoped that these eggs will contribute to giving this species a chance to recover.”

The team released some of the eggs into raised pools that have been constructed to keep the deadly chytrid fungus out. Others were released into natural pools in areas that are known to have low levels of the fungus and others were released into enclosures.

The fungus causes a disease called chytridiomycosis on the skin that fatally impairs frogs’ ability to maintain electrolyte, water and oxygen levels.

McFadden told Guardian Australia the program appeared to be working, since most of the adult frogs they saw in the wild were in areas where they were previously extinct but have since been reintroduced.

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Residents of Australian state warned of snakes in "plague proportions"- via Herp Digest

Xinhua   1/21/16- MELBOURNE,  -- The authorities have urged residents in the Australian state of Victoria, especially those living in country areas, to be on high alert following a string of recent snake attacks across the state.

The warning comes after at least three people were hospitalized and three dogs were killed by suspected snake bites around Victoria over the past fortnight.

One snake catcher told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Thursday that conditions were ideal for snakes this summer and the growing urban sprawl meant this would be an ongoing problem for people living in the outer suburbs.

A man aged in his 20s was hospitalized on Wednesday night after being bitten by a snake near Seymour, north of Melbourne, and a Kyabram resident, also in the state's north, suffered a suspected snake bite early on Thursday morning.

After spending three days in Dandenong Hospital, Barbara McDougall, who was bitten at her home south-east of Melbourne, told the local newspaper she had been badly shaken following her ordeal.

"It was absolutely terrifying," McDougall told the Cranbourne Leader on Thursday.

"I was putting my rubbish out when a one-metre long tiger snake grabbed my leg and wouldn't let go. I was screaming and shaking my leg as hard as I could until I finally got it off."

McDougall said three dogs in the neighbouring area had been killed in similar incidents over the past two weeks. She said she had never known a snake season as bad as the current one and that the state could be headed for a plague.

"From what I've heard, they're in plague proportions in this area," McDougall said.

Wildlife authorities in Victoria were moved on Thursday to issue the following tips to anyone helping a snake bite victim: ask the patient not to move, apply a broad crepe bandage over bite, seek medical help quickly, do not wash venom off skin or cut bitten areas, do not try to suck venom out of wound or use a tourniquet and do not try to catch the snake. 

Victoria's Otway koalas: 'If we don’t intervene, they will die a painful death'

Koalas around Cape Otway, south-west of Melbourne, are facing a struggle for survival that will persist unless a long-term solution can be agreed on

Koalas in Cape Otway, Victoria, are captured and tracked (and, controversially, in some cases euthanised) in a bid to control population. Link to video

Oliver Milman

Monday 28 September 2015 02.23 

If you’re keen on spotting a wild koala, you can improve your chances by gazing at the eucalypts that host the largest of the marsupial species, in the Otways of Victoria.

The koalas around Cape Otway, a good three-hour drive south-west of Melbourne, off the famed Great Ocean Road, can weigh in at 14kg – roughly double the size of koalas found in Queensland.

But something is terribly amiss in this koala population. Many of the animals are starving, prompting the largest intervention yet by the state government, with a fortnight of health checks ending this week.

More controversially, this intervention also involves the sterilisation of all captured female koalas and the euthanisation of those deemed too frail to survive much longer in the wild.

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Frilled shark: Australian fishermen capture terrifying shark from the deep

Local fishermen were left scratching their heads at the sight of the two metre long creature

ROISIN O'CONNOR

A rare and terrifying frilled shark has been pulled from the water by fishermen near Lakes Entrance in Victoria, Australia.

Also known as the "living fossil", the frilled shark is named for its six pairs of frill-like gills. The shark’s origin dates back 80 million years, and is one of two species that is still alive from this period.

South East Trawl Fishing Association (SETFA) chief executive Simon Boag told ABC that this is the first sighting of the species alive by humans.

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Mystery over dead koala dumped in police driveway with $50 in its mouth

Police at a loss to explain motive behind dumping of cashed up marsupial that appeared to have been hit by a car

Australian Associated Press

theguardian.com, Tuesday 5 August 2014 05.51 BST

In the film The Godfather, mafia boss Don Corleone has a severed horse’s head put in an enemy’s bed, but no one is sure what to make of the dumping of a dead koala with $50 in its mouth at a Victorian police station.

Sergeant Jason Von Tunk thought he was being set up for a possible ambush when he made the grisly discovery in the driveway of Heywood police station on Saturday night.

He heard a thud and went outside the station to investigate.

“I put my torch on it, and I saw it was a koala,” Von Tunk told Fairfax radio on Tuesday. “It made me shiver, I thought what’s this about, and I thought I was getting set up – the old put a dead koala out in the middle of the driveway situation, and then get ambushed. All sorts of things go through your head.”

Read on ...

Endangered tiger quoll spotted in Grampians for the first time in more than 140 years

A tiger quoll has been sighted in the Grampians National Park in western Victoria for the first time in more than 140 years.

The elusive marsupial was caught on film by a remote camera set up to monitor wallabies in a very remote area deep inside the park on September 25.

The last record of a sighting of a live tiger quoll in the region was in 1872.

There have been a few unconfirmed sightings, but it was largely presumed to be extinct in the Grampians.

Parks Victoria ranger Ryan Duffy says scientists had to verify the photo.

"When I first saw it I was incredibly excited," he said.

"We've always thought that this animal could occur within the park, but we've never had any evidence to prove that."

Another Parks Victoria official, Ben Holmes, says he could not believe his eyes.

"There is no mistaking the spotted body colour, which can only be a quoll," he said.

The tiger quoll, which is also known as the spotted-tail quoll, is a carnivorous marsupial, which can grow up to one metre in length and is listed as an endangered species in Victoria.

Parks Victoria will now "refine" the use of the cameras to hopefully build a better picture of how widespread the population is across the national park, following several unconfirmed sightings over the past few years.

Parks Victoria chief executive Dr Bill Jackson says it is an extremely exciting rediscovery and highlights the critical role parks play in conserving unique biodiversity.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19227973/endangered-tiger-quoll-spotted-in-grampians-for-the-first-time-in-more-than-140-years/

A Day in the Life of the Mysterious Odd-Clawed Spider Progradungula Otwayensis

Sep. 25, 2013 — A recent paper published in the open access journal Zookeys provides a first-time glimpse in the natural history of the enigmatic spider species Progradungula otwayensis. Lurking in the hollows of old myrtle beech trees and thus hard to collect, this extraordinary spider is an endemic species confined strictly to the beautiful Great Otway National Park (Victoria, Australia).

P. otwayensis belongs to the small spider family Gradungulidae which consists of seven genera with a total of 16 described species found exclusively in eastern Australia and New Zealand. The genus Progradungula to which the species studied here belongs is among the few cribellate ones in the family. This term refers to the cribellum, a web producing organ which, unlike normal spinnerets, produces extremely fine fibers which are combed out by the calamistrum, producing silk with a wooly texture. The fibers are so small in diameter that prey insects easily become entangled in them, without any glue needed.

To add to its mystery P. otwayensis weaves highly stereotyped ladder-shaped webs, where they stand facing down after sunset, waiting for preys which will be caught by using the ladder as a trap -- a behavior which was already described in detail by now retired arachnologist Mike Gray (Australian Museum) for the only known other species of this genus, P. carraensis. A single thick and shiny silk thread is then used by the spiders to provide a zip-line like connection between the external webs and the security of the enigmatic retreat in the hollows of ancient myrtle beech and mountain ash tree.

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Rare whale stranding a first for Victoria

Shepherds beaked whale found on Australian beach
July 2012. After a public report of an unidentified dead whale at Marlo in Victoria, Australia, an exciting addition has been made to the knowledge of Victoria's marine wildlife, which will improve our understanding of the species' biology and evolution.

The whale has been identified as a Shepherd's Beaked Whale and it is the first stranding record of the species in Victoria, with fewer than five individuals stranded in all of Australia.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment's Biodiversity Officer Tony Mitchell visited the site and realised immediately that he had never seen a whale like this on the Gippsland coast.

Mr Mitchell said "Given there has only been a handful of confirmed sightings of live animals anywhere in the world, it's quite incredible to have found this species washed up on Gippsland's shores. The 6.6 metre whale has a long, dolphin-like beak and is dark brown with pale sides and belly. It is distinguishable from other species by teeth in both its upper and lower jaws."

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/shepherds-beaked-whale.html

Duck rescuers claim victory in court case

Five people who rescued severely wounded ducks during last year's shooting season, have claimed victory in a landmark court case against the Victorian Government.

The three men and two women were arrested and charged after rescuing the waterbirds from wetlands near Kerang, in northern Victoria.

After 14 court appearances and a six-day trial run by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) the five people were acquitted of four charges, including harassing shooters.

A charge relating to blowing whistles was upheld.

The DPI was ordered to pay the rescuers' court costs of $18,000.

Laurie Levy from the Coalition Against Duck Shooters says it should be up to authorities, not animal-lovers, to make sure injured wildlife is cared for.

"That's another thing that the magistrate was surprised at, that it was up to duck rescuers to take vets out onto the wetlands to look after injured native waterbirds," he said.

Their lawyer, Daniel Beecher, described the trial as "malicious" and says it should never have been left to volunteers to rescue the injured birds.

"If the Government is going to authorise people to go into the wetlands and blast wildlife with shotguns then clearly the Government have a responsibility to look after the injured wildlife," he said.

By Peta Carlyon, ABC News

http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/in_the_news.php?article=3579