Those poor Koalas

As one who always leaves plenty of natural habitat  for wildlife on my place, I was keen to see what the big worry was this week on Four  Corners. Was good to get a bit of background on the problems in Victoria but , overall,  I found  myself  totally confused about what the problem is supposed to be  and where it is . If there was a cause the ABC didn't state it clearly . It was like going out to shoot a fox when the visitor couldn't  remember which paddock they saw it in.
 Was the limited gene pool issue an ongoing problem , or just developers on the Gold Coast ? Some dumb Council ?  Or is the really big danger that of climate change?
I would have thought that Gunnedah could be on the outside range of the animals normal habitat. Lots of animals died in the profoundly long drought ending in 2009 everywhere .  I would have thought that developers, like me, when I change things and work with nature , or remove some old habitat would have to create a bit of new habitat --if they removed any . That works - no answers or things that work came from the program -only problems and fears .  Straight relocation , too, is dumb , like some of the presenters . As presented,   the shires relocation program looked a little ill advised if net gain wasn't being applied - we weren't told whether it was .The whole program was a dog's breakfast of secondary causes . I wanted to get in the truck and go help ,  but I couldn't work out where to go .
Tony Burke's insistence that koalas should live in our territory was a bit much too . How do the koalas  feel  about being forced to live with us ? Has anyone asked them ? Surely its reasonable that they would prefer living in the wild or some place far away . So many of us native and country creatures are shy - unlike those people named below. Seems somewhat anthropomorphic to insist they come out to be in our space - that they should get "habitat equality" - what in the world does the word mean? , AlI I can remember is that Orwell's pigs used it a lot,,, to get their way. Surely its only  fair that we keep our own space and call it what we like;  " globulusjnr" perhaps   True Diversity and limited unity - respect for our differences . Why should shy animals  have to parade around in old vegetation  for tourists to google at , or anyone have to have their fences and homes fully defined for them by outsiders ?
Where were the maps of habitat loss and cline line boundaries? . Where was the vegetation age classes that determine site quality and survival ;  and the stats about natural decline with drought ? Where was the understanding that animals like plants must die to live . The city is in denial about real life and the big picture , hoping only to preserve an image - and a static ( rather than dynamic long term life goes on cycle ) image at that .
None of the above  fear removing fact stuff was mentioned on this once reliable once report driven program .Its a Low point for 4 corners and lower point for Kerry O' Brien and other old ABC presenters who would rather tell us what scientists say,  rather than let scientists say it themselves eg Q&A.  The program was so poor I won't be surprised if some scientists complain.
 I personally felt as if  I was being preached at ; dragged up the proverbial garden path by the heart strings . Bleeding heart stuff doesn't help the koalas,  or convince anyone whose close enough to really care  that there is actually a loss of habitat for this widely spread animal .
The trouble with more facts and maps ( education revolution will obviously NOT start with the ABC as they don't use them to be convincing ) is they can get in the road of a good story .
Nature is tougher than we think , but that  means we get to know to focus on  the weak edges well -limit the  worry areas !
 I wish Wayne Swan , Burke and  Wong would stop using that word resilience -they worry too much about the wrong things  to show that they know what it is ; Yes ,  they know the importance of the idea,  but not how to achieve it . They are going out on a fear campaign of their own making - takes one to know one.
Besides,  you don't mention a disaster happening on your watch;  it reflects on your incompetence. As a good steward  you should mention prevention and planning if you want to rest easy at night in the chair and claim some ground on resilience happening in your paddocks.    Running around putting out fires is for those on the edge of more disasters  to come .

Comments

Little John said…
All good conservationists should reject nimbyism ( Not In My Backyard ), but many wannabes can't see past the first problem as highlightd in this ongoing nonsense about tranefring the koals to someone else back yard .
In 2019 noone ( because few really think Big picture http://cuttingedgecare.blogspot.com has mentioned that our policy of shipping our waste overseas and failing to INSIST on a tip in our own backyard is the height of hypocrisy (shallow popular thinking on the environment )
Little John said…
All good conservationists should reject nimbyism ( Not In My Backyard ), but many wannabes can't see past the first problem as highlightd in this ongoing nonsense about tranefring the koals to someone else back yard .
In 2019 noone ( because few really think Big picture http://cuttingedgecare.blogspot.com has mentioned that our policy of shipping our waste overseas and failing to INSIST on a tip in our own backyard is the height of hypocrisy (shallow popular thinking on the environment )

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