adgray

This was going to be a reply to aphoto4you on her work Close Together
It is a gorgeous shot and the debate ensuing was detracting from that.

I wanted to clarify my understanding of the whole issue of introduced species vs native fauna & flora

First I want to emphatically state – No I’m not defending needless killing … and I would completely agree with leaving nature to deal with nature. But as you should know here in Australia a mere 200 years ago whiteman introduced several species that have been allowed to reproduce in plague proportions that have wiped out habitat and native species alike and fed our own “Rodents” into their own plague proportions!
Rabbits Foxes Grass [and other weeds that were brought as pretty flowers] Cats Rats Mice camels horses cows pigs water buffalo and Cane Toads…. and definitely whiteman!

Whiteman have wiped out the majority of the indigenous people [completely from Tassie] and usurped them of their land culture and lifestyle! Whiteman have also rendered many native animals extinct either for their pelts and meat or just by destroying the native habitat to cultivate their own!

Our native wildlife have no defenses to the fox. Yes we have dingos [another bronze age introduced species] and Tassie had the tiger but the dingos are north of the “Dog Fence” and the foxes are south of it and the tigers are extinct thanks to whitemen!
The majority of the native animals are not suited to be victims of predators…. that is they are easy prey and by the time they naturally develop the wherewithal to become predator wise there wont be many left!

The aristocracy brought Foxes in to “Hunt” .. they would hunt once a year and ignore the foxes who flourished! Foxes go for fowls no probs – and loss of said birds in the beginning was blamed on aborigines not foxes! They also go for sheep easy as pie and they will go for a sick or newborn cow ….. they are scavengers.

If you had lived in the outback you would know why roos are the farmers pest! True it is not their fault but they are the scourge of the grazer. Since whiteman cleared the land and cultivated grazing pastures the roos have gone to town on the pasture and as rodents do have multiplied to deal with it! Grass is a weed in Australia and roos keep it short! Nature is dealing with the grass introduced and forgetting we also brought cows and sheep in. Roos have become plague proportions! So farmers are culling roos to allow their stock to feed…. there by feeding whiteman! And when you look at it that is also nature’s work.

As for rabbits! My god! I have seen the paddocks looking like the rats after the pied piper! At dusk there are acres and acres of paddocks literally swarming with rabbits who burrow all over, eat everything on top and destroy the soil underneath so that our native flora and fauna die! You cannot eat the rabbits in the bush now they have no nutritional value and spread diseases. At best they make cheep dog-food for the farmer but even their pelt is useless. These rabbits are not bunnies but more like rats! Again they were introduced to “Feed the poor” and because there were no natural predators they flourished to plague proportions very fast and have stayed there in Australia without any way to Naturally control them!

And CATS are the new scourge of the native fauna. Cats breed like rodents and whiteman allow them to roam all day and all night! They can travel for miles between coming home for meals if they’re allowed out. Cats can also live quite happilly contained to a house or a room or even an aviary! I have cats and I do not allow them to go outside because I cannot prevent them from leaving my property. We live near a sports reserve park and my cats would kill the native birds and possums there [yes we have introduced birds but our native birds are better adapted to our country and the introduced species are just surviving along side them] Whiteman has even taken cats and dumped them in the bush thinking it was a humane way of getting rid of them! Of course these cats are now flourishing wild cats feeding on our fauna and birds! Our park rangers are culling them too … fancy eating cat?

And don’t start me on the Toads wiping out up north! They are destroying the top end from the Queensland sugar cane coast right through into our precious Kakadu!
Go on tell me they love their tadpoles!

Every living creature family are attractive to human aesthetics of cute and cuddly when nurturing their young and in their natural habitat this is a wonderful thing, but please remember white man INTRODUCED these Foxes and Rabbits and all the others that I have mentioned and possibly more that have yet reared their ugly heads. So when you take a photo like your wonderful shot here and put it along side the same kind of photo of the lovely bunnies they eat in England/America etc or the native marsupials the foxes feed on in Australia which one do you barrack for then?

Australia is an island; detached from the rest of the world for at least 40,000 years most likely ten times as long and our ecology has developed to the elegant balance that it was before whiteman invasion.

Yes in the bronze age the Egyptians came and took our gold leaving us with dingos, buffalo turkeys and pigs [and circumcision in the indigenous culture] but that was a very brief invasion and they left
Whiteman however have come a mere 200 years ago and TAKEN OVER!

And now we have to deal with the results of such an invasion. And that means culling and controlling the pests and the plagued rodents ….. no matter how sweet and gorgeous they seem to be and includes maintaining our strict quarantine of any entry into our unique and unusual Island …. to safe guard our fragile ecology.