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African animals to roam Australia ?
Invurt writes: "In a strange twist to the traditional conservation story, Media Magnate Kerry Packer has announced that he is planning to open a huge African game reserve, for reasons of conservation and endangered species breeding in Australia. This would basically replicate Africa in the Australian continent, on a huge scale. They are not sure if they'd leave the kangaroos there or not - always wondered what it'd be like with kangaroos roaming the plains with lions."
is a bad idea.
In Europe, escaped kangaroos became a menace in the mid-1800s in southern Germany. Eventually, after years of hunting, all kangaroos wre wiped out.
Australia still suffers from European species introduced there.
Please, don't introduce African game... No one knows what will happen.
Kerry Packer likes to claim he is the true blue australian tycoon, unlike his rival Rupert Murdoch.
However what this nutcase is proposing here is nothing short of ecological genocide. If large predators escape from this "park" you can kiss goodbye all of the rare and beautiful marsupial animals that inhabit his "home". If he really wants to preserve african wildlife, he can do it much more easily by offering to fund the anti poaching forces in tanzania and kenya, as well as solving rural african poverty that means many in poorer outlying areas must hunt for bushmeat which goes for a high price in Nairobi. Perhaps a biology and a reality lesson is in order Mr. Packer?
So, the filthily wealthy has decided in his insecure ego (the contradiction in terms is on purpose) that he needs to leave some tangible legacy behind. And what, in his utter wisdom, has he chosen?
Yes, the preservation of wildlife. A noble cause in itself, noble indeed. But to introduce African wildlife into Australia? That is pathetic.
Let's start with the famous rabbits, foxes, cane toads etc which roam the Australian country side. It's not a pretty sight, with all the introduced animals, having perhaps few predators and therefore outbreeding the local fauna.
There may also be the small problem of germs brought into Australia by the animals. Ever been to Oz? Ever try to bring something even remotely animal-sourced material into the country? Even the soil under your shoes has to be cleaned, for fear of foreign infection due to the relative isolation of the continent.
And also, if they plan to put a big fence around the property, they also need to maintain the damn thing, which, due to the size of it, should mean a constant monitoring of the thing and watching for any escaping animals (which would bring us back to point 1).
In short, any "let's bring in species X into that continent" has, up to now, caused so many unforeseen side effects this should not be done without a proper scientific ground, and even with that, it should not be done lightly. And certainly not on the whim of an insecure rich man like Kerry Packer.
Don't forget the cane toads :(
.au to eat pests that were destroying crops. Instead of eating the pests, they multiplied and are now as big a problem as the rabbits.
For those of you that don't know, cane toads were introduced in
As an Aussie, I think we should string this cunt up by the nuts.0 9/ b65lec09.htm Australia Foxes
e st s/ Feral Pigs,
;P
Not for commercialising the last big game animals on earth but just for being such a wanker.
Cases of animal introduction gone wrong:
1).http://www.fdrproject.org/pages/TDprogress.htm Cane Toads
2).http://www.american.edu/ted/Rabbit.htm Rascally Rabbits
3).http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec
4).http://www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/p
Not unlike or own Kerry Packer.
The list goes on.
Not to say that the big fence wouldn't work http://sa.democrats.org.au/parlt/p2/981104_b.htm
PS: Use l337Z0R cut and paste methods on these links
All speling, factual, tact, and/or grametical errers be the result of netwerk interpherance or# transmition ererrs.
But! A game reserve for ENDANGERED species might be ok, because that would be things like rhinos and giraffes and primates. There's a reason that they're all endangered, and part of it is because humans can kick the ass of any natural population with ease (compared to rabbits, which breed like rabbits, and thus are not endangered).
So for these species it would be less risky. On the other hand, a reserve in Africa would be ideal, and it is possible to have a reserve without major problems from poachers if the location is right.
A guy called John Wamsley (google search) set up a reserve in Oz to protect Australian species from Cats, Dogs, Toads etc... that had been imported.
He got put in jail. Why? He killed all the Cats, Dogs and Toads on his land. This is against the law as its 'cruel'. The law has since softened - but technically it is still against the law to protect native species to the detriment of introduced ones.
He has been succesful in setting u a number of reserves though - everywhere he has killed Cats the native marsupials etc have thrived. Often coming back from just a few hundred specimens to many thousands.
He sells shares in his reserves to people, to fund purchasing of more land, and maintenence of the existing land. From memory he aims to have 10% of australia set aside as native only reserves within 10 years.
This project should happen in Africa - not Austalia. Its not as if African land is expensive. I'm sure old megabucks Bill Gates could buy the Congo and ship out everything that threatens the wildlife if he wanted to. Those gorillas are so cool!
having never heard of the rabbit case, but having seen many references to it in this story, i took a look at the Rabbit case. it is almost too amazing to believe, and not helping matters is the similarity to the old children's song, 'there was an old lady who swallows a fly'. if it wasn't so serious a problem, it would be insanely comical. it sounds like a joke:
basically, over a century ago wealthy englishmen brought rabbits to AUS so that they might hunt them. eventually the rabbit population boomed to well over 200 million, becoming more than a nuisance, rather an extremely ferocious natural disaster. they brought in a virus (myxo) to kill the rabbits, and it almost worked, but eventually the rabbits became resistant.
and this is where it gets almost too weird to believe.
they bring in ferrets to hunt the rabbits down. however, the ferrets are found to be carrying bovine tuberculoses. so they release a different strain of myxo to get rid of the ferrets.
so finally they are researching a new virus to kill the rabbits, but the virus escapes the labs and spreads through australia and new zealand. so they come up with a vaccine...
and the saga continues.
on a more USian note, how about introducing a few hundred wolves back into the ecosystem to at least nibble at the incredible deer population? what's a few small children, anyway?
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
They're a species of toad, introduced to Australia in the '30s as a failed attempt at pest control. They're named after sugarcane, which was the crop they were originally intended to protect.
-dair
This will never happen. Australia is the extremely strict in what it allows in the country, plants or animals. When I moved to Australia from the US my wife's cat had to be quarantined for over 4 months before they would allow our cat in the country. If there is any risk of hurting the ecosystem in Australia I doubt the government would allow such things as African beasts.