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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."
I'm sure it won't work as intented. We all know what happened with rabbits, right?
;-)
And besides, we all have seen "Jurassic Park", didn't we?
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always wondered what it'd be like with kangaroos roaming the plains with lions
Have you? Really? Or are you Lion?
Short. And messy ;-)
cmclean
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I wonder what the effect on the Australian wildlife will be... It might sound great now, saving all kinds of African animals by housing them in Australia, but we might just be introducing new animal deceases in an equally precious eco-system... I don't think this is the way to go...
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I think I speak for all Australians when I say:
"Kerry, you are a fucking idiot!"
Everything he touches turns to shit, whether it's TV networks, airlines, or now the whole fucking ecosystem.
From the article:
Wait a minute, the source code for a hippo is available? How come I've never seen this here?
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
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.
Consolidated already has secured a land swap deal with the WA Government to free up property north of Kununurra for the reserve.
What do you reckon is on this land then..? I think the hippos are just something to hide behind.. the lions are to keep people from snooping. He's building a secret shuttle launching facility? Nuclear weapons experiments? There are opals there? Perhaps it *is* Jurrasic Park?
The premise is noble, but in reality the idea is faulty.
Southern Africa has already implemented plans to create the world's biggest game reserve that spans three countries - Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe - and which will ultimately be 38,600 square kilometres in size. Within this game reserve, animals will be free to roam, the way they were able to in deepest, darkest Africa of the past before colonisation/civilisation. Due to the success of game parks, the wildlife population is springing back despite problems such as poaching and overcrowding. So while there is always a problem associated with "threat of eventual extinction of species", Africa is already doing the best it can to preserve its species. Australia should take care of its own problems first.
Visitors to game parks in southern Africa are very lucky if they get to spot "the Big Five" in the same day - that is, lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard; and when they do, it is at a very respectful distance, and always with an armed game ranger. These are not the tame and cuddly animals you see in zoos or sanitised environments like Disney's animal park.
What I'm saying here is that African wildlife is dangerous. Beautiful to look at, but dangerous. Forget Rudyard Kipling's stories about the lion being the king of the jungle (Africa isn't even a jungle, it's more of an arid savannah!) - here, each animal knows its place in the hierarchy.
Ignoring for the moment that there has to be a reason (whatever it may be) why kangaroos are not found in Africa, and the Big Five are not found in Australia, I'm very much afraid that in a pissing match between the two continents, the Australian wildlife will lose.
Kerry Packer's billions would be better spent at creating more game reserves in Africa, but bearing in mind the cliche "charity begins at home"....
There are 6 billion people on the planet so 5000 odd Americans not reaching the expected life expectancies is really a non-event.
The 4 most important things on this planet are:-
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity
Really humity doesn't rate - we are dependent on all of them, they are not dependent on us.
In actually fact we have become a cancer to our host -in a biological very short time we've gone from being in Balance with the enviroment, say up to half a million years ago, to the point where we are breeding out of control & poisoning our host with our bi-products - we are no longer a balance part of our hosts eco-system, just like cancers are to the body - its gotten to the point there's an extra billion of us every decade (the last billion took 12 years, the next billion will take 8 years).
The fact is that we are causing extinctions a 1000 times faster than these species could evolve naturally to adapt to us (evolution is a very slow process)
You know there's only less than 20 Sumatran Tigers left, which means if I had the choice of saving one Sumatran Tiger & saving all the Americans on the planet, I pick the Tiger without hesitation, because 250M/6B is 1/24, so really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans (1/20 is bigger than 1/24)
I wonder if the rapid domination of the planet by humans started with a mutation, just like the way cancers start? & you know how cancers end? With the destruction of their own host, unless they are halted in time.
Maybe Kerry Packer has enough money now that he doesn't need to think. Maybe he focussed on economics in school rather than taking biology. I don't know. Mr Packer seems pretty clued up when it comes to money but whats he doing now?!?
There's a food chain and an ecosystem. Mr Packer wants to isolate an ecosystem with some sort of fence. The food chain goes down to tiny organisms which can easily pass through his fence. Either the food chain will have significant gaps which cause this idea not to work, or there will be some mixing between ecosystems.
If the ecosystems mix, then he risks unbalancing nature's balance within the Australian ecosystem. If he leaves gaps in the food chain, then it's possible that Australian organisms may fill them but then how does Mr Packer expect to contain birds with his fence?!? What about plant life? It's part of the ecosystem too... birds can spread plant seeds and plants can probably spread through Mr Packer's fence.
I don't take biology as a subject but there are problems preventing this from being feasible that are incredibly obvious. Has Mr Packer thought about this idea at all? It seems as if he had the dream last night and started working on the press release just after he woke up.
I support this wholeheartedly. Yes, the introduction of other species in the past has decimated Australia's natural wildlife, but what this guy is talking about seems to be very different.
There is a huge difference between inadvertently introducing small species such as rats and rabbits across the country (well, starting at coastal shipping ports), and introducing large mammals into a controlled region. Large mammals such as elephants and hippos are much easier to track, and more importantly will typically have offspring every few years (about every two years for hippos and rhinos, four years or more for elephants, and two years for lions, though the latter usually have a few cubs per litter), while rabbits breed like well, rabbits.
Personally I think he'll have a very hard time of doing this succesfully; it's not easy to create an African savannah ecosystem from an Australian outback, and megafauna are notoriously slow at increasing population (thats one of the reasons we need reserves in the first place).
The results do vary, but here is the result of a recent clash...
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.
I'd say, fix the problem instead. And what is the problem? The problem is the africa's wildlife is being killed off. Fix that instead of screwing up Australia.
.au yet, but he is one of the few who really do care about animals and knows his shit. It's people like him we need to make decisions.
I would love to hear what Steve "the Crocodile Hunter" would say about this. Sure the guy is the goofiest person I've seen from
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!
Some of these species are very close to extinction; isn't it worth it just to create another breeding population to be on the safe side? Besides, while I'm all for helping African countries develop, what's best for people in Africa (more land brought under cultivation, better infrastructure) could be very different than what people need. You also have to take into consideration cultural factors; you have had a rise, for example, of native middle and upper classes in a couple of countries. All well and good, but this has created a profitable market for "bush meat". So the gorilla and chimpanzee populations have seen a substantial hit because these middle and upper classes feel that chicken is a remnant of imperialism.
The lives of 5% of the total of a rare species are obviousl more important than the lives of 4% of the total of a plague species.
Wouldn't this just be a dream come true for the big white safari hunters (and watchers) of the world; exciting African wildlife without the pesky african people to spoil the scenery.
As pointed out by many already, the conservation aspect of this plan is trite. Look at the actual percentage of conservation land in Africa (especially S. Africa, Zambia Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and increasingly Mozambique) - its far higher than any western country. All of these places have viable stocks of elephant, rhino etc. The dangers of poaching are usually specific to an area (ie Reduced elephant population in Tsavo in Kenya). Having elephants in Australia is hardly going to solve this.
There are vastly more important conservation projects going on in Africa that make this look ridiculous - particularly the peace parks mentioned in another post.
If he wants to do something stupid like this - fine; but not by claiming some kind of moral imperative about saving African wildlife from the predatorial, poaching africans.
Matthew
P.S.Apologies for the invective; my currency (the South African rand has just fallen even further into the mire based, as far as I can see, on similar self-fulfilling racist (or more likely, cynical) fantasies of those that control the money markets.
...weaned, as it were, on the webs of ritual... (Mervyn Peake)
Soon to be seen on Animal Planet:
... CRYKIE TERRI, THAT LION JUST BIT ME DAMN LEG OFF ..."
"...and here we are in my native Australia, home to the koala, the kangaroo, and
The thing is that humans have already introduced many species of animals to Australia, volountarily or involountarialy. And some of these introductions have had disastrous ecological effects (still, since this is biology, scientists disagree whenever they can), for instance the introductions of rabbits, cats and foxes. Add to this various invertebrates and plants affecting local species.
Actually, there is an ecological theory called "the tens rule", stating that approximately 1 out of ten imported species escapes and becomes introduced to the local flora and fauna. In the next step 1 out of 10 introduced species manages to maintain self-sustaining populations. And in the final step, 1 out of 10 established species becomes a pest.
So, if statistics are true even down under, there is a slight risk that the Australians will end up with pest elephants roaming the countryside and eating peoples grapes (they produce much but wine there, do they?).
Furthermore, even though insects are not the most important savannal grazers, they are still numerous enough to be of ecological significance. So they'll probably have to import them as well.
Ehh, not to mention the savanna itself of course.
:o)
Probably better protection for the animals. >There probably won't be any hunters try to hunt >them down. If I am an animal, I would rather >living down under than in Africa, no offense of >anything
only mild offence taken.
I couldn't work out exactly what the proposed size of this would be, but even at say 100 000 hectares, this would still be tiny compared to the completely safe environment of SA's Kruger park (+- 2million hectares) a superbly managed wildlife park that has a surfeit of elephants every year. Not to mention Botaswna's Okavango, Moremi and Chobe, Namibia's Etosha, Zambia's South Luangwa, and even Zimbabwes Hwange is not seriously at risk despite the political situation there.
Similar places exist in other countries. A crude assesment that Africa's wildlife is at risk in untenable. Specific habitats, and particular fragile ecosystems are at risk, but a wildlife park in Austalia is hardly going to save a Rwandan rainforest is it - no matter how many elephants are in the outback.
It would NOT be better for such animals to be in Australia. It would be worse for african wildlife in general if people visited this la-la land because they have irrational attitudes about to going to see the real thing.
Matthew
...weaned, as it were, on the webs of ritual... (Mervyn Peake)
unfortunately hunting won't work, at least where i am. the deer are in a heavily populated area, and so hunting would not be so good, there are apartment complexes all around the deer areas. the only solution would be wolves or some other natural predator, of course then instead of hitting deer on the way home from work, i'd be hitting wolves, or the joggers they are chasing into the road.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
And what are they going to do when mammalian parasites from the African animals start infecting the Australian wildlife? The Aussie critters will have no defenses to tsetse flies and the like. And there's no way they're going to get enough animals to Australia to make a stable population, but make sure they're all free from parasites, too. It's just going to make another big mess...
This type of thing is still going on. There is a plausible theory that BSE did not suddenly jump from sheep to cow but was introduced by a particular wilderbeast at a safari park that died with BSE type symptoms and whose body was sold for rendering. Wilderbeast in their natural habbitat are subject to a prion type disease similar to BSE.
The theory is still controvertial, the MAAF are ridiculing it. Unfortunately they have little credibility after it was discovered that three years of research into 'sheep brain' turned out to have been examining cow. The MAAF theory was used to reassure the public that BSE was the bovine form of scrapie, a disease of sheep that people have been eating for centuries without contracting CJD, the human form. However people have been contracting CJD so the 'scrapie' theory requires the emergence of a new form of scrapie prion while the wilderbeast theory does not.
Whether or not the 'wilderbeast' theory is true the risk of introducing exotic diseases is significant.
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Some things you might not know about deer hunting:
"Sport hunting" is a legal term, which includes all legal hunting other than "market hunting" (i.e. hunting to sell the carcas or its parts). While it does include those hunters who hunt "for the fun of it" or for the trophy, most hunters are hunting to put a seasonal meat on the table. Most "trophy hunters" use the meat also - or donate it to some feed-the-hungry program. (Hunters consider anyone who "wastes the meat" of a non-vermin animal to be scum.)
(Unfortunately, many "food banks" won't accept hunted meat - out of political correctness rather than any practical reason. The sickos would rather let the meat rot and the poor starve than do anything that might be mistaken for "encouraging hunting".)
Being shot by a firearm is about the easiest death available for a deer. A good life, a sudden pain, typically dead of blood loss before the shock wears off. Indians switched from bows to firearms because they considered them less cruel - dying from an arrow generally takes longer. But both are much more humane than the "natural" way of death for a deer: Being eaten alive over hours by peredators, painful starvation over several months, disease over weeks, infection from wounds incurred in deer-deer battles or escape from peredators.
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