Australia's roads are "killing corridors" for biodiversity
Mobility design for extinction records
"Appin Road is known as Australia's 'killing corridor' because of the large number of endangered koalas killed on the stretch. Increased traffic on south-west Sydney's Appin Road has resulted in 32 of the endangered marsupials being killed on the notorious stretch since July 2022 – roughly half of all deaths in the district over the same period. Wildlife advocates have long referred to it as Australia's "killing corridor".
>> https://au.news.yahoo.com/developer-responds-as-aussie-road-upgrade-near-killing-corridor-labelled-pretty-horrific-030233495.html
First the thylacine, then the koala, then the kookaburra...
"The tree hollows kookaburras need to breed can take a hundred years to develop. Every forest patch felled means hollows are lost. Over the past 200 years, nearly 50% of our forest cover has been felled. Urban development all along Australia’s east coast has continued."
The “guuguubarra” laughed for 16.3 million years. "That once-ubiquitous call will be heard no more."
New Australian environment laws would not stop widespread deforestation, organisations say
"Three groups familiar with draft conservation laws say they do not go far enough and may allow political influence on development decisions."
"Plibersek said about 90% of Australian timber came from plantations but the government was “not talking about banning native forest logging altogether...We’re talking about making sure that we are careful and thoughtful about the timber industry that we have in Australia."
For the first time in over 20 years, the #BlackRedhorse has been spotted in Fish Creek, a tributary in a river system that hosts one of the healthiest populations of the #ThreatenedSpecies in #Canada.
The Upper Thames River #Conservation Authority announced the sighting of the #fish — which is listed as a threatened nationwide — earlier this week
"Hundreds of hectares of habitat that is home to endangered and vulnerable native animals could be cleared if a new Bowen Basin mine is granted final approval by the federal environment minister. The coalmine mine would be an ‘absolute disaster’ for animals including koalas, greater gliders and glossy black cockatoos."
"Environmentalists are urging the federal government to block the development of a central Queensland coalmine that would allow hundreds of hectares of endangered koala habitat to be cleared."
Protecting threatened species habitat from the threat of commercial gillnetting in the Gulf is paramount to improving the #survival and recovery of their #populations.
Despite $246.9 million in taxpayer money, Forestry Corporation still lost $28 million
"The Nature Conservation Council of NSW has today released a new report from Frontier Economics which reveals for the first time that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been gifted to the taxpayer owned logging business Forestry Corporation NSW over the past five years."
"The NSW Government needs to come to terms with the fact that native forest logging is a dying industry and make a plan for a transition. How much more taxpayer money has to be wasted and endangered animals killed before this reality sinks in?" Statements attributable to NCC Chief Executive Officer Jacqui Mumford
>> https://www.miragenews.com/forestry-corp-loses-28m-despite-246-9m-taxpayer-1120847/
I am incredibly frustrated by the inability of any elected officials to keep their damn promises. The border wall is an ecological disaster.
"The administration says it will take “immediate action to construct barriers and roads” along the border, including through fragile habitat near the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge."
"A Supreme Court justice has ordered VicForests to temporarily halt the harvesting of fallen trees at a site in Victoria's west, after a community group alleged it had not surveyed for threatened species."
"Wombat Forestcare began court proceedings last week seeking an injunction for the site in Wombat State Forest, alleging VicForests had not checked the area for species of owls, quolls and reptiles."
"Feral cats kill over 1.5 billion native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs, and 1.1 billion invertebrates each year in Australia. Predation by cats is a threat to over 200 nationally listed threatened species and they have been implicated in 28 mammal extinctions. They are a major cause of decline for many land-based endangered animals such as the bilby, bandicoot, bettong and numbat. They can also carry infectious diseases which can be transmitted to native animals, domestic livestock and humans."
On the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, looking back to look forward.
August 21, 2023 - by Terry Tempest Williams
As a child, I watched the men I loved in my family lift their high-powered rifles and shoot one #PrairieDog after another and another for fun, and then walk away. They called them “pop-guts.” On the way back to our camp, I stepped over their small blood-soaked,
but has chosen to put his gifts to use with the intention of inspiring us to care more deeply and act more consciously on behalf of these vulnerable creatures.
Perhaps as you come to know their stories, and others like them, you will be moved to seek out an #endangered or #ThreatenedSpecies that lives close to you, learn their natural history and give them not only your attention, but your devotion.