Critters: Facts & Figures
This post is just to share the fascinating facts that we heard when we went on our nocturnal walk, as promised. I figured that if it interested us, it might fascinate you too...
First of all, did you know that there were no fewer than 48 different species of kangaroos ??? Yep, and Janet & I hope to have seen 6 of them on this trip alone, in which case we'll send you different photos for you to see this for yourselves too. But only 4 are pretty large.
The biggest pest in Australia are cats and foxes that were introduced by settlers. They kill a lot of the native wildlife and things have got completely out of control. 30 million feral cats and 12 million foxes are currently out there, still trying to eat baby penguins and other critters... They had also introduced rabbits which was also a disaster as they were eating so much grass, but thankfully the goanas (like big lizards) found them really tasty and managed to save the day by eating them all ! To help the native wildlife recover they have, in many national parks, put baits of poison for foxes. They said that this has helped some endangered species recover - the native species will know to avoid the poison because they made it taste/smell like a native plant that they know would hurt them... whereas the introduced foxes do not have that knowledge and get fooled !
Koalas are adorable, as we know, but from the 16 original ones that were introduced on Kangaroo Island back in the 20's, they now have reached 27,000 ! This is a small ecological disaster as they each need to eat 1 kg of eucalyptus leaves per day and as you can imagine, 27,000 koalas means a lot of tree leaves ! In the long term the koalas could simply run out of food and starve to death as there are so few trees can feed off. There are 700 types of eucalyptus trees but the little critters are fussy eaters and only enjoy 18 of them. Phew. They will each 'own' a tree and when they have used the food reserve from their chosen tree, they will try to find another 'free' tree along the way. To do so, they will stand at the bottom of each tree and smell to see if another koala is already up there or not. Usually they will ignore all trees that already have an 'owner' but can sometimes go up and put up a fight if they feel it's a really good tree ! They sleep 19 hours, move around for 1 hour and eat for 4 hours (a bit like my Dad actually...).
The obvious solution (and the most effective one) would have been to cull half of them to give 50% a better chance of survival, but as our guide said, not one prime minister was willing to give the 'go ahead' with that due to public outrage. Their 'cuteness' had saved them from slaughter. On the other hand, it had not delayed the forthcoming disaster... the next solution was to give the pill to as many female koalas as possible... This only seems to work 50% of the time though. The females that have been sterilised have been tagged and yet some of those females have been seen with joeys on their back ! (and they would not become foster mothers, so the pills are definitely not always working). We got the chance to hear the male calling (singing love songs?) and the female responding (turning him down) and it was creepy. Both sounds were horrid but the female in particular sounded like a woman being strangled and screaming in agony. It just gave us gooseflesh.
The 3rd solution was to reallocate some of the kaolas back to the mainland but it would put additional stress on the current populations there... so nothing is as easy as it sounds. Culling is still the best option, officially, but no one is willing to pursue this.
Possums are also fairly cute and also keep joeys on their back, they have 4 different kinds.
They also have 2,000 species of bees... but none could produce enough honey for human consumption so the honey bee was actually introduced. But I never knew that there could be SO many types of bees !!!
We also observed an ant nest and our guide took a few on his hand and as they got distressed they didn't sting but sprayed him with formic acid. It really smelt it too. What was incredible with those is that depending on the temperature for the day they will gather black or white peddles (well, pieces of) and take them over their 'nest'. The black will absorb the light on cooler days, the white will the bounce off the light on warmer days. They also would pick a larger stone that had absorbed heat in the afternoon and take it down into the nest to act as a 'hot water bottle' for the night, and then take it back up in the morning. Who said ants had no brain?
At night we saw many juvenile wallabies all over the fields, they tend to stick together. Possums too. They seem to have learnt new behaviour. On the mainland you will never see them on the ground as they know they could be eaten by foxes, but on Kangaroo Island it was quite frequent as they eventually worked out it was safe here.
We were advised against taking photos of them as they are exclusively nocturnal animals and using a camera flash would hurt their eyes and eventually give them cataracts.
That's about it... I've only got 5mns left anyway so can't be much longer. We really loved Kangaroo Island. The wallabies at the Wilderness Lodge were the stars. They just loved being fed by guests and needless to say I was happy to indulge and eager to please. I was surrounded by up to 8 of them one evening.. and some were really bullies. There was a dominant wallaby that made a point to cling onto my hand and would stuff his face (I could see his cheeks wobble from left to right) and slap off anyone who wanted to eat out of my hand too. He had his little claws firmly dug into my skin, one on top, one underneath so I was unable to move till he was willing to give it back to me ! It was SO sweet... even though it was a touch painful ! :)
Righteeo... bedtime here, more as soon as time allows !
This post is just to share the fascinating facts that we heard when we went on our nocturnal walk, as promised. I figured that if it interested us, it might fascinate you too...
First of all, did you know that there were no fewer than 48 different species of kangaroos ??? Yep, and Janet & I hope to have seen 6 of them on this trip alone, in which case we'll send you different photos for you to see this for yourselves too. But only 4 are pretty large.
The biggest pest in Australia are cats and foxes that were introduced by settlers. They kill a lot of the native wildlife and things have got completely out of control. 30 million feral cats and 12 million foxes are currently out there, still trying to eat baby penguins and other critters... They had also introduced rabbits which was also a disaster as they were eating so much grass, but thankfully the goanas (like big lizards) found them really tasty and managed to save the day by eating them all ! To help the native wildlife recover they have, in many national parks, put baits of poison for foxes. They said that this has helped some endangered species recover - the native species will know to avoid the poison because they made it taste/smell like a native plant that they know would hurt them... whereas the introduced foxes do not have that knowledge and get fooled !
Koalas are adorable, as we know, but from the 16 original ones that were introduced on Kangaroo Island back in the 20's, they now have reached 27,000 ! This is a small ecological disaster as they each need to eat 1 kg of eucalyptus leaves per day and as you can imagine, 27,000 koalas means a lot of tree leaves ! In the long term the koalas could simply run out of food and starve to death as there are so few trees can feed off. There are 700 types of eucalyptus trees but the little critters are fussy eaters and only enjoy 18 of them. Phew. They will each 'own' a tree and when they have used the food reserve from their chosen tree, they will try to find another 'free' tree along the way. To do so, they will stand at the bottom of each tree and smell to see if another koala is already up there or not. Usually they will ignore all trees that already have an 'owner' but can sometimes go up and put up a fight if they feel it's a really good tree ! They sleep 19 hours, move around for 1 hour and eat for 4 hours (a bit like my Dad actually...).
The obvious solution (and the most effective one) would have been to cull half of them to give 50% a better chance of survival, but as our guide said, not one prime minister was willing to give the 'go ahead' with that due to public outrage. Their 'cuteness' had saved them from slaughter. On the other hand, it had not delayed the forthcoming disaster... the next solution was to give the pill to as many female koalas as possible... This only seems to work 50% of the time though. The females that have been sterilised have been tagged and yet some of those females have been seen with joeys on their back ! (and they would not become foster mothers, so the pills are definitely not always working). We got the chance to hear the male calling (singing love songs?) and the female responding (turning him down) and it was creepy. Both sounds were horrid but the female in particular sounded like a woman being strangled and screaming in agony. It just gave us gooseflesh.
The 3rd solution was to reallocate some of the kaolas back to the mainland but it would put additional stress on the current populations there... so nothing is as easy as it sounds. Culling is still the best option, officially, but no one is willing to pursue this.
Possums are also fairly cute and also keep joeys on their back, they have 4 different kinds.
They also have 2,000 species of bees... but none could produce enough honey for human consumption so the honey bee was actually introduced. But I never knew that there could be SO many types of bees !!!
We also observed an ant nest and our guide took a few on his hand and as they got distressed they didn't sting but sprayed him with formic acid. It really smelt it too. What was incredible with those is that depending on the temperature for the day they will gather black or white peddles (well, pieces of) and take them over their 'nest'. The black will absorb the light on cooler days, the white will the bounce off the light on warmer days. They also would pick a larger stone that had absorbed heat in the afternoon and take it down into the nest to act as a 'hot water bottle' for the night, and then take it back up in the morning. Who said ants had no brain?
At night we saw many juvenile wallabies all over the fields, they tend to stick together. Possums too. They seem to have learnt new behaviour. On the mainland you will never see them on the ground as they know they could be eaten by foxes, but on Kangaroo Island it was quite frequent as they eventually worked out it was safe here.
We were advised against taking photos of them as they are exclusively nocturnal animals and using a camera flash would hurt their eyes and eventually give them cataracts.
That's about it... I've only got 5mns left anyway so can't be much longer. We really loved Kangaroo Island. The wallabies at the Wilderness Lodge were the stars. They just loved being fed by guests and needless to say I was happy to indulge and eager to please. I was surrounded by up to 8 of them one evening.. and some were really bullies. There was a dominant wallaby that made a point to cling onto my hand and would stuff his face (I could see his cheeks wobble from left to right) and slap off anyone who wanted to eat out of my hand too. He had his little claws firmly dug into my skin, one on top, one underneath so I was unable to move till he was willing to give it back to me ! It was SO sweet... even though it was a touch painful ! :)
Righteeo... bedtime here, more as soon as time allows !
posted by Sylvie at 12:37 PM
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