I was rather excited to read this morning that a woodpecker considered extinct since 1944 has been rediscovered. The story is at ABC Online.
According to Cornell University ornithologist Tim Gallagher, “Its like a funeral shroud has been pulled back, giving us a glimpse of a living bird, rising Lazarus-like from the grave.”
I just thought, “How Wonderful!”
It reminded me of rediscoveries in Australia: Mahogany glider, North Queensland, 1988; Leadbeaters possum, Central Highlands, Victoria, 1966.
Does anyone know of others?
Also what about recent extinctions? Does anyone know of any?
According to the 2002 ABS Measuring Australia’s Progress Report there don’t appear to have been any official extinctions in Australia during the last two decades.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What?! No official extinctions in Australia in the last two decades! Hurrah for us!
I’m in such an orgy of self-congratulation, I might just go and cut a tree down. Clearly there’s more than enough to go round. Didn’t someone say that the fewer trees there are, the greater bio-diversity there is? If they didn’t, they should have.
Ain’t got no species previously thought extinct, but I recently discovered the ‘unconvincingly compassionate environmental blogger’. Hideous beast, truth be known. Also goes under the name of ‘John Quiggin’. Or was that ‘Jennifer Marohasy’? Can’t quite recall…
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for you post, and to say it made me feel really, truly, genuinely joyful to see that you were delighted by the fact we’re rolling back the tide of extinction. I don’t actually give a shit about the woodpecker.
Onward Australia! Hurrah for us! Onward US! Hurrah for them! Hurrah for woodpeckers!
Certainly too many trees are reducing biodiversity in some situations. Take for example the Golden Shouldered Parrot of Cape York which is losing its open grassy nesting areas to Melaleucas.
In the mid 1990’s a Daintree freeholder cleared about half an acre of tropical rainforest on his 145-acre portion … to make an important point.
The Daintree Planning Coordination Group (DPCG) had $23million at its disposal to purchase privately-owned land purportedly for voluntary conversion to NP.
The aforementioned landholder’s property, on the eastern flank of Thorton Peak, was prioritised for its size and location, where the values of rarity, endemicity, primitiveness and biodiversity were at their richest.
$200,000 he was offered, but the landholder argued that the cabinetwood timber extraction alone was worth $800,000 and at the time was an existing use right.
Not to the Government, he was told, as it intended not to log the land. So the landholder challenged; if government intends not to place any value on my cabinetwood, it won’t mind if I remove it.
After half an acre was cleared, the QPWS placed a Ministerial Interim Conservation Order on the land and ultimately took the lanholder to court.
Almost immediately, scientific condemnation accused the landholder of causing the extinction of a species of rainforest plant.
The reaction in the broader public arena was brutally unsympathetic, but how many members of the public and particularly those that accepted the condemnation without hesitation, considered just how thoroughly the 90,000 hecaters of World Heritage rainforest contiguous with the landholder’s property was scrutinised, to know, without question, that the last of a species had been permitted to be felled.
Incidentally, the court found in favour of the landholder.
Hurrah for the Golden Shouldered Parrot of Cape York!
Records of the first and ensuing settlements in Australia indicate that there was more of an ‘open forest’ environment. heavy bush was not normal.
The aboriginal ‘fire stick’ would have been the source of much of the under clearing. Now that back burning is such a contentious issue, and not done as much if at all, what role does ‘conservation’ play in reducing species habitat?
Hurrah for ‘open forest’ environments!
Rog,
In years to come I believe the management/lack of clever managaement of our grassland and open woodlands in much of western Queensalnd and NSW and the ‘conservationists’ efforts to limit the same will be rightly critized on the basis we have lost important ‘species habitat’ by not controlling woody weed regrowth or adequately managing the resulting cypress and acacia forests.
Dear Jennifer,
Thanks for your “extinction” article, I have a comment or two.
I too was amazed at the Ivory Billed Woodpecker story, not simply that a lost species can be rediscovered but that the bird has a 30 inch wingspan and is such a “flashy dresser”.
I recall two instances in the 1990’s where marsupials thought to be extinct were “rediscovered”.
One near Alice Springs when a road repair crew spotted an unusual mouse like critter and caught one in a bottle.
The second case was near Albany where Gilberts Potoroo was found in 1994. http://www.potoroo.org/
I have had a few heretical ideas on the way the Green / media reports on the extinction issue and have started a webpage at;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/species/
with a graphic showing that bird extinctions peaked 100 years ago.
Talk to you later,
Warwick Hughes
One of the rarest trees in the world, the Wollemi Pine was found in Australia by a national parks officer, David Noble, in 1994.
The discovery astonished botanists worldwide who had thought the tree died out millions of years ago.
“How marvellous and exciting that we should have discovered this rare survivor from such an ancient past,” Sir David said as the tree went on public display at Kew Gardens.
“It is romantic, I think, that something has survived 200 million years unchanged,” he said.
Tony Kirkham, head of the arboretum at Kew, was one of the people allowed to see the tree in its natural habitat in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
More info at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1364665.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1410111.htm 8th July
A Griffith University student found the threatened green thigh frog in bushland at Southport after torrential rains dumped up to 600 millimetres of rain on the city last week.
Environmental science lecturer Dr Jean Marc Hero says it is the first sighting of the species that is found only after extremely heavy rain.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1439624.htm
August 17, 2005
Quolls rediscovered on Magnetic Island
Wildlife authorities are intrigued by the discovery of the endangered northern quoll on Magnetic Island off Townsville in north Queensland.
The carnivorous marsupial was found and released on the island recently.
The animals live in national parks south of Townsville, but were thought to be extinct on Magnetic Island.
The group’s Scott Sullivan says the northern quoll could have made it to the island by accident.
“Quolls have the potential to stow away and travel with people, either in their vehicles, in equipment,” he said.
“A number of years ago the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service was alerted to a quoll that had actually travelled from Pine Creek in the Northern Territory all the way to Townsville and it had made that journey inside a shipping container.”
4a78f9bdbd67 I will come to read your blog again