birding-aus
Martin,
You asked about other people's experience of exotic birds in wilderness
areas. I was going to spout about Blackbirds, but then they were in
blackberry patches in riverine environments and they presumably contribute
to the problem. So that is bush but hardly wilderness.
In fact it is not that often you see wilderness and it is hard to define it.
I'm sure you know that. So your question is not an easy one to answer. South
West Tasmania (Wilderness) World Heritage Area would probably be close, as
the spread of feral mammals at least is not so great there as everywhere
else.
This leads me to the idiotic car sticker that says "The only true wilderness
is between a greeny's ears". (The idiots even spell it "a greenies", which
is of course in itself a grammatical impossibility, as though one, or is it
plural, people can have something between their ears. What they presumably
intended, being the possessive sense of the two ears of one greeny or indeed
paired ears of many greenies). So not only in the grammatical sense is this
a tragedy but it is interesting that even the anti conservation yobbo lobby
acknowledge that there is very little "wilderness" left.
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin O'Brien <>
To: <>
Date: Friday, 19 February 1999 14:03
Subject: birding-aus Exotic birds in the wilderness
>birding-aus
>
>
>The incidence of introduced birds in native and other habitats reminds me
>that we observed House Sparrows in far south-west Tasmania during a stint
>there monitoring Orange-bellied Parrots.
>
>There is a dearth of hollows in this South West (Wilderness) World Heritage
>Area but Starlings were breeding in one of the nest boxes put up for the
>parrots. We also recorded Goldfinch briefly on a few days.
>
>Clearly, lack of weedy flora species is no impediment to the presence of
>exotic birds. What are others experience of exotic birds in wilderness
>areas?
>
>Martin O'Brien
>Executive Scientific Officer
>Scientific Advisory Committee
>Threatened Species Program
>Department of Natural Resources and Environment
>4/250 Victoria Pde.,
>East Melbourne, 3002
>Victoria, AUSTRALIA
>
>tel: +61 3 9412 4567
>fax: +61 3 9412 4586
>e-mail:
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
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