Greg, spot on!
Denise
Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
PO Box 71
Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841
PhD candidate
Founding Member: Ecotourism Australia
Founding Member: Australian Federation of Graduate Women Northern Territory
043 8650 835
On 6 Jul 2014, at 9:54 am, Greg and Val Clancy <> wrote:
> During the late 1970s or early 1980s a officer form the Conservation
> Department (not sure of name), based in Wellington New Zealand, visited
> Australia and I met him in Grafton. He was here to warn us Aussies of the
> impending threat posed by the introduced Mallard based on the New Zealand
> experience, which has been disastrous. I was very concerned as I had
> observed hybrids in Sydney and had observed Mallards associating with Black
> Ducks in the Grafton area. I have a from a desk calendar on my office
> which reads "The best way to solve problems is not to create them" so I
> thought that it would be best to nip the Mallards in the bud. I wrote to the
> National Parks & Wildlife Service alerting them to the issue. The response
> from a senior researcher who had carried out research on waterfowl for many
> years was that as the gene pool of the Pacific Black Duck in Australia was
> very large the chances of significant disruption from a small number of
> Mallard genes was very unlikely. So in her opinion there was no problem. I
> disagreed with her but without any co-ordinated effort at that time Mallard
> hybrids have increased. It seems to be a human foible that we don't want to
> do anything about a problem until it is so large that we can't effectively
> do anything anyway and then then we throw millions of dollars at the problem
> with little or no effect.
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Greg
>
> Dr Greg. P. Clancy
> Ecologist and Birding-wildlife Guide
> | PO Box 63 Coutts Crossing NSW 2460
> | 02 6649 3153 | 0429 601 960
> http://www.gregclancyecologistguide.com
> http://gregswildliferamblings.blogspot.com.au/
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Graeme Stevens
> Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 3:21 PM
> To: Kev Lobotomi ; Peter Menkhorst ; Mike Carter ; 'Nikolas Haass' ; 'Jim
> Tate' ; 'Russell Woodford' ;
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Pacific Black Duck - Mallard hybrids
>
> Just a small addition to this discussion - particularly the record Nikolas
> contributed:
>
> I have undertaken close to 50 Atlas surveys at Warriewood (Sydney Northern
> Beaches NSW) in recent years and while pure Mallards are occasionally on the
> Warriewood Wetlands reserve and the settlement ponds, they seem to be much
> more common and resident along Mullet Creek between the Wetlands and
> Narrabeen Lagoon. These appear to be pure Mallards, generally paired.
> There are of course plenty of Pacific Blacks on both the Wetlands and the
> Creek so the opportunities for an enthusiastic Mallard Drake are plentiful!
> I have certainly recorded what I considered to be good hybrids. Mind you
> there are other mixed feral hybrids occasionally which could confuse the
> issue (Muscovy, Chinese Whites, Khaki Campbell etc). They could certainly do
> with a clean out.
>
> Best to all
> Graeme Stevens
>
>> From:
>> To: ; ; ;
>> ; ;
>> Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2014 00:10:45 +1000
>> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Pacific Black Duck - Mallard hybrids
>>
>> Hi all!
>> Although Mallards fortunately aren't that common in Australia, we can't be
>> too complacent about there presence. One thing I have noticed is that many
>> Mallards that I see on ornamental ponds are males (so definitely not a
>> population!), but since they are males they tend to get randy & if they
>> have nothing but black ducks to chase I am sure they would go after them.
>> So the chance of hybrids is quite high! All efforts should be made to
>> remove these birds, so they don't pollute the native ducks with their
>> genes!-Kevin Bartram
>
>
>
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