I refer to John Laytons Letter to the Chronicle.
.
I assume the article is tongue in cheek implying that grasslands will
never be appreciated as much as rainforest, because eg animals are
buried, unobservable, and animals and plants are just too small.
I would argue that most people's perception of rainforests is a romantic
view, far from reality. I am by no means an expert on rainforests but I
have spent probably almost 1 year doing surveys and walks in rainforests
in Africa, South America and S coast NSW.
.
I love rainforests but I think they can be very harsh for humans.
a) In Africa we were doing surveys for Colobus monkeys near Mombasa, and
I was also studying their behaviour. Doing transects through rainforest
left my arms, legs and head cut up every day, I had cuts all over me
from razor sharp thorns and often got tangled in Lianas. At Shimba Hills
it was also quite dangerous and one time we accidentally ended up in the
middle of a herd of forest elephants. We usually saw only 1 to 3 troops
of monkeys each day and only for a split second, or heard them 'crash'
away. For 7 months I rarely saw any birds in the rainforest and only
twice saw a turaco. It was also hard keeping track of 'tame-ish' monkeys
during behaviour studies. At shimba hills we often got rained on (being
a rainforest) and one day even though it was 23 degrees, after 4 hours I
was nearing hypothermia and everyone commented on how Purple I was. That
day we also walked back to camp to find leopard tracks around our tent.
.
b) In South America we searched through the amazon in 3 countries (Peru,
Bolivia and Brazil) to try and find Emperor Tamarin monkeys. We spent
~$3000 trying to find them and didn't see one. It was extremely rare to
see macaws (scarlet, blue and golds, and greenwinged, and also amazon
parrots) 'in' the rainforest, even though they were easily seen flying
overhead or when boating down rivers. In one remote Park in Bolivia I
got lost, and disoriented in the forest, and was panicking as we were
the only group of people within 100km. One night in Manu NP in Peru we
were looking for nocturnal owl monkeys when I accidentally got jabbed by
one of the spiky trees. For the next 3 hours I was hallucinating and
throwing up. They were really worried and considering helicoptering me
out, which would have cost thousands. But I was OK.
.
c) When helping on the South Coast of NSW on a palm project (Bangalow
and fan palms I think) we were often covered in leeches (not my
favourite animal), and at one stage I had 50 ticks on my body.
I love rainforest, but walking along a boardwalk in Cairns does not give
people a true 'appeciation' of the rainforest. They have a romantic
view.
So why cant people develop the same romantic view about grasslands?
There are disadvantages with grasslands in that they are at their best
seasonally, animals are hard to see, you get burrs and seeds in your
socks, and sunburnt. But grasslands are better than rainforests in that
they have spectacular flower displays of hundreds of species (in some
cases) in spring, there are animals to see such as sun moths, perunga
grasshoppers, and in the past would have been bustards, brolgas and
emus. It is still easier to see birds in grassland and grassy woodland,
than in rainforest. Although burrs may be annoying rainforest plants and
animals are much more damaging to people..
I normally enjoy John's witty comments, but the timing is not great this
time, because any skeric of legitimacy given to the current 'non culling
kangaroo' campaign by animal 'rights' groups is too much. His letter
implies that people will never want to see grasslands for their own
sake, and therefore gives more credibility (perhaps unintentionally) to
grasslands being managed just for kangaroos.
Benj Whitworth
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