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There was an article in favour of selectively
culling NM & Bellbirds yesterday on the ABC National's Bush
Telegraph .
I got from the article
1. The habitat humans have made favours NM. Their
success is threatening the existence of other bird species.
2. Some flora are threatened as the smaller
birds are not there to eat a high number of insects
3. Planting large blocks of trees rather than
strips would help keep the diversity of birds
4. The planting of spiky bushes, on rural and town
blocks, helps the smaller birds to defend themselves.
5. Selective culling could be
considered
Julienne
Noisy Miners a threat to other species
By Belinda Tromp
Thursday, 15/11/2007
Now to the story of a native bird that has become such a
pest, zoologists want drastic action to stop them from taking over the
bush.
Noisy miners - so-called because of their loud screeching -
are bullying other birds and animals out of bushland, and in some cases, driving
them closer to extinction.
Dr Mike Clarke is a zoologist with La Trobe University in
Melbourne, and has been keeping a close watch on the invasion of noisy miners
for more than a decade.
He says miners love small areas of bushland where they can
mark out their territory by attacking other birds and animals, and it is this
type of bushland that we have handed to them on a platter with the clearing vast
tracks of land since European settlement.
Miners have an unusual ability to work together in large
family groups which use a large network of closely related males to attack other
birds. Even kookaburras are intimidated by noisy miners.
The answer is for policy makers to ensure we don't just
plant small areas of bushland that favour noisy miners.
In this report: Dr Mike Clarke, Assoc. Professor &
Reader, Department of Zoology, La Trobe University,
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