Hi Coglisters
Some time in the past year we had an excellent talk from a person who
had done their masters on Noisy Miners. Unfortunately, I have forgotten
his name but others will recall it, I hope. From memory: Noisy Miner
groups are sedentary and they collectively defend their territories.
Optimal territory is mature eucalypts without understorey set in grassy
paddocks. A key inhibitor for Noisy Miners was undergrowth of certain
sorts and percentage cover. Bipinnate foliage in the undergrowth was
good. The theory, as I recall it, was that chasing small birds through
this sort of undergrowth cost the Noisy Miners too much energy. There
were obvious implications for approaches to regenerating the bush. I
can't recall that patch size was a determining parameter but I suspect
that the speaker did measure plots and I am left with the impression
that size was not an important factor. Might be wrong here!
I have no particular ethical objection to killing creatures with a gun
if it serves a useful conservation purpose but it seems to me that a
more strategic approach with Noisy Miners might be to revegetate
understoreys in areas that they currently dominate so that they can no
longer completely dominate remnant patches. Perhaps short term culling
and medium term strategic planting would be a good combination.
Con
Kamprad wrote:
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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