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From: "L&L Knight"
"The following item is an interesting read on wildlife research. I'm
not sure that the research findings would apply to cassowaries, but I
suspect that they would apply to a number of Australian species ..."
and then in the article
"These findings suggest that humans and birds may be able to
successfully coexist if farmers leave small reserves of forest,
riparian strips or single trees interspersed throughout agricultural
land,.."
The important word missing form the article, and it makes all the
difference, is "some" as in "some birds". The rainforest specialist in this
part of the world [north Queesnland] do not use even large restoration sites
easily or quickly. Smaller sites are not at all attractive to them.
Corridors which link even small remnants are used for travelling through and
so increase effective habitat dramatically. The generalists will utilise any
avialable habitat. What we want is as much of the whole suite as is possible
to hang onto.
It sounds as if this was a very good study but I am wary of broad
generalisations being drawn that we can chop down huge swathes of forest and
as long as we retain strips of trees and the odd one scattered through the
landscape all will be fine. I know that this is not what Sekercioglu said
but from the slant the journalist took it is not a long leap to portray the
conclussions that way. Even degraded habitat is worth something and to a
bird that can live nowhere else it is worth everything.
Regards,
Alan
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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