Hi all,
I have found the thread on noisy miners interesting. With the risk of opening
up another emotionally-driven debate, at which point I will simply disappear
mysteriously, I offer my view on the thread during another night of insomnia!
Robyn has touched on a subject that I am becoming more and more acquainted
with: wildlife management (this in itself is a large can of worms - e.g. should
we manage or not? and where and when? So I restrict myself in scope below).
A lot of 'negative emotion' (shall we say) is directed at species that have a
perceived negative impact on other species, either directly or indirectly. I
feel that this is not the approach most conducive to finding and adopting
solutions. Rather than species being perceived as the 'bad guys' or 'pests' it
is the underlying anthropogenic changes to the environment that have resulted
in a species becoming a perceived problem that we should be focussing on (which
others in this thread have alluded to). The noisy miner is in fact a great
example to use to argue the negative impacts of changes to habitat,
particularly in urban environments, that have cascading effects on biodiversity
in addition to direct impacts (i.e. removal of optimal habitat). As such the
noisy miner is a symptom of a much greater threat to biodiversity. If all the
negative emotions directed at a species (e.g. noisy miner) were re-directed at
the root cause, then more effective education and government berating may
result which would eventually (one would hope) lead to positive changes in
environmental management, including the decisions made by the powers-at-be.
There is no doubt that the noisy miner is a very interesting species. Its
complex social behaviour and resilience to human modifications to the
environment are impressive. However, there is ample evidence suggesting that
miners have an appreciable effect on biodiversity, typically reducing it,
within modified environments (mainly urban and agricultural). As such if we opt
to manage these environments to curtail the threatening processes reducing
biodiversity this species is one which should be considered in management
protocols. But rather than opting to cull them because they are a 'pest', we
should be examining the underlying cause of why they are having a negative (in
our view) impact on the environment. Peter Crow's comments on reducing
flowering shrub density in urban environments is touches on this. The
underlying cause needs to be treated rather than the symptom. Otherwise it is a
band-aid solution, which works in the short-term but is unlikely to have
long-term effects.
Robyn's commented that flowering shrubs may provide other animals that form a
part of biodiversity with necessary resources and thus removing them may be
negative for those species. This raises the question of what we humans would
like to achieve in an environment if we choose to manage it. Increasing or
maintaining biodiversity or particular (e.g. threatened) species are common
goals in wildlife management for conservation (as opposed to managing
agricultural pests or game animals for example). Some management practices are
likely to have negative impacts on unintended species (they are designed to
have negative impacts on target species, for e.g. miners) but these actions may
have an overall benefit by having positive impacts on a larger number of
species. This is why monitoring of management actions is a crucial component to
their implementation.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, management of wildlife is a very
controversial issue in society because of the diversity of people, each with
their own viewpoint, that are involved. However, I think Robyn's comments to
birding-aus that noisy miners shouldn't be on the receiving end of the anger
toward human modification to the environment is commendable.
Cheers, dean
_________________________________________________________________
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