On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 11:40:03AM +0930, Gary Wright wrote:
> I would say that one helpful thing you could do to protect the desert
> environment would be to stop eating cattle. There are many more cattle in
> outback Australia doing more damage than camels are doing simply because
> there are more of them. They also smash down vegetation and do all of the
> things that camels do.
I don't want to down the impact of cattle but the first part of your
statement is not true. There are definitely far more cattle in Australia
(25+ million) than camels (1+ million) currently - but not in the centre
of Australia. The maps below suggest camel biomass approaches that of
cattle over a very large area and exceeds it at the centre of camel
range. If I have my arithmetic right camel biomass exceeds kangaroo
biomass over a good part of Australia too.
Andrew
http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications/factsheets/bp09-10/pubs/05-reducing-camels-distribution-map.pdf
m(".nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article232005?opendocument","//www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs");&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view=">http:&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view=
|
