My Environment

Labels: extinction, Leadbeater's possum, Logging

Save the Leadbeater's possum from extinction petition
"Victoria's faunal emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum, is going extinct due to wildfires and pulp logging. Since 1998, the tiny possums population has declined by 80% from 5000 to a meagre 1000 left in the wild today. The Victorian government logs the habitat of the Leadbeater's possum and sells it to Nippon owned Australian Paper to make Reflex office papers."

We, the taxpayers, subsidise this logging here in Victoria. 1000 is an optimistic estimation for surviving Leadbeater's possum numbers - logging the remaining stands of living trees, along with "salvage logging" of burnt forest will ensure their extinction. This possum doesn't move successfully across open spaces and the remaining population is extremely fragmented. There are none currently in captivity. Some way to treat our State emblem!

Labels: extinction, Leadbeater's possum, Logging

Call this one a combination of two Illustration Friday themes - this week's "Burning" and last week's "Afterwards."

Normally, I don't post complete comic pages - they have a tendency to later turn up in places I didn't intend or give permission for.

This piece was drawn immediately after the "Black Saturday" fires last year and was particularly my reaction to the loss of Marysville at the time. Somehow I wanted to express sympathy for the devastation there - the loss of property and lives - but also to render my concern for the loss of a particular species, the Leadbeater's possum, that had been incompetently handled by the logging industry, government and conservation alike.

There was potential for a much longer piece and I had plenty of ideas, but I don't think I wanted to draw it.

Labels: Illustration Friday, Leadbeater's possum, Marysville

The second issue of Fist Full of Comics has just been released and it's evolving strongly, carrying the flag for Australia's independent comics anthology tradition.

As readers here will know, I've been watching the diminishing fortunes of Leadbeater's possum (mostly due to logging) for some time, and the devastating Marysville fire motivated me to produce a comics piece about the last Leadbeater's possum.

My aim was to create a flowing piece that reflected the feelings and disorientation of a fire survivor, without too much anthropomorphism. The comic page that resulted doesn't have any frames, but hopefully just draws the eye across it. The artwork was all completed in one day on 18th March. It was produced in an organic way using a lot of brushwork with some pen inking for the stark blacks, along with some pencil rubbing for the contrasting muted grey areas.

The status of Leadbeater's possum remains uncertain, though thankfully a few individuals have been found since I drew this piece. The IUCN is unlikely to upgrade its status for a while, though there can be little doubt that it should now be "Critically Endangered."

On Fist Full of Comics itself - I really enjoyed this eclectic issue, which is packed full of fine short pieces from a surprising range of Australian comic creators - nice to see so many of my favourites in there! I particularly like that the middle pages appear to have become a continuing spot for a poem/comic - in this case a beautiful moody piece by Catherine Brittle and Loren Morris. Only $3 - buy it now!

Labels: Australian comics, Australian wildlife, Comic anthologies, Fist Full of Comics, Leadbeater's possum

The tragic human costs of the recent (and continuing) fires here in the Victorian Ranges defy description. Understandably, the wildlife aspect of the fires appears to have been largely overlooked by the media (beyond that famous koala/firefighter picture taken during backburning). However, the consequences will have been dire for most species - for rare species like lyrebirds and tiger quolls, as well as formerly common locals, such as grey kangaroos and bobucks (mountain brushtail possums).

For one species in particular, this could well spell the end. Leadbeater's possum, faunal emblem for the state of Victoria, will have been severely impacted by the extent of the fires, given that the mapped distribution of the Leadbeater's possum exactly matches the area burnt in the Kilmore East Murrundindi Rubicon Media Map of the fires.

With apparently no current captive breeding population, overseas or locally (not at Melbourne/Healesville, Perth, Taronga or any other Zoo that I can tell), there's no answer there either. The small ray of hope is that a tiny population of this relict possum formerly survived once before - coming through the 1939 fires and being rediscovered in 1965.

Flagship species do go extinct (ie: the Baiji in China in 2006) - usually with a certain amount of warning, a long period of mismanagement and a number of setbacks. Let's hope we haven't just witnessed another one.

Labels: Australian wildlife, Bushfires, extinction, Leadbeater's possum, Marysville

In weekend news, there was a report on how loggers in the Barmah State Forest have devastated over half the nesting ground of the endangered superb parrot. There are now fewer than 150 superb parrots breeding in Victoria, and they already have problems with illegal capture by collectors. As this logging has destroyed 60 per cent of their nesting colonies it severely compromises their chance of survival as a species.

The felling of 6000 tonnes of river red gums has destroyed one of the best remaining stands of old growth red gums in the protected zone, with large numbers of the gums still lying on the ground. This "blunder" is being blamed on the Department forgetting to check maps (and the sick leave absence of a forestry officer) before approving a logging coupe.

There is something uncomfortably familiar about this. In 1994 the habitat of our State emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum - five hectares of prime habitat forest near Marysville - was also logged after a mapping error. As in the recent case this ecological disaster was discovered accidently, in Barmah by a botanical consultant, and in Marysville by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria.

I'm not a cynic, but a cynic might say that the logging industry finds it necessary to log major conservation value areas whenever the opportunity presents itself and it may be possible to get away with it.

Pictures:

Superb Parrot from the Save the Murray page

Leadbeater's Possum from Museum Victoria's The Leadbeater's Possum page.

Labels: Australian wildlife, extinction, Leadbeater's possum, Logging