'Extinct' wallaby goes back on show

A wallaby species classed as extinct in the Australian wild until recently has been reintroduced and put back on public show.

The mainland tammar wallaby was saved because a small number of the marsupials were taken to New Zealand more than 150 years ago by former South Australian governor George Grey.

Some of the species were returned to Australia nearly a decade ago and there has been a successful breeding program since at Monarto open range zoo south-east of Adelaide.

Now some of the wallabies have been put on public show at Warrawong Sanctuary in the Adelaide Hills.

Brenton James of the sanctuary says their return to public view is welcome.

"It's really important for these mainlands to be here - they're a local species," he said.

"These guys have come back from the edge of extinction and [it's] extremely fortunate that they were in a island on New Zealand. That's a one-in-a-million chance."

Mick Post also works at Warrawong and is pleased to see the tammar wallabies back on show.

"The breeding program's been really successful. It started back in 2003 and we've done four releases now down to Innes National Park [on Yorke Peninsula in South Australia] ... maybe about 100 to 120 animals down in the wild," he said.

"The population seems to be sustaining itself quite well for the area it's in, so it may well be at the amount of animals we want [there]."

Species saved from extinction

South Australia's mainland tammar wallaby is listed as "extinct in the wild" under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
It was driven to extinction on the mainland due to land clearance and hunting by foxes and cats.
But a population had been taken to Kawau Island in New Zealand in the 1800s. Although the island population is considered a pest species in New Zealand, it provided a source of animals for reintroduction to their native Australian habitat.
Authorities brought 85 tammar wallabies from New Zealand to Monarto Zoo in South Australia in 2003-04.
Monarto Zoo first provided quarantine for the mainland tammar wallabies brought to Australia, then bred the animals for release into the wild at Innes National Park on Yorke Peninsula.
- Information from Zoos SA

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-14/wallabies-mainland-tammar-warrawong/3828346

New species of skink discovered in Australia

One of eight new reptiles and two frogs discovered in Western Australia last year

February 2012: A newly described skink species is going on display to the public in Perth, Australia.

NEW SPECIES: The Western Pilbara spiny tail skink

Picture: G. Gaikhorst

The Western Pilbara spiny-tail skink was just one discovery in what has been a busy time for WA Museum's reptile expert Dr Paul Doughty who has described eight new reptiles and two frog species in the past 12 months.

This year Dr Doughty's research has focussed on WA's Pilbara region which is one of the most diverse areas for reptiles in the world.

‘Western Australia is a great place to be a reptile and frog enthusiast, as it is incredibly diverse and we still are making exciting new discoveries like these spiny skinks and geckos every year,' said Dr Doughty.

'It's super-cute and friendly'Dr Doughty clearly has a passion for reptiles, describing the newly described Western Pilbara spiny-tail skink as ‘super-cute and friendly'.

'The Western Pilbara Spiny-Tail Skink is one of the most interesting species described this year. It has a rich red colouration to match the rocks of the Pilbara and has short-strong spines for protection from predators,' Dr Doughty said.

The description this year of the two species of spiny-tail skinks and the Pilbara barking gecko relied on new discoveries of populations from the Pilbara region, which has been the focus of floral and faunal surveys through new mining and developmental proposals and a Pilbara Biodiversity Survey by the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Genetic analyses provided by Professor Steve Donnellan of the South Australian Museum were key to revealing the new species of spiny-tail skinks.

‘Using DNA testing we are able to discover and learn so much more about Western Australia's biodiversity and gain insight into the evolution and history of our species,' Dr Doughty said.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/skink-new.html

Cane toads lose their killer touch in east Australia (via Herp Digest)

Invasive weeds may save Australia's blue-tongue lizards from cane toad poison.

Since the cane toad was introduced to Australia in 1935, it has killed swathes of Australia's native animals including quolls, crocodiles and blue-tongue lizards (Tiliqua scincoides).

Native species that prey on the alien amphibians die because the toads produce a lethal toxin called bufadienolide.

Some blue-tongue lizards in eastern Australia can dine on the cane toads and live, though. Oddly enough, they might owe their immunity to another invasive species.

An ornamental plant native to Madagascar called mother-of-millions (Bryophyllum delagoense) is common in eastern Australia, and has also become part of the lizards' diet. The plants' flowers contain a poison similar to bufadienolide. Rick Shine at the University of Sydney, Australia, suspected that lizards which have already gained immunity to this toxin might be in a better position to withstand the toad toxin too.

His team caught 75 lizards that lived in areas containing either the toad and the ornamental plant, just one of the two, or neither of the toxic invaders. Shine injected toad poison into the lizards, administering a dose high enough to provoke a reaction, but not enough to kill the animal. His team then timed how fast the lizards could swim 50 centimetres.

Blue-tongue lizards from areas containing mother-of-millions were affected to a lesser degree than any others. This was true even for lizards that lived in regions of eastern Australia that contain no cane toads.

"Eastern blue-tongue lizards are able to defend themselves well against cane toads even though they've never actually met one," says Shine.

Mother-of-millions has been recorded in Australia for 70 years or so, suggesting that the lizards have gained tolerance to its toxin rapidly. Blue-tongue lizards create a new generation every two to four years, says study co-author Gregory Brown, also at the University of Sydney.

"It is extremely surprising that one of the lizard populations should genetically change over such a relatively short period of time," says Michael Tyler, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, who was not involved in the work. "But I am convinced. There is no other explanation I can find."

Trumpets of outrage in the outback

An Australian biology professor is causing a rumble in the academic jungle by suggesting that his country should import elephants and other foreign species into its wild interior.

Rhinos and even giant Komodo dragon lizards could be imported, David Bowman suggests in an article in Nature.

He says Australia is just not managing its most pressing ecological problems, and something radical is needed.

But some fellow scientists say it is just a bad and dangerous idea.

Others, however, are supportive, seeing potential for helping beleaguered Aboriginal communities and reducing the risk of forest fires, as repairing some damaged ecology.

The problems Prof Bowman proposes solving with his radical zoological armoury stem from the huge changes wrought by the two waves of human arrival - the first by forebears of the Aborigines about 50,000 years ago, and the second by European settlers a few hundred years ago.

The first initiated the slow demise of the spectacular megafauna that once bestrode the giant continent.

They included the marsupial lion, a metre and a half long and a powerful predator; the diprotodon, a wombat bigger than a cow; giant birds such as the Dromornidae family that once boasted Stirton's Thunder Bird, three metres high; and crocodiles, lizards and turtles bigger than any still walking this Earth.

Take so many big species out of an ecosystem, and there are bound to be changes all the way down to its bottom.

If you throw in land clearance across enormous swathes of the continent and the subsequent introduction of rabbits, camels, cane toads, rats, pigs and everything else that came with the European settlers, you have an ecology in profound turmoil.

Attempts have been made to control rabbits, pigs, buffalo and lots of other alien species; but they haven't really worked.

"We have a very unbalanced ecology and it's all just spiralling into a trajectory," lamented Prof Bowman when I spoke to him earlier in the week.

"We're not managing actively, we're just managing bits of the problem - so it's a big mess."

So the root of his idea is that if you can't restore the animals themselves, bring in something that can fulfil a similar ecological role.

Continued:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16843096

Kerala biodiversity body stops export of rare goat breed

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) recently helped the cause of biodiversity by stopping the export of a rare native goat breed to Australia, which may have harmed the species in Kerala, a board member said.

Malabari goats are endemic to parts of Kerala's northern districts and theirs numbers are fast dwindling. Any attempt to transport these goats to Australia without proper checks and balances could have been a huge loss to Kerala, KSSB member secretary K.P. Laladhas,said.

The board had got information a few days back about the proposed export between a state agency and Australia from the National Biodiversity Authority.

"We got in touch with the state agency, Kudumbashree, who told us that this is only a proposal and rules would be abided by if this eventually took place," said Laladhas.

The unique feature of the Malabari goat is that it adapts to very hot and humid conditions. Besides, both males and females have a protuberance hanging from the neck.

The colour of these goats varies from white to black and fully grown males weigh 30 to 35 kg, while females weigh 25 to 30 kg. 

Malabari goats yield less than one kg of milk during peak days and can be milked for four to five months.

"The rules are very clear when it comes to transfer of any bio resources and this can be done only through clear-cut bi-lateral agreements. Moreover there should be clarity when it comes to benefit sharing in the future if this eventually leads to genetic modifications," said Laladhas.


http://english.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/contentView.do?contentId=10922275&programId=1073750974&tabId=1&contentType=EDITORIAL

Black cockatoos hungry and dying

Black cockatoos are on a death march north says the chair of the Black Cockatoo Preservation Society.

The WA government should stop logging immediately in old growth forest in order to save the lives of black cockatoos.

That's the opinion of Glenn Dewhurst, chair of the Black Cockatoo Preservation Society Australia.

Cockatoo numbers of both white-tailed and red-tailed species are decreasing in the South West and the metropolitan area, he says, and lack of food is one of the reasons.

Marri, jarrah nuts, hakea and banksia form part of the bird's normal diet, explains Glenn, "Unfortunately it is becoming more scarce."

Glenn, who is also Chair of Wildlife Australia, has been looking after injured birds since 2004. "(We would) get up to 300, 400 rescues a year," he says. "We have 200 at the moment."

"The birds used to come in at 640-680g, now we're getting them coming in at 480-500g." That amounts to a loss of a quarter of their weight, he says. Birds are weighed as a matter of course at the rescue centres and the society has ten years of data to call on.

Lack of feed, spring burning by the Department of Environment and Conservation and an aging population are all factors contributing to the number decline, says Glenn.

Spring burns kill chicks in the nest, he claims.

"A lot of people point the finger at farmers," says Glenn. "We've been following cases where DEC successfully charged farmers (over illegal) clearing. "But when you have a look at it, the areas they want to clear are not good cocky, or even native (species), habitat.

Farmers would plant more trees than they cleared which would be a boon to the black cockatoos, he says.

White-tailed or Carnaby's cockatoos are present southwest of a line from Eaneabba to Esperance, says Glenn while their red-tailed cousins occur between Albany and Perth.

The birds are heading for the Swan Coastal Plain in their search for food. However, says Glenn, the food is not available in these areas either.

"They're getting as far as Mandurah and dying. It's a march to the death."

Compounding the problem is that birds are also eating foods they would normally avoid and are dying as a result, says Glenn, foods such as unripe almonds.

"We can lose whole flocks." The society has had reports of up to 15 birds in a flock dying in backyards through eating the unripe nuts.

With enough alternative food, the birds don't eat normally feed on green nuts, says Glenn."We've thrown green and ripe almonds into our aviaries just to test our theory here and they won't touch the green almonds."

"But the fact is that they're so desperate for food that that's what they're doing."

He adds, "They're even eating jacaranda trees now; they're eating the seed pods of the jacaranda trees...Something they're never done."

The WA government has set up the Carnaby recovery program, notes Glenn, under which a population decrease of 10 per cent was deemed as failure.

The government hasn't released the count for the last 12 months, he says. "But (society members) have been telling us that we've lost between 30 and 50 per cent in 12 months.

"What the government needs to do is to stop logging in old growth."

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/01/17/3409833.htm

Whaler ignores call to leave Australian waters

A JAPANESE whaling ship has defied high-level Australian complaints to stay in the waters of World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island.

The harpoon-equipped whale hunter Yushin Maru No.3 was still there late yesterday, hours after the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said the ship was leaving.

''I'm aware that there has been one vessel which I'm advised has been in Australian territorial waters and I'll advise that it will leave Australian territorial waters,'' Ms Gillard said.

The Australian embassy told the Japanese government on Tuesday that whaling vessels were not welcome in the country's waters, repeating earlier complaints.

But the Japanese ship was photographed yesterday within a few miles of the coast of Macquarie Island, which is part of the state of Tasmania.

The Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group said the harpoon ship continued trailing its vessel, Bob Barker, inside the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit all day.

''Things seem to be reaching a boiling point here,'' the Bob Barker's first mate, Peter Hammarstedt, said. ''It has followed us on circuits of the island, keeping right inside the 12-mile zone.''

The Bob Barker sought refuge at Macquarie Island to try to shake the ship off its stern. As long as some Japanese vessels are able to keep tabs on Sea Shepherd activists, the rest of the fleet can continue whaling.

ANU professor of international law Don Rothwell said if Yushin Maru No.3 was staying close to Macquarie Island it was violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which would normally allow a ship to proceed though these waters.

''The actions of Yushin Maru No.3 are not consistent with the right of innocent passage,'' Professor Rothwell said.

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, said the ship's presence was illegal and called for a naval vessel to be sent there.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/whaler-ignores-call-to-leave-australian-waters-20120111-1pvfn.html#ixzz1jFXeM3W8

Cranky crocodile attacks lawnmower at Australian wildlife park

A cranky crocodile taught his keepers a lesson when they disrupted his peace and quiet by mowing the lawn.

Australian crocodile Elvis leapt out of his lagoon and wrestled the lawnmower from workers Tim Faulkner and Billy Collett before dragging it back underwater with him.

The 16-foot beast then kept guard over his catch for more than an hour, forcing staff at the Australian Reptile Park, north of Sydney, to make a daring rescue.

Mr Collett tempted the saltwater croc away with a piece of raw kangaroo meat on a stick while Mr Faulkner risked his life by entering the pool to retrieve the equipment.

Standing waist deep in water, he was forced to haul the lawnmower from the lagoon while the 50-year-old crocodile was distracted.

The irritable reptile was less than impressed, snapping his jaws and even losing some teeth as he chomped on the lawnmower.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/12/28/cranky-crocodile-attacks-lawnmower-at-australian-wildlife-park-115875-23664328/#ixzz1jRMptdeE

New Clue in Battle Against Australian Hendra Virus: African Bats Have Antibodies That Neutralize Deadly Virus

ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2012) — A new study on African bats provides a vital clue for unravelling the mysteries in Australia's battle with the deadly Hendra virus.

The study focused on an isolated colony of straw-coloured fruit bats on islands off the west coast of central Africa. By capturing the bats and collecting blood samples, scientists discovered these animals have antibodies that can neutralise deadly viruses known in Australia and Asia.

The paper was published 12 January, in the journal PLoS ONE, and is a collaboration of the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, the Zoological Society of London and the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory.

Hendra virus in Australia and Nipah virus in Asia are carried by fruit bats and sporadically "spill over" into people with tragic consequences. The findings of the new study are significant as they yield valuable insights for our understanding of how these viruses persist in bat populations.

Cambridge PhD student Alison Peel explains, "Hendra and Nipah viruses cause fatal infections in humans, but we currently understand very little about how the viruses are transmitted from bats to other animals or people. To understand what the risk factors for these 'spill-overs' are, it is crucial to understand how viruses are maintained in bat populations. The ability to study these viruses within an isolated bat colony has given us new insight into these processes."

Continued at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120112193438.htm

Shark rips at boat

RECREATIONAL fisherman Adrian Hinds says he would still go swimming off Tasmania's coast despite encountering a 4.5m great white shark at the weekend.

Mr Hinds and his mates were fishing off Port Sorell on Saturday when a massive great white started nosing around their boat.

"It was probably between four and five metres, it was 500kg I reckon," Mr Hinds, 32, of Launceston said last night.

He said the shark spent a couple of hours circling the boat, but neither he nor his fellow fishermen felt any fear.

"It was awesome. It was just checking out what was going on, pretty much," he said. "We were pretty awestruck. We never felt any danger."

Aerial shark patrols started off the East Coast on Friday because the hot weather has seen an increase in bait fish and sharks. Surveillance is concentrating between The Gardens and Scamander.

"The blokes I went out with, they've been fishing for years and never seen one before," Mr Hinds said.

He said the shark nudged the motor when the propeller was out of the water and ripped a protective mat hung over the side of the boat.

"When it had a go at the protective mat it got stuck into it a bit, had a little bit of a thrash," he said.

They were 50km off Port Sorell at the time.

Despite hearing rumours of other shark sightings, Mr Hinds said he would still swim at the beach.

"Yeah I still would, I think they're a fair way out," he said.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/01/09/290971_most-popular-stories.html

Crocodile invites self into Australian home

CANBERRA, Australia — Wildlife rangers have helped an Australian family deal with an uninvited guest: a 5-foot-6-inch (1.7-meter) crocodile that wandered into their living room.

The juvenile saltwater crocodile wandered into a home in Bees Creek, a suburb of the northern Australian city of Darwin. Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that the family found it in a partially enclosed living area Saturday morning after their dog's barking woke them.

Resident Jo Dodd describes the encounter as "a very surreal moment" and "the most freakiest thing." She suspects the croc might been stalking the dog.

Crocodile management official Dani Best told ABC the croc might have been forced out of a nearby creek by a larger croc. The intruder has been relocated to a crocodile farm.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45916591/ns/world_news-weird_news/#.Tw7aoqV-XtE

Northern quoll threatened by cane toads

There has been an alarming drop in numbers of the northern quoll with the arrival of the cane toad in its habitat.


VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT HERE: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-03/northern-quoll-threatened-by-cane-toads/3757428


Sarah Everingham

Rare frog population sent to the South-West

A SMALL captive population of the rare and endangered sunset frog (Spicospina flammocaerulea) has been translocated to the wild.

Thirty-one frogs and 251 tadpoles have been transported from their home in Perth Zoo to a sunset frog friendly habitat in a peat swamp near Walpole.

With a genetic line estimated to be over 30 million years old the sunset frog is now at risk of extinction and now only 30 known populations of the frog populate the South-West.

The sunset frog is known to be extremely susceptible to climate change, has limited distribution and is dependent on a specific habitat and climate of an ancient era.

Department of Environment and Conservation’s (DEC) Threatened Fauna Ark project officer Manda Page says the release site for the frogs and tadpoles provides suitable habitat and extends the known range of the species —a 300km² area near Walpole and Nornalup.

“If they breed successfully here, this will hopefully provide insurance against the species being wiped out by a devastating local event such as a large-scale intense bushfire that could destroy the frog’s peat swamp habitat,” Dr Page says.

She says changing climate as well as disturbances from feral animals including wild pigs remains their biggest threat.

The frogs have been released on private property in the Mt Frankland area and will be protected.

Staff from the DEC Walpole office will work with the property owners to help monitor the survival and breeding behaviour of the frogs.

“These frogs are extremely sensitive to any movements within their environment and so are very tricky to check on. This makes getting accurate data on the numbers and distribution of the species very challenging,” Dr Page says.

Numerous studies have focused on the sunset frog and its susceptibility to climate, genetic line and distribution in the South-West.

The sunset frog is listed as a threatened species under Western Australia’s Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 and is classified as endangered under the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/3826-rare-frog-population-sent-to-the-south-west.html

'Hybrid' sharks found in Australia

BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Interbreeding between shark species has created hybrid animals swarming the east coast of Australia, researchers say.

Multiple generations of the shark, a hybrid of the genetically distinct Australian black tip -- whose range extends north from Brisbane -- and the larger common black tip found in southeastern coastal waters, have been found in five locations between northern New South Wales and far north Queensland, The Australian reported Monday.

"Wild hybrids are usually hard to find, so detecting hybrids and their offspring is extraordinary," Jennifer Ovenden of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries said.

"To find 57 hybrids along 2000km (1,200 miles) of coastline is unprecedented," she said.

Some scientists say the discovery suggests shark species might be interbreeding as an adaptation to climate change.

However, other researchers said they could not determine how or even when the hybridization had taken place.

"I don't think it's a result of climate change per se, but it could certainly give the sharks more genes to cope with change in the environment," University of Queensland research scientist Jess Morgan said.

"By mixing their DNA, the species considered more tropical has been able to extend its range into cooler waters," Morgan said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/01/02/Hybrid-sharks-found-in-Australia/UPI-10171325546276/#ixzz1iUYEIrtf

Anti-whaling ship stranded off the coast of Australia

An anti-whaling ship is being towed to safety after being stranded off the western coast of Australia.
The Brigitte Bardot vessel was following the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean when a rogue wave cracked its hull.

Another boat from the anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd went to the rescue.

Captain Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, spoke to the BBC from the rescue ship Steve Irwin.

Video here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-16352855

Dingo baby case that divided a nation could be closed at last

Fourth inquest launched into Lindy Chamberlain's missing daughter which will take in fresh evidence about dog attacks


An Australian coroner is to launch a new inquest into the death of baby Azaria Chamberlain in a move that could finally end a 31-year dispute over whether she was killed by a dingo.

Elizabeth Morris, the coroner for the Northern Territory, has said she will open a fourth inquiry into the world-famous case, which centred on the disappearance and presumed death of nine-week-old Azaria in 1980 as her family camped in the shadow of Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock.

The case divided Australia and was turned into a film, A Cry in the Dark, which earned an Oscar nomination for Meryl Streep in the role of the accused mother.

In October 1982 Lindy Chamberlain, who now goes by the name of Chamberlain-Creighton, was found guilty of murdering her daughter after a jury dismissed her claim that a dingo took the baby.

She was later freed and her conviction quashed after new evidence emerged supporting her story. However, the official coroner's record still states that the cause of death remains "unknown".

A legal team representing Chamberlain-Creighton and her former husband, Michael Chamberlain, have now cited 10 serious dingo attacks on people since 1980, two of them fatal, as new evidence which will be heard at the inquiry starting on 24 February.

Michael Chamberlain said he was surprised and grateful the coroner had announced a fresh investigation. "At long last there's a meaningful attempt … to determine the proper cause and truth about how my daughter died," he said.

"I don't think people open inquests without thinking there's good reason for it and that means there'd have to be a change from the status quo of the open finding in 1995. It's now looking at dingoes, not people, as to the cause of death."

Azaria's body has never been found but her bloodstained clothes were and formed the main basis of an investigation that split the country into those who believed Azaria had been killed by her mother, possibly in a warped religious ritual, and those who believed she was killed by a wild dog or dogs in a tragic accident.

Chamberlain-Creighton gave evidence that she had seen a dingo near the family's tent. Initial media coverage of the incident focused on whether dingoes were physically able to carry a baby off or even inclined to do so and quickly shifted onto the parents as suspects.

"Close shots of the Chamberlains in interviews came nearer and nearer," John Bryson, a barrister who has closely followed the incident has said.

"Then 'Seventh Day Adventists believe in child sacrifice' and 'Baby Azaria was always dressed in black to represent a devil's child'. And 'the Chamberlains' bible had a child-sacrifice passage underlined in red'. And 'the name Azaria means sacrifice in the wilderness'. And on and on."

At her trial in 1982 Lindy Chamberlain said in her defence that dingo saliva was not found on Azaria's jumpsuit because the baby was wearing a jacket on top. No jacket was found in the initial searches but in 1986, while Mrs Chamberlain was serving a life sentence, an Englishman, David Brett, fell to his death from Uluru, landing beside the jacket which was half-buried close to dingo lairs.

Within days Chamberlain was released and a Royal Commission later exonerated her and her husband who had also been convicted as an accessory to the murder. The three previous inquests resulted in mixed verdicts, the first stating that a dingo had taken the baby.

Then further investigations, involving a British pathologist, suggested the wounds could not have been caused by a dingo and indicated a cut throat. That inquiry concluded that Chamberlain-Creighton should be sent for trial for murdering Azaria. The third returned an open verdict.

John Lawrence, a lawyer involved in the Royal Commission, said the new inquest would be a final legal chapter that would conclude a dingo was responsible.

"I think that the void will be filled by the new evidence on the dingo," he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

Last year, on the 30th anniversary of Azaria's disappearance, Chamberlain-Creighton pleaded in an open letter on her website for her daughter's death certificate to state that a dingo was to blame.

"She deserves justice," she wrote. "Come on Australia. Surely you cannot be proud of the fact that you can let yourself be duped again and again and come back for more of the same. We used to be a proud nation who saw through corruption and were willing to give a fair go. How many times do you have to be hoodwinked and led along by the nose before you demand something better from our courts, police force, politicians and media?"

Bryson said: "I think it is time really for it to be at an end. The people involved have been through enough. It has not been yet put to bed and so we hope that this coroner will."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/20/dingo-baby-lindy-chamberlain-inquest

Ancient super-predator eyes found in Australia

Australian scientists on Thursday hailed the discovery of a pair of insect-like eyes belonging to a freakish prehistoric super-predator which trawled the seas more than 500 million years ago.


Measuring three centimetres (1.2 inches) across and with a whopping 16,000 individual lenses the fossilised eyes, from a huge shellfish-type creature called anomalocaris, were found in rocks on Australia's Kangaroo Island.

Anomalocaris could grow up to one metre long and were considered the "great white shark" of the Cambrian era, topping the ancient marine food chain, according to lead researcher John Paterson.

Modern-day houseflies have about 3,000 lenses in their eyes, while dragonflies have about 30,000 -- the only creature known to have more lenses than anomalocaris.

Paterson said the discovery showed that anomalocaris had lived in well-lit, clear waters and had developed sophisticated vision extremely rapidly, likely triggering an evolutionary "arms race" among other creatures.

Spines, poison glands and other defence mechanisms had probably erupted among creatures eager to escape detection by its huge eyes, which protruded from the side of its head on stalks.

"When you look at the animal itself it's quite an alien-looking beast," Paterson, from Australia's University of New England, told AFP.

Aside from its protuberant eyes, anomalocaris had formidable claws lined with spines which it used to catch its prey and a "gnarly-looking circular mouth with teeth-like serrations inside".

"Those serrations were either used for shredding or chomping up its prey, so it was a pretty nasty-looking creature," Paterson said.

The fact that anomalocaris had been found to have compound eyes also confirmed it was an ancestor of modern arthopods, which include insects and shellfish, said Paterson, whose study was published in Nature.

When the specimen was originally trapped in seafloor mud about 500 million years ago Australia, then part of the Gondwana supercontinent, was in tropical waters straddling the equator, Paterson said.

The fossil had been pushed from the sea floor at about the same speed human fingernails grow and eventually ended up on Kangaroo Island -- now a hotbed of Cambrian artefacts -- off Adelaide in South Australia.

Paterson said the site was riddled with "a variety of fairly enigmatic" specimens that remained a mystery to science and were difficult to classify because they were from a very early period in animal evolution.

"The body plans of animals that we're familiar with today were still kind of being tinkered with in the Cambrian," he said.

"Sometimes they have features that are completely foreign to what you would see in a modern organism."

Though anomalocaris specimens had been found before in Canada and China, Kangaroo Island was the first place an intact eye had been discovered, due to the unique shale rock it was trapped in, which had once been "zero oxygen" mud.

"Within the mud or within the sediment there's essentially no oxygen to allow for microbes to start to break down soft tissues," Paterson said.

"What we've seen in the Emu Bay shale at Kangaroo Island is a much better picture of what was living there at the time than you would otherwise get in a conventional fossil deposit."

http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-super-predator-eyes-found-australia-032344743.html

Migrating whale numbers hit 50-year high

There has been a rise in the number of migrating whales. They travel on a 5,000km (3,100 miles) round trip to give birth off the coast of Australia before heading back to Antarctica to their main feeding grounds.

It is the highest number seen in half a century.

Duncan Kennedy reports from Sydney.

Watch video here ...

Camels 'left to rot' after mass cull

The owner of a Central Australian cattle station is angry that camel carcasses have been left to rot after recent culls.

Ian Conway runs Kings Creek Station near where 5,000 camels have been shot from helicopters in the past fortnight.

Mr Conway has acknowledged that camel numbers need to be cut because of the significant ecological and pastoral damage the animals cause.

But he says previous culls have shown it is cruel to shoot them and leave them to rot.

"We've been along and seen where camels have kicked for 20 minutes, half an hour, a couple of hours in some instances, still alive," he said.

"All that did was increase the population of dingoes around Docker River and blowflies.

"And the stench around the country was unbelievable. I spoke to many Aboriginal men who said they'd left the country because it was too rotten to stay there for up to six months."

Mr Conway says camels should be taken to an abattoir in Caboolture in south-east Queensland for meat rather than left on the ground.

"If they were caught, even if half of them were caught, that's revenue for people in the Territory," he said.

"In Caboolture they'll take as many as we possibly can get. They'll actually send the trucks over to pick them up and pay you at the doorstep - $220 a head."

Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson says he will investigate the claims.

"That should absolutely be done humanely, and I don't know where those reports are coming from, but we'll certainly look into them," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-09/culls-leave-camels-to-rot/3656018

New albino spider species found

Scientists claim to have found a new species of trap-door spider — the albino spider – near Northam in Australia.

The white-headed, black and brown-legged spider about the size of a 50-cent piece is now with the Western Australia Museum.

Senior curator of arachnology Dr Mark Harvey says subtle differences on the pedipalp and front leg of the male indicated it was a new type of spider.

He said: “The pedipalp is used to transfer sperm to the female during mating and the front legs are used to lift her body up.

“Comparing the sizes of the processes and the number of small spines on these structures with other species of white- headed trap-door spiders shows sufficient differences to conclude it is a new species.”

Dr Harvey says that the new spider species has a very small natural range that has been affected by land clearing and it may simply be hanging on in small remnant vegetation patches.

“The spiders make burrows in the soil that have tight- fitting trap-door lids. These lids are often difficult to see and the spiders can remain undetected without careful observations. Once the males mature, they leave their burrows and wander in search of females.”

While the new spider is yet to be officially named, Dr Harvey says that it adds a small piece to the overall giant biodiversity jigsaw puzzle. “It’s cool to see such a strangely coloured spider,” he said.

http://www.discoveryon.info/2011/11/new-albino-spider-species-found.html