Croc killed Cairns spear fisherman

The Northern Coroner's Office has confirmed the fatal injuries suffered by Cairns spear fisher David Fordson earlier this month were caused by a "large estuarine crocodile".

The advice prompted warnings for boaties and divers to take extra precautions when visiting coastal Cape York this summer with crocodiles being spotted well offshore and at popular mooring sites.

In a statement, a coroner’s spokesperson said a post-mortem examination had been carried out during which police had sought specialist opinion from experts in crocodile and shark behaviour.

Mr Fordson, 49, was skipper of the cargo barge Torres Starservicing the Cairns to Thursday Island route when, ahead of schedule, they stopped to fish at the remote Cairncross Island group.

The alarm was raised when Mr Fordson failed to return to the vessel and his body was found in the early hours of December 6, with injuries initially thought to be from either a crocodile or a shark.

Underwater filmmaker and experienced boatie Ben Cropp has spent many years travelling the Cape York coastline and said he had noticed increasing numbers of crocodiles in the area.

Early summer is mating season for the animals, when the males are wandering further afield and looking for a female.

"On a recent trip we saw a lot of crocodiles and croc tracks all the way down the coast, and crocodiles at every offshore 
island we went to," he said.

"We’re talking six or eight miles out … on one little sand cay we saw three crocodiles, with three big tiger sharks in the shallows.

"These look like lovely places to moor but they are actually very, very dangerous, and Bushy Cay (where Mr Fordson was attacked) is only about three miles off the coast so it’s a lot closer to shore."

Mr Cropp said over the past seven years he had frequently seen a 3.5m crocodile lying on the sand at Bushy Cay.

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2011/12/23/197701_local-news.html

Red-tailed phascogale population diminishing

FARMERS and locals in WA’s Wheatbelt are to helping to ensure the conservation of the endangered red-tailed phascogale (Phascogale calura).

Once recorded across much of arid and semi-arid Australia, populations have contracted to the Wheatbelt and even there, its range is shrinking.

Now largely confined to the far western Wheatbelt, the small, squirrel-like, carnivorous marsupial has been threatened historically by feral and domestic cats and more recently by intensive agriculture.

Wildlife Research and Management director and principal research scientist Dr Jeff Short was part of the group trying to work out where the species still occurs.

“We were engaged by the South West Catchments Council and in partnership with local landcare group the Wagin Woodanilling Landcare Zone [to do the research] so we could provide advice to farmers on what sort of tree planting they could do that might benefit the species,” Dr Short says.

Generally regarded as confined to the Wandoo (Eucalyptus wandoo) vegetation, the group found the species to be more broadly distributed than was previously thought.

“[We found that] the species occurred in lowland habitat in York gum (Eucalyptus loxophleba) and a lot of that habitat was along riverine corridors or around lake margins.

Much of this habitat exists on private agricultural land.

“Unfortunately a lot of that habitat is increasingly affected by salinity and many of the mature trees with hollows for nesting are now dead or dying. A lot of that habitat will probably become less suitable over time, so it’s on a continued downward trajectory over the longer term,” he says.

However, increased awareness by farmers and the community has led to action on conservation efforts.

“Part of the problem is that in the Wheatbelt there are small areas of habitat which are fragmented and separated,” Dr Short says.

Whilst numbers of the species appear to be on a slow decline, Dr Short says populations in the Wheatbelt seem stable thanks to conservation efforts.

“The positive side is that a lot of farmers are much more aware and willing to construct corridors to allow crossing between habitats…that’s facilitating movement of phascogales between the remnants,” he says.

“Many farmers are doing a lot more to plant or replant trees along fence lines.”

Dr Short says whilst too small themselves to support a population, movement between the remnants often provides adequate habitat.

“It’s on a continued downward trajectory over the longer term but the phascogale does seem secure in what remains in the Wandoo belt. So even though that’s even a very small fraction of its former range, it seems reasonably secure there.”

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/3765.html

New home for Australian red-tailed phascogales

Males die after their first mating season

June 2010: The reintroduction of 20 red-tailed phascogales into Kojonup Reserve in South-West Australia at the end of last represents another step towards preserving the endangered animal's future. Twelve females and eight males were released into the reserve as part of the Threatened Fauna Ark Project.

The peculiar mouse-sized creature have bizarre mating habits, and Australia's Department of Conservation officer Gareth Watkins said it was important for the animals to be translocated before mating began in July, as red-tailed phascogale males die at the conclusion of their first - and very brief - mating season.

‘Males exhaust much of their energy reserves during the frenetic mating season and as a result, promptly die at the age of about eleven and a half months, while females can live up to three years and can reproduce two or three times during this period,' Mr Watkins said.

‘The wild animals were trapped at various DEC reserves in the Wheatbelt and released into wooden nesting boxes positioned in trees in Kojonup Reserve, which is managed by Bush Heritage Australia.

Habitat loss is a serious threat
‘Red-tailed phascogales are restricted to isolated fragments of vegetation in the southern Wheatbelt, and are at serious threat due to habitat loss, altered fire regimes, predation and reduced rainfall.

‘Red-tailed phascogales are restricted to isolated fragments of vegetation in the southern Wheatbelt, and are at serious threat due to habitat loss, altered fire regimes, predation and reduced rainfall
‘The translocation site is one of the largest intact remnants of Wandoo woodland in the region, so there's a good chance that we'll be able to re-establish a large, self-sustaining population of the species within its former habitat.'


Nocturnal carnivores can leap up to two metres
Bush Heritage Australia ecologist Angela Sanders said the next 12 months would be spent closely monitoring the nesting sites and managing the reserve to maximise the animals' chances of survival.

‘What we do on the ground is imperative to the survival of our new residents on Kojonup Reserve, and this will include feral animal control, particularly fox baiting,' Ms Sanders said.

Red-tailed phascogales are nocturnal carnivores that live in trees and forage in the canopy and on the ground, and can leap up to two metres. The young are raised in tree hollows and stumps.

The translocated animals are being radio-tracked for the first two weeks by DEC, and during spring the nesting boxes will be checked for activity and hopefully reproduction success. Long term monitoring will be undertaken by Bush Heritage Australia.