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On the Brink: Look at Koalas.

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                                                    Credit: Australian Geographic The Koala is an Australian icon, unfortunately over the course of the past 100 years in particular this beautiful species has faced extinction through deforestation, logging, cats and dogs, droughts, bushfires and so much more. I was lucky enough that in 2018 I spent time in Port Macquarie of New South Wales with a Koala Hospital in which I was able to work with these fantastic species. A group of amazing volunteers had to walk over dead logs from logging in Koala habitat to rehabilitate recovered Koalas, the situation is dire. It has been over 90 years since the Queensland culling of Koalas occurred in which took the lives of roughly 600,000 Koalas for their pelts. The population is estimated to be between 30,000 to 80,000 now not even making a half of that population. I would also like to mention the neglect on this issue for the sake of making profit from former New South Wales State premier Gladys Ber
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Protection & Conservation of the Orange-Bellied Parrot(Neophema Chrysogaster)

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Credit: birdlife.org.au The Orange-Bellied Parrot is classified as Critically Endangered species and there is roughly 50 of the population and only recently believed to have slightly increase to 70 left in the wild with roughly 320 in captivity. Native to Australia they are typically a coastal bird loving lagoons, bays, estuaries, coastal dunes and saltmarshes. The maps above highlight the Orang-Bellied Parrots distribution. The Orange-Bellied Parrot is known to forage among flocks of Blue-Winged Parrots. They eat coastal plants, seeds, fruits & sedges. One of the biggest effects on food supply of the Orange-Bellied Parrot is bushfires, the fires will come through and wipe out critical food supply and habitat of the Orange-Bellied Parrot and other species along Australia’s East Coast.  Not just the beak and feather disease virus appears as a threat as shown below but increase in predators and deadly weeds do appear as severe threats as well. One other detrimental factor is that the
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Dingoes and Farmers- the love hate relationship.

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                                                       Photo from: www.thetimes.co.uk A very fascinating topic that I love to discuss are the importance of Dingoes. It is believed that the Dingo was brought to Australia around 5,000 to 15,000 years ago. Unfortunately, the debate wages on about Dingo culling and whether or not it is controlled or humane. If you ask wildlife experts or conservationists what resulted to the decline of Australia's apex predator, they will often say persecution and hybridisation. But although this persecution is understandable from a livelihood standpoint the decline of the dingo population results in the direct increase in macropods i.e., Kangaroos, Wallabies, Pademelons and many other species. Also, the increase of introduced feral species such as Deer and Rabbits that are vegetarians much like cattle that outcompete them for food among the grazing fields. Deer are spread through all of the states and territories of Australia with an estimation of 200
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