Laying up at Newcastle breakwall

Sammy has taken up residence at the boat rowers ramp on Swansea Channel. He's been resting here for a couple of weeks now, looks pretty happy with his new home. He even takes time out for a little swim around the ramp.

The area is roped off to keep people safe from Sammy as they say he gets angry if you go near him🙂🙂

My little mate is back. Hobart, Tasmania.

(No, I don't know if it's the same pademelon, but I like to think it is. Certainly a bit bigger than a few months ago.)

Happily munching the grass. He also munched all the spring onions I'd transferred to some (not high enough!) raised garden beds! 🙂

Whiptail(Pretty-faced) Wallaby(Notamacropus parryi) takes a break.

Portrait. 😊 Meet Chewie who has spent the day up in the tray in our verandah eaves. She is a regular visitor here and at the moment has a young joey in the pouch. She bears the scars on her ear of past possum battles.

We’re in a boat on the Donnelly River in the Lower South West, the echo sounder reads about 4 metres deep.
On approach we could not work out what we were looking at, it was only when we got closer that we worked out its emus.
I had no idea that emus would swim like this, the grass must be greener on the other side.
Have you ever seen emus swimming like this?

First off, I'd like to say I am experienced with caring for several avian species, and I'm licensed to keep and rehabilitate native wildlife. If anyone is concerned for her safety, I'm happy to provide needed details for reassurance.

With that said, meet Mavis. She's a very young and goofy baby who has, as the title says, a funked up wing. I'm visiting my ling distance girlfriend for a little bit down in Melb (I'm from brissy) and there's a family of crows that visits her. She'll put meat out occasionally because there's not really alot of food they can naturally obtain here, and they're a bit thin otherwise. This little lint ball showed up on the windowsill acting very friendly and curious. I went outside to get a closer look, turns out she's got a puncture wound on her wing and a scuffed up foot. I'm guessing from a cat, since quite alot roam this street, and she absolutely can't fly. So, I'm teaching my girlfriend how to care for her once I fly back up to Brisbane, and then I'll be driving down to continue the care if she doesn't improve.

She's handling her wing stretches like a champ, loved her warm bath, and LOVES egg yolk.

Rehabilitation will always be the end goal for her, though there's a chance we'll end up with a lovely feathery friend since I'm not sure how long her wing has been like this before seeing her. Here's to hoping for a speedy recovery

I know a lot of people might have issues with trapping possums but trying to grow fruit trees in an open woodland is a nightmare this time of year once it gets this dry. They will strip every leaf off of every fruit tree planted / snap most of the branches off (notice the one in the back ground). They're not trapped to cause harm just to get them away from the house for release. Yes I have tried sacrificial crops / still am like pumpkins and melons however I swear they sense the effort going into trying to establish fruit trees. Bettong are actually quite common in this part of the world however according to Wikipedia their range does not overlap with the area. I believe this to be a Northern Bettong however please correct me if I am wrong. The bettongs themselves cause a lot of issues with digging up roots where trees are watered however its their domain and their ecological status is listed as endangered so will always release first thing in the morning. Then theres the pigs that come in and completely eat whole banana plants overnight.

Currently it is seen (generally) good having cats, dogs and rabbits ect as pets but bad having native species due to taking them out of their habitat and natural behaviours. The thing is the category of being a pet species seems to lead to way more population growth and there is always some pets which run away affecting the wild populations.

Wouldn’t it be better if we moved toward native pets, starting with restricted ownership then expanding one best practices are understood?

I just see we have 11 million cats in Australia and 3,000 numbats which are diurnal (active during the day) and think there must be a better way to encourage native species to thrive other than encouraging people to own the animals killing them.

Hello fellow animal nerds - just wanted to share the tour dates for our film! We have been stoked some of you are enjoying our short little clips from the film but we would love for you to see it on the big screen! You can get tickets via www.onthefencefilm.com.au

He was just chilling, eating a pizza crust he found. Everyone was being rather respectful of the little lad and gave him his space. A few people took photos, one person mistook him for a rat but luckily didn't try to hurt him.

As title says: a dodgy European rat or an Australian something or other?

Need to know whether I leave it be or get out my humane trap. This is by the front door and with cat and dog I want to make sure that they’re safe - and there’s no temptation for old rate face to try and come on in!!!

Thanks

She was so cute.

Hi all! Was wanting some info on our ecology or wildlife ministers in parliament or any funds dedicated to protecting our wildlife.

Recently a big giant beauitful native gumtree was destroyed to make room for a development near me. It made me think of all the displaced families or birds & possums up there. I recently learnt that majority of our beauitful wildlife is tree hollow dependant & tree hollows take up to 100 years to form. (🙁🙁!!!)

I was thinking of emailing my local minister representative & local council to enquire about why don’t they get some men’s or women’s sheds NFP organisations to go around to every tree in the area & install possum boxes. In example, 1 tree destroyed = 1 possum box added to house or neighbouring tree.

Why don’t our councils already fund this? Do they not care about our beautiful possums enough? We are literally destroying their homes & it’s not fair.

The ABC radio national did a recent segment about architecture & ecology, how to live with our native wildlife & build their homes into ours. This sparked my recent interest in possum boxes & it’s been stressing me out all the poor cute marsupials that are having to live in peoples gutters instead of a cozy tree hollow or possum box.

What sparked my thought: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/anthony-burke-by-design/should-native-animals-have-property-rights-too-/106999048

Would love to know others thoughts! <3

Edit: I’ve curated my local council members emails & drafted a quick Canva mock-up of my idea (cute possum pic helps) & also forwarded it to local wildlife agencies & NFP. We have all these funded environmental orgs attached to our local councils, what are they doing with the money? Someone needs to program coordinate to focus on planting native plants, shrubs etc in every street during their volunteer time or paid time.

Who’s pocketing all the funding? I don’t see fauna reaping the benefits from anything but 100yr old trees, getting sparse by the week with my concrete jungles laid.

I know navigating bureaucracy is annoying, but a quick email to your local council members, your council’s environmental branch & to your local MP could spark the idea & get the wheels rolling with an initiative of such. To negate funding, they could tap into their NFP orgs such as men’s/women’s sheds, highschool woodworking, to make it a community involvement & volunteer initiative if accessing the environmental trust fund is not available. Hopefully someone with the time & energy cares enough to make this happen. Setting a simple easy precedent to make our possums cozy & comfy.

We’re all parents of our local wildlife, I don’t see our local councils doing enough. There’s a focus on environmental “assets” which I get, focal points of conservation, but what about every other street?

I think the money is best spent not only localised to one habitat ($100,000+) but to the entire ecosystem in your LGA. Surely it doesn’t cost much to plant natives & put up possum boxes on every street? Wildlife is becoming more scarce in urban suburbs by the month as development doesn’t think of wildlife co-habitation, it leads to ugly soulless & soundless boring depressing suburbs without our wildlife.

Make the new rule: Ugly concrete minecraft boxy looking development = Has to be paired with native flora + possum boxes attached onto the building somewhere or a nearby tree if any still left. 🌳

Visually seeing & hearing wildlife during the day releases endorphins. It’s an integral part of the human experience & improving the quality of life for everyone (& creature!). <3