1 August 2013

Atonishing skippy haul in truncated cull

1 August 2013 | johnboy

TAMS gives word that the cull is over, the parks are re-opening, and 1149 delicious kangaroo carcasses are going to waste (along with 355 joeys):

The ACT Government wishes to advise that Callum Brae Nature Reserve, Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve (and adjacent unleased territory land), Kama Nature Reserve, Mulanggari Nature Reserve, Mt Painter Nature Reserve, Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve and The Pinnacle Nature Reserve (and adjacent unleased territory land) re-open to the public at midday today.

The sites had been closed since 11 July 2013 to allow for a conservation cull of over-abundant kangaroos to take place.

“A total of 1149 kangaroos have been culled as part of the ACT Government’s ongoing program to protect these grassland and woodland sites from overgrazing,” said Director, Parks and Conservation, Daniel Iglesias.

“An additional 355 pouch young, the majority of which were very small and unfurred due to the timing of the cull, were also killed.

Right down the end they do note they managed to use 15% of the meat as fox baits.

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poetix10:59 am 05 Aug 13

Grimm said :

poetix said :

Is Science more important than science? Why the capitals?

And if you think this controversy won’t happen every year, you are being a tad naive.

Because the fancy technology of auto correct likes to screw with me.

….

Thus showing how the application of science to a problem involves mistakes and unseen consequences…

Same as any other human endeavour.

wildturkeycanoe12:21 pm 04 Aug 13

Whilst we are into protecting or eliminating roos here in Canberra’s center, what about the ones out in the paddocks? I recently read about some bad people digging up the dirt and grass in our Cotter catchment area. Whilst this may seem like a bad thing to do, how much more do kangaroos affect our water by defecating into it? I’m sure the impact is greater than that of some tyre treads.
[insert – “Please provide source.” here.]

Grimm7:03 pm 03 Aug 13

poetix said :

Is Science more important than science? Why the capitals?

And if you think this controversy won’t happen every year, you are being a tad naive.

Because the fancy technology of auto correct likes to screw with me.

The controversy can happen all it wants, but no court or tribunal time will be wasted. Clueless tree huggers will always whine. They also usually do fkn nothing for conservation other than complain.

crappicker3:20 pm 03 Aug 13

MrBigEars said :

crappicker said :

Mr BigEars you seem better informed than most.

Your raise four concerns regarding fertility control.

Concern 1 proved not a problem when darting kangaroos for fitting GPS collars.

Concerns 2 and 3 equally apply to shooting.

Concern 4 obviously favours fertility control over shooting.

So I can only conclude that regarding the concerns you raise, fertility control scores favourably over shooting.

I realise that research on fertility control necessarily takes time to avoid unwarranted consequences. However the ACT government has not communicated well, if at all, what fertility research research has been undertaken, what research is current, and what progress has been made or can reasonably be expected.

Unless some real information is provided, fertility control seems like carbon capture and storage – a conspiracy to keep the status quo without any prospect of delivery on expectations raised.

1) Didn’t prove a problem in darting and fitting collars for 25 kangaroos. I’m not sure how many kangaroos will need to be darted for contraceptive implants, but I’m guessing it’s significantly more than that.

2) Calculating the carrying capacity of a system, and reducing the population to or below that is fairly straight forward.

Calculating how many kangaroos you need to render infertile to achieve a population at or below carrying capacity is currently unknown. Calculating the point at which the proportion of infertile kangaroos prevents population maintenance is currently unknown.

3) certainly applies to both, and should always be considered. As culling doesn’t impact on fertility*, the remaining kangaroo population can recover better than a population where a proportion (perhaps a significant proportion) is incapable of breeding.

*that I’m aware of. Future research could well prove me wrong.

4) Can’t really argue with that.

The main reason culling stacks up better, right now, because it has a known and instant effectiveness. Shooting x kangaroos in nature reserves reduces the population density by x/ha, immediately. So you get an immediate reduction in grazing intensity at the time that you need it.
Contraceptive population control has a (currently) unknown effect on grazing intensity, but more importantly the desired reduction in grazing intensity occurs over a longer time period. Perhaps when the techniques and understanding has improved, fertility control will reduce the need to cull kangaroos, but probably wont eliminate it entirely.

I’m not qualified to comment on media strategies, so I shan’t.

Thank you MrBigEars for your comments.

Concern 1: Fine.

Concern 2: Outcome of a calculation will depend on the particular model applied. Merits or otherwise of individual models are debatable. A trial and error method seems more appropriate, but no knowledge will be gained unless the trial is actually started.

Concern 3: This assumes that kangaroos will instantly start breeding despite their family structures having blown to pieces. Other mammals may be susceptible to PTSD too.

Concern 4: Fine.

Surely culling will give an instant reduction in population if out of hand, but an out-of-hand situation is probably avoidable by proper fertility control. Boom-Bust cycles may well be an Australian characteristic, unfortunately for native Australian kangaroos the cycles look more like boom.. boom.. boom till bust.

CraigT7:26 am 03 Aug 13

Grimm said :

. It’s an all round win for Science and common sense, really. 🙂

I think the lawyers won, too. All of them.

IrishPete7:19 am 03 Aug 13

Grimm said :

Yes, the Science was done, resulting in the KMP. You know this all too well, because in several articles I have seen you attempt exceedingly unsuccessfully debunk the data. With all your kind of wowser around, they absolutely have to spend a lot of time and money researching population density, and sustainable numbers.

In the end, you’re clearly not qualified to decide if the research is correct or not. You have not made a single credible or workable argument against the cull. Nothing but uninformed, emotionally based animal libber rhetoric, and denial of the studies done to justify the cull. Not that it really matters now. Your beloved furry friends are dead and buried.

The other animal kooks have also now lost their case, probably because it too was poorly prepared, uninformed, ignored Science, and lacked a common sense alternative, clearing the way for future culls without idiotic impedance. It’s an all round win for Science and common sense, really. 🙂

Throughout I have asked for science since the KMP, and scientific research from Canberra, which the KMP is very thin on. There has been no released scientific evaluation, actually, there’s been no evaluation at all, nor any research of any quality, released since the KMP and the commencement of the cull several years ago. Yet, without adding up the figures around $1 million has been spent paying shooters.

Even if TAMS does release research now, the chances of it being objective are pretty slim given the public position they have taken throughout. It is probably all we will get, if we ever get it at all, but it will need to be read very critically. (Compare, for example, the nurse walk in centre evaluation which tried to put a hugely positive spin on a failed public policy.)

If or when the cull can be shown to be scientifically justified, I’ll stop whingeing. Until then, critiquing of all government policy unsupported by research or evaluation will continue.

460cixy11:42 pm 02 Aug 13

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Ignoring the racist/xenophobic comment (okay, I didn’t really ignore it), there is a science to counting populations. I learned it in high school biology.

So, essentially, it’s only Science you don’t like that you choose to ignore?

There’s science to shooting roos? Where’s the evaluation? That’s science. Every year the numbers seem to bounce back to the number they were before the cull, or higher. That tells my scientific mind that there’s something not quite right about the strategy. If TAMS is doing scientific research it is secret. There is nothing meaningful on their website since the Kangaroo Management Plan several years ago, but plenty of money for bullets. And the KMP itself is very light in a number of areas.

IP

Yes, the Science was done, resulting in the KMP. You know this all too well, because in several articles I have seen you attempt exceedingly unsuccessfully debunk the data. With all your kind of wowser around, they absolutely have to spend a lot of time and money researching population density, and sustainable numbers.

In the end, you’re clearly not qualified to decide if the research is correct or not. You have not made a single credible or workable argument against the cull. Nothing but uninformed, emotionally based animal libber rhetoric, and denial of the studies done to justify the cull. Not that it really matters now. Your beloved furry friends are dead and buried.

The other animal kooks have also now lost their case, probably because it too was poorly prepared, uninformed, ignored Science, and lacked a common sense alternative, clearing the way for future culls without idiotic impedance. It’s an all round win for Science and common sense, really. 🙂

Bloody well said mate

poetix8:10 pm 02 Aug 13

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Ignoring the racist/xenophobic comment (okay, I didn’t really ignore it), there is a science to counting populations. I learned it in high school biology.

So, essentially, it’s only Science you don’t like that you choose to ignore?

There’s science to shooting roos? Where’s the evaluation? That’s science. Every year the numbers seem to bounce back to the number they were before the cull, or higher. That tells my scientific mind that there’s something not quite right about the strategy. If TAMS is doing scientific research it is secret. There is nothing meaningful on their website since the Kangaroo Management Plan several years ago, but plenty of money for bullets. And the KMP itself is very light in a number of areas.

IP

Yes, the Science was done, resulting in the KMP. You know this all too well, because in several articles I have seen you attempt exceedingly unsuccessfully debunk the data. With all your kind of wowser around, they absolutely have to spend a lot of time and money researching population density, and sustainable numbers.

In the end, you’re clearly not qualified to decide if the research is correct or not. You have not made a single credible or workable argument against the cull. Nothing but uninformed, emotionally based animal libber rhetoric, and denial of the studies done to justify the cull. Not that it really matters now. Your beloved furry friends are dead and buried.

The other animal kooks have also now lost their case, probably because it too was poorly prepared, uninformed, ignored Science, and lacked a common sense alternative, clearing the way for future culls without idiotic impedance. It’s an all round win for Science and common sense, really. 🙂

Is Science more important than science? Why the capitals?

And if you think this controversy won’t happen every year, you are being a tad naive.

Grimm7:39 pm 02 Aug 13

IrishPete said :

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Ignoring the racist/xenophobic comment (okay, I didn’t really ignore it), there is a science to counting populations. I learned it in high school biology.

So, essentially, it’s only Science you don’t like that you choose to ignore?

There’s science to shooting roos? Where’s the evaluation? That’s science. Every year the numbers seem to bounce back to the number they were before the cull, or higher. That tells my scientific mind that there’s something not quite right about the strategy. If TAMS is doing scientific research it is secret. There is nothing meaningful on their website since the Kangaroo Management Plan several years ago, but plenty of money for bullets. And the KMP itself is very light in a number of areas.

IP

Yes, the Science was done, resulting in the KMP. You know this all too well, because in several articles I have seen you attempt exceedingly unsuccessfully debunk the data. With all your kind of wowser around, they absolutely have to spend a lot of time and money researching population density, and sustainable numbers.

In the end, you’re clearly not qualified to decide if the research is correct or not. You have not made a single credible or workable argument against the cull. Nothing but uninformed, emotionally based animal libber rhetoric, and denial of the studies done to justify the cull. Not that it really matters now. Your beloved furry friends are dead and buried.

The other animal kooks have also now lost their case, probably because it too was poorly prepared, uninformed, ignored Science, and lacked a common sense alternative, clearing the way for future culls without idiotic impedance. It’s an all round win for Science and common sense, really. 🙂

bundah7:19 pm 02 Aug 13

IrishPete said :

Grimm said :

IrishPete said :

Ignoring the racist/xenophobic comment (okay, I didn’t really ignore it), there is a science to counting populations. I learned it in high school biology.

So, essentially, it’s only Science you don’t like that you choose to ignore?

There’s science to shooting roos? Where’s the evaluation? That’s science. Every year the numbers seem to bounce back to the number they were before the cull, or higher. That tells my scientific mind that there’s something not quite right about the strategy. If TAMS is doing scientific research it is secret. There is nothing meaningful on their website since the Kangaroo Management Plan several years ago, but plenty of money for bullets. And the KMP itself is very light in a number of areas.

IP

It’s obviously a process of elimination for the more that are eliminated the more effective the process..

MrBigEars4:48 pm 02 Aug 13

crappicker said :

Mr BigEars you seem better informed than most.

Your raise four concerns regarding fertility control.

Concern 1 proved not a problem when darting kangaroos for fitting GPS collars.

Concerns 2 and 3 equally apply to shooting.

Concern 4 obviously favours fertility control over shooting.

So I can only conclude that regarding the concerns you raise, fertility control scores favourably over shooting.

I realise that research on fertility control necessarily takes time to avoid unwarranted consequences. However the ACT government has not communicated well, if at all, what fertility research research has been undertaken, what research is current, and what progress has been made or can reasonably be expected.

Unless some real information is provided, fertility control seems like carbon capture and storage – a conspiracy to keep the status quo without any prospect of delivery on expectations raised.

1) Didn’t prove a problem in darting and fitting collars for 25 kangaroos. I’m not sure how many kangaroos will need to be darted for contraceptive implants, but I’m guessing it’s significantly more than that.

2) Calculating the carrying capacity of a system, and reducing the population to or below that is fairly straight forward.

Calculating how many kangaroos you need to render infertile to achieve a population at or below carrying capacity is currently unknown. Calculating the point at which the proportion of infertile kangaroos prevents population maintenance is currently unknown.

3) certainly applies to both, and should always be considered. As culling doesn’t impact on fertility*, the remaining kangaroo population can recover better than a population where a proportion (perhaps a significant proportion) is incapable of breeding.

*that I’m aware of. Future research could well prove me wrong.

4) Can’t really argue with that.

The main reason culling stacks up better, right now, because it has a known and instant effectiveness. Shooting x kangaroos in nature reserves reduces the population density by x/ha, immediately. So you get an immediate reduction in grazing intensity at the time that you need it.
Contraceptive population control has a (currently) unknown effect on grazing intensity, but more importantly the desired reduction in grazing intensity occurs over a longer time period. Perhaps when the techniques and understanding has improved, fertility control will reduce the need to cull kangaroos, but probably wont eliminate it entirely.

I’m not qualified to comment on media strategies, so I shan’t.

poetix1:08 pm 02 Aug 13

MrBigEars said :

poetix said :

Ugly and stupid. There needs to be money spent so that a contraceptive solution is found.

While contraceptive strategies sound like a great solution they are fraught with difficulty that need to be addressed.
1) Delivery: How do you effectively administer contraception to enough animals to ensure maintenance of population? Chemical restraint via darting and administering the contraceptive may be an option, but you are required to be between 20-25 metres of the kangaroo (Dart guns are notoriously inaccurate), and sedation requires continual monitoring. The closeness required and the monitoring necessary would mean that very limited numbers of individuals could be treated at any one time. Also, keep in mind any anaesthetic has risks of complication, and kangaroos are prone to capture myopathy. Contraception via feed stations is being trialled, but the problem is in a free-living population there is little control over how many individuals receive the treatment and how much treatment an individual receives.
2) Population constraints: How many individuals do we need treat for the population to remain sustainable for the grasslands? If we inadvertently over treat the population, how many fertile kangaroos are needed to maintain a population at the local level?
3)Stochastic events: What do we do if the population crashes via disease or another mechanism? If the overall population dramatically decreases, there is a risk the infertile individuals increasing their proportional representation with the population. If the proportion of fertile individuals is significantly smaller than the number identified at 2), do we run the risk of a population decline?
4) Reversal : In the case of 2) and 3), can we quickly administer a reversal agent to enough kangaroos to avoid population declines? The same issues in 1) apply here.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing contraception as a management tool. It has great potential, but like anything, it has drawbacks that need to be addressed. As such it will not be a solution in and of itself, but will part of the broader management context.
None of the issues will be addressed without research, and research takes time. In the meantime, PCL has an obligation to maintain biodiversity values within the reserve system (including a legal requirement in the case of grassy Yellowbox woodlands), but they can only use the tools available to do so.

Thanks for that.

qbngeek1:07 pm 02 Aug 13

MrBigEars said :

poetix said :

Ugly and stupid. There needs to be money spent so that a contraceptive solution is found.

While contraceptive strategies sound like a great solution they are fraught with difficulty that need to be addressed.
1) Delivery: How do you effectively administer contraception to enough animals to ensure maintenance of population? Chemical restraint via darting and administering the contraceptive may be an option, but you are required to be between 20-25 metres of the kangaroo (Dart guns are notoriously inaccurate), and sedation requires continual monitoring. The closeness required and the monitoring necessary would mean that very limited numbers of individuals could be treated at any one time. Also, keep in mind any anaesthetic has risks of complication, and kangaroos are prone to capture myopathy. Contraception via feed stations is being trialled, but the problem is in a free-living population there is little control over how many individuals receive the treatment and how much treatment an individual receives.
2) Population constraints: How many individuals do we need treat for the population to remain sustainable for the grasslands? If we inadvertently over treat the population, how many fertile kangaroos are needed to maintain a population at the local level?
3)Stochastic events: What do we do if the population crashes via disease or another mechanism? If the overall population dramatically decreases, there is a risk the infertile individuals increasing their proportional representation with the population. If the proportion of fertile individuals is significantly smaller than the number identified at 2), do we run the risk of a population decline?
4) Reversal : In the case of 2) and 3), can we quickly administer a reversal agent to enough kangaroos to avoid population declines? The same issues in 1) apply here.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing contraception as a management tool. It has great potential, but like anything, it has drawbacks that need to be addressed. As such it will not be a solution in and of itself, but will part of the broader management context.
None of the issues will be addressed without research, and research takes time. In the meantime, PCL has an obligation to maintain biodiversity values within the reserve system (including a legal requirement in the case of grassy Yellowbox woodlands), but they can only use the tools available to do so.

Nah you just need to hand out skippy condoms and place buckets of them on the nature reserves.

MrBigEars12:27 pm 02 Aug 13

poetix said :

Ugly and stupid. There needs to be money spent so that a contraceptive solution is found.

While contraceptive strategies sound like a great solution they are fraught with difficulty that need to be addressed.
1) Delivery: How do you effectively administer contraception to enough animals to ensure maintenance of population? Chemical restraint via darting and administering the contraceptive may be an option, but you are required to be between 20-25 metres of the kangaroo (Dart guns are notoriously inaccurate), and sedation requires continual monitoring. The closeness required and the monitoring necessary would mean that very limited numbers of individuals could be treated at any one time. Also, keep in mind any anaesthetic has risks of complication, and kangaroos are prone to capture myopathy. Contraception via feed stations is being trialled, but the problem is in a free-living population there is little control over how many individuals receive the treatment and how much treatment an individual receives.
2) Population constraints: How many individuals do we need treat for the population to remain sustainable for the grasslands? If we inadvertently over treat the population, how many fertile kangaroos are needed to maintain a population at the local level?
3)Stochastic events: What do we do if the population crashes via disease or another mechanism? If the overall population dramatically decreases, there is a risk the infertile individuals increasing their proportional representation with the population. If the proportion of fertile individuals is significantly smaller than the number identified at 2), do we run the risk of a population decline?
4) Reversal : In the case of 2) and 3), can we quickly administer a reversal agent to enough kangaroos to avoid population declines? The same issues in 1) apply here.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing contraception as a management tool. It has great potential, but like anything, it has drawbacks that need to be addressed. As such it will not be a solution in and of itself, but will part of the broader management context.
None of the issues will be addressed without research, and research takes time. In the meantime, PCL has an obligation to maintain biodiversity values within the reserve system (including a legal requirement in the case of grassy Yellowbox woodlands), but they can only use the tools available to do so.

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