|
|
Mid-South Coast Newsletter
November 2021 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nellie with Petrie, close to home. |
|
|
Nellie caring for her first joey. |
|
|
|
|
Nellie Loses Her Joey
by Sharon Beder
Nellie, an eastern grey kangaroo joey, was rescued by Janelle Renes in December 2018 when her mother was killed by a car in Nelligen. She weighed 1650g. She joined Petrie, who was about a month older, at my place.
I imagined that after release, they would join up with a passing mob of kangaroos and I would not see much of them after that. Two years later they were both still hanging around, interacting with kangaroos that were passing through but not moving on themselves.
Early this year, I noticed Nellie was spending a lot of time licking around her pouch, presumably making a path for a newborn joey to find its way into the pouch. She cared for the growing joey studiously and wouldn’t let me near it.
I first saw the joey's head poking out of Nellie’s pouch at the end of July. However a couple of days later Nellie was nowhere in sight and the next morning she turned up with an empty, bloody pouch that had a hole in it near the entrance.
There were several theories about what had happened to her. One was that Nellie had been attacked by a male kangaroo wanting to get rid of a rival’s joey (apparently that happens!). Another was that she had got caught on a neighbour’s barbed wire fence. We searched for the joey but could not find it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nellie’s swollen pouch. Photos by Sharon Beder.
|
|
|
|
|
In the next couple of days the pouch swelled up and hung open. I contacted the mobile vet, Chantal Whitten, who consulted with experts at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. They said that the pouch could recover with proper treatment. So each day I sprayed her wound with Cetrigen (a purple antibacterial spray) and fed her pellets mixed with an anti-inflammatory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sure enough over the next few weeks the swelling went down and the hole next to the entrance got smaller. It took a month or two for her to be able to use the muscles to close the pouch again.
Hopefully, she can now have another joey.
|
|
|
|
|
Nellie’s pouch a couple of weeks later. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
November is Turtle Month
The ‘1 Million Turtles Program’ is seeking to train citizens to report sightings of freshwater turtles, starting this November.
Turtle numbers are declining due to urbanisation, disease and predators, particularly foxes. Yet turtle scavengers are important to the health of river ecosystems.
A mobile phone app, TurtleSat, has been developed to simplify reporting of turtle sightings
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The tiny parma wallaby, presumed extinct. Photo Benjamint444/Wikimedia. |
|
|
|
|
The Parma Wallaby
The parma wallaby weighs only 5kg and has a body length of 55cm. It prefers a moist eucalyptus forest with thick shrubby understory and was once found from southern Queensland down to Bega.
However its small size means it is vulnerable to a number of predators such as dogs, cats and foxes. It was presumed extinct before being rediscovered in the 1970s.
Now it is estimated that there are fewer than 10,000 remaining and that was before the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires when over half of its habitat was destroyed.
Ref: Elliott Dooley and Matt Hayward, This shy little wallaby has a white moustache and shares its name with a pub meal. Yet it’s been overlooked for decades, The Conversation, 2 September 2021.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tuskless adult female African elephant in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. Photograph: Jennifer Guyton/Caters News Agency |
|
|
|
|
Evolution of Tuskless Elephant
Decades of hunting elephants for their ivory tusks has led to the evolution of elephants born without tusks.
Once a rare genetic mutation, tuskless elephants are becoming very common amongst African elephants. Between 1977 and 1992 there was a civil war in Mozambique and armies on both sides killed elephants for their ivory, to fund their fighting. As a result 90% of the elephant population was slaughtered while tuskless elephants were left alone.
The problem is that male elephants with this genetic mutation do not survive in the womb, so the populations of elephants have many fewer males. It is hoped the situation will right itself if elephants are protected from poaching, since the surviving male elephants don’t have the mutation.
Ref: Robyn Vinter, Ivory poaching has led to evolution of tuskless elephants, study finds, The Guardian, 22 October 2021.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Male pot-bellied seahorses have large fleshy pouches where embryos develop during pregnancy. Photo by Aaron Gustafson.
Pot-bellied seahorses are found in harbours and protected bays, on the Pacific coast of Australia and NZ. Before mating the males fill their bellies with water to attract females by showing how well they can incubate babies. The female places eggs into the male’s brood pouch, after a mating dance, and they are fertilised there by the male. For 30 days the growing embryos are fed nutrients and then the male gives birth to up to 1,000 babies, that are independent of their parents.
Ref: Jessica Dudley and Camilla Whittington, Pregnant male seahorses support up to 1,000 growing babies by forming a placenta, The Conversation, 16 September 2021.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Rare Brushtailed Phascogale |
|
|
The brushtailed phascogale is one of the rarest animals on the NSW South Coast. There have only been about 3 sightings of this threatened species per decade in southern NSW. One was at Broulee in 2015 in a compost heap at Carroll College. They are about the size of a sugar glider, nocturnal and live in the trees. If you see one contact Susan Rhind on Phascogale@gmail.com.
Reference: Budawang Coast Atlas of Life, posted by Zora Brown on WIRES MSC Facebook page, 24 September 2021. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
How to Make a Mealworm Farm |
|
|
The Easy Way
-
Use one container (at least as large as a shoe box, preferably larger) and let the mealworms, beatles, larvae and eggs all live together.
-
You can start with as little as one 100g box of mealworms, available from pet stores and rural produce stores like Harrisons in Moruya.
-
Use 2-3 inches of bran and/or oats and sprinkle the mealworms on top, they will burrow down into it.
-
Cover with an old egg carton to give them darkness and if you put a lid on the container make sure it has plenty of air holes. A fine net material can serve as a lid to keep out cockroaches and moths .
-
You don’t need to worry about a heat mat in winter. You just won’t get new mealworms till spring/summer.
-
Add carrot or potato pieces each week so the mealworms have a source of moisture and remove the old ones before they get mouldy. No other source of water is necessary.
-
Add oats/bran as required to keep the level up.
|
|
|
Diagram: Making Your Own Mealworm Farm, The Happy Chicken Coop, accessed October 2021.
|
|
|
More Complicated Way
1. Separate containers for beatles, larvae, and eggs, https://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Mealworms
2. Self-sorting mealworm farm - see video below.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Started in 2018, this long term project aspires to empower anyone with an interest in nature to become a citizen scientist. We aim to record all species in our uniquely beautiful region and for the data to be used by citizen scientists, researchers and decision makers to better protect and conserve our natural world.
Our region in SE NSW spans the landscape from the Great Dividing Range in the west to Moruya in the south and almost to Kiama in the north, including all land and marine protected areas." (Photo by Brigitte Nairn.)
Video Tutorials on How to Make Observations and Add Them |
|
|
|
|
|
|
WIRES MSC Rescues 2010-2021 |
|
|
Rescues September and October 2021 |
|
|
|
Graphs compiled by Rachel E. McInnes using data on WIRES CarerHQ website. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Some Pics from WIRES Mid-South Coast
|
|
|
Yowie, the lapwing chick, in care by Zora Brown. |
|
|
Peak a Boo, 5g red-capped plover chick found on the beach, with Gringe (bottom) in care of Sandy. Photos by Rachel McInness and Sandy Collins. |
|
|
|
|
Tokoloshe, Vlooi and Dottie, brushtail possums sharing a box. Photo and care by Sandy Collins. |
|
|
Obi, pinky joey rescued at only 409 g, pictured some weeks later, in care of Nalda Paterson. Screen capture from video. |
|
|
|
|
Harley, 2245 g male eastern grey joey rescued from its dead mother’s pouch in Long Beach by Caz Roberts. He has joined Hope and Hopper at Debbie Ellis’s place. Photo by Zora Brown. |
|
|
Bella, eastern grey kangaroo joey, rescued by Michelle Edwy-Smith, initially cared for by Nalda, and now in care of Michelle. Photo by Nalda Paterson. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Oxpeckers are small birds that feed on ticks and other parasites that they glean from the bodies of large mammals. Most usually they are seen riding along on large mammals such as buffalo, wildebeest and giraffe whilst they search their hosts for ticks or open wounds.” (I think we need them at Bingie!) The birds apparently roost on the underside of the giraffe at night, near the hind legs, since the giraffe stands all night. Photo by Russ Burden
Ref: Lucy Hughes, The curious case of the giraffe and the oxpecker, Snapshot Serengeti, 17 January 2014. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Featured YouTube: Kangaroo rescued from Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
