Below experts respond.

There is more information about the listing online here. You can download the media release from the Minister’s office here.

 Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  Any further comments will be  posted here.  If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Dr Jonathan Rhodes is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management at The University of Queensland

“The decision to list the koala as vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, the states where it is most threatened, is a welcome decision and is well justified by the scientific evidence. We have known for some time that koalas in Queensland and New South Wales, in particular, are declining rapidly, due primarily to clearing of their habitat and urban development. In addition, climate change is now appearing as an additional threat for koalas. Without greater protection, koalas in these states would almost certainly continue to  decline towards extinction. Although the new listing is great news in that it will help to limit the impact of new development on koalas, reducing threats from existing infrastructure, such as the high levels of koala deaths on roads, is  going to continue be critical for the conservation of this Australian icon.”

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Chris Johnson is a Professor of Wildlife Conservation and an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow in the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania

“The decision to create a split listing for the koala is unusual but sensible. The problems facing koalas are very different across its geographic range. In the south, some populations are over-abundant and are damaging their habitat. In the north, koala populations are in decline for a multitude of reasons. Some of these reasons are quite well understood. For example, we know very well that koalas are threatened by cars and dogs in southeast Qld. Others are poorly understood: there is a strong possibility that rising atmospheric CO2 could be harming koalas by affecting the nutritional quality of gum leaves, but we don’t know how much this is contributing to declines.

 The northern and southern populations are now basically separate. There is little or no gene flow between them because koalas are so rare across southern New South Wales. We will need to think about the differing needs of northern and southern koalas almost as if they are two different species. Therefore it makes sense that they be given separate listings, and it is a reasonable assessment of the evidence to class the northern population as ‘vulnerable’.”

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Dr Greg Baxter is a Senior Lecturer in Wildlife Management in the School of Geography Planning & Environmental Management at The University of Queensland

“I welcome the Minister’s announcement. There is good evidence that koala populations in Queensland and NSW have suffered rapid and significant reductions since the early 1990s, while some populations in Victoria and South Australia are overabundant. Hence splitting the national population into management units that reflect these differences is a very sensible and worthwhile outcome. Recognition that the Queensland and NSW populations are vulnerable is a major step towards securing their future.”

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Scientists involved in the research are from The Australian National University, Canberra; James Cook University, Townsville; The University of Adelaide; The University of New South Wales; Monash University, Melbourne and The University of Tasmania.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you would like a copy of the research, please contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Chris Johnson, who is lead author of the research paper, is a Professor of Wildlife Conservation & ARC Australian Professorial Fellow in the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania

“We are excited by this research not just because it helps us to understand why Australia’s megafauna went extinct. More importantly, it moves the question on by focussing on the ecological impacts of that extinction. Big animals have big impacts on plants. It follows that removing big animals should produce significant changes in vegetation.

Twenty years ago, Tim Flannery argued that one of the results of megafaunal extinction was increased fire in Australian landscapes, as fine plant matter that would have been eaten by giant kangaroos, Diprotodons etc accumulated and provided fuel for wildfires. Our results suggest that he may have been right, at least for some places. They also suggest that as well as releasing fire, taking out big herbivores had direct effects on the structure and composition of vegetation, making it more dense and uniform. Getting a better understanding of how environments across Australia changed as a result of megafaunal extinction is a big and interesting challenge, and will help us to understand the dynamics of contemporary Australian ecosystems.”

There are further quotes from Prof Johnson on request.

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Dr Judith Field, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of New South Wales

Outlines her reasons why she finds the research’s conclusions invalid within a longer statement which is available to download here

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Dr Gavin Prideaux is a lecturer in vertebrate palaeontology in the School of Biological Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia

“This is an important contribution to our understanding of what happened 40,000 years ago or so when 90 per cent of our large terrestrial species disappeared, depriving us of the sight of giant short-faced kangaroos, marsupial ‘lions’, giant horned tortoises and herds of Diprotodons meandering through the outback.

The authors present a fascinating dataset from a sediment-filled crater in northeastern Australia and inject new data into a field of enquiry that aches under the strain of opinion pieces and the tired reworking of published data. From the significant drop-off in the abundance of a herbivore dung fungus, they make the reasonable inference that this corresponds to a substantial drop in local herbivore biomass around 40,000 years ago. They argue that this reflects the local loss of the larger Pleistocene species hitherto inhabiting the area and that the changes in vegetation and fire that followed were a direct result of the extinctions.

The timing of the inferred extinction coincides with early human presence in the region, but not with significant climatic change. This supports a mounting number of studies that have argued that climate change was not primarily responsible for the Late Pleistocene extinctions in other parts of the continent. To test the inferences from this paper we might look at similar lake records from other regions of Australia and seek fossil deposits in the northeast that preserve bones of the giant animals themselves.”

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Dr John Alroy is a Future Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science at Macquarie University, NSW

(Dr Alroy responds to our questions)

How strong are the implications of this research?

“Extremely strong. The data are superb and decisive: all you have to do is look at the diagrams showing the raw data (Fig. 1) and the conclusions become obvious. The key new data are the spore counts, and in combination with the charcoal and rainforest pollen data they tell the whole story. There is simply no reasonable way to argue with the authors’ conclusions.”

How reliable do you think the techniques used in the research are?

“The age model is excellent and the sampling is very intensive over a very long time interval. Wow. But the statistical analyses have all sorts of problems: in some cases the authors used unorthodox time series methods that are dubious, and in others they used relatively simplistic methods whose assumptions are violated by the data. Some key inferences about the very fine-scale timing of events were also drawn on the basis of an analysis that actually seems somewhat ambiguous (Fig. 2). But again, all you have to do is look at the diagrams. The statistics really don’t matter.”

How do the findings fit into the debate on how Australian megafauna became extinct?

“Wow. The debate really should be over now. Hunting did it: end of story.

Personally, though, I never understood what there was to debate because nothing else made sense.

First, most Quaternary paleoecologists immediately point to climate change whenever there is an interesting pattern to explain. But huge climate changes happened over and over again throughout the Pleistocene and there was no mass extinction. And the new data rule out any role for climate change at all.

Second, the only other viable hypotheses was the landscape burning idea. But that never really seemed plausible, if for no other reason than because all sorts of organisms including many small mammals with good fossil records also should have gone extinct if only fire was important. The fact that only very large mammals (and birds) went extinct only ever made any sense on the theory that hunting was the mechanism.

In reality, the debate should have started and ended with Paul Martin’s landmark analysis from 1967 (!). But it has dragged on for nearly a half-century now because the idea that stone age hunters could cause such utter havoc across three entire continents over very short time spans strikes many people as incredible. Like it or not, though, it’s the truth, and it’s time for us to all confront it.”

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*The Aftermath of Megafaunal Extinction: Ecosystem Transformation in Pleistocene Australia, Johnson et al., Science, Vol 335, 23 March, 2012

An Australian scientist has written a provocative opinion piece which looks at the impact of grazing on bushfires, as well as the problem of feral flora and fauna in Australia. It suggests considering all potential solutions, including the introduction of wild elephants to keep introduced grasses under control.

Below the author explains his intentions while other experts in the field respond to the piece. 

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you would like to receive a copy of the embargoed paper or to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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David Bowman, author of the Comment piece, is Professor of Environmental Change Biology at the School for Plant Science at the University of Tasmania (author comment)

“This piece is intentionally challenging. We are going to be driven, whether we like it or not, to think outside the square, because current approaches to land management in many of our landscape settings – in protected areas and unprotected areas, productive landscapes and outback Australia – are not working. Or the approaches we’ve got are not sustainable. We’ve got some big challenges ahead, that’s the point, and we have to be honest about it. Humans are a very important part of Australian ecology.

What I’m saying can be completely misconstrued and that will be sad if it’s put into a polarising debate. What I’m saying is that these challenges open up really fresh thinking which is what we need.”

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Dr Aaron Petty is from the Research Institute of the Environment and Livelihoods at Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory

“I will speak mostly about Gamba grass, as it is the major focus of this piece and his only rationale for why elephants are needed. What Professor Bowman suggests is that “the usual approaches…are not working”, but the fact is the usual approaches have not even been tried effectively. As far as I know Gamba Grass has not yet been declared a weed of national significance, although that status is pending. In the Northern Territory, Gamba Grass was only recently, in 2008, declared a controlled weed and its sale as hay banned. This came only after the tireless work of a dedicated and small group fighting against intense pressure and lobbying from the cattle industry.

Prof. Bowman is quite correct in his concern about Gamba Grass as it has the potential to irreversibly alter the structure of our northern savannas. He is also correct that only chemical treatment and physical clearing of the landscape can control it. However, the proportion of the landscape at present invaded by Gamba grass is large, but a tiny proportion of our northern savannas. Containing the spread of Gamba grass will be costly, but tiny compared to, say, recent money applied to prop up the car industry.

Likewise, Prof. Bowman claims that efforts to control buffalo are ineffectual. Yet this is not so, the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC) was immensely successful in eradicating buffalo from Kakadu National Park, rapidly repairing wetlands that were severely damaged from buffalo overpopulation. So, in short, we are not out of ideas, we merely lack the political will to implement the steps needed to control our environmental problems.”

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Professor Richard Hobbs is an Australian Laureate Fellow with the School of Plant Biology at The University of Western Australia

“Dave Bowman has rightly suggested that we need to consider new and varied approaches to tackling Australia’s ecological management conundrums. He points out that existing approaches have largely failed to make an impact on the massive problems of wildfires, feral animals, weeds and so on. I agree that we need to think broadly about alternatives – but we need to do this sensibly and with an eye on the lessons of the past.

Dave provides a wide spectrum of potential strategies, some of which have more merit than others. The Nature article contains some interesting contradictions: in one sentence Dave highlights the importance of controlling the ad hoc release of non-native animals and plants, but in the next advocates the introduction of predators to control feral animals and herbivores to graze the flammable grasses.

Does bringing elephants and komodo dragons into Australia make ecological sense, given the unforeseen circumstances generated by earlier introductions (usually carried out with the best of intentions)?  Species introduced to solve one ecological problem frequently end up causing more and often worse problems themselves. The Nature article mentions fire in both the north and the south of Australia but doesn’t differentiate between the different systems and factors at play. Elephants are unlikely to make any difference to the occurrence of forest fires in Victoria, even supposing Victorians were happy to have elephants running around their state, but they do have the potential to wreak ecological havoc in any ecosystem they are introduced to.

Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that some of our ecosystems may remain changed because of the species we’ve already introduced, rather than introducing more in the hope that they can fix things for us.

In amongst the more outlandish suggestions lurk ideas that are less risky and can work – indeed some are already being implemented, such as the reinstatement of Aboriginal fire management in the north. Programs such as the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s fire management in the Kimberley are having great success. These in themselves are radical innovations, but ones based on sound ecological understanding.

While I agree that the full spectrum of options needs to be canvassed, discussion of bringing elephants to Australia is probably more of a useful ploy to get people’s attention than a serious option for the future.”

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Dr Ricky Spencer is a Senior Lecturer with the Native and Pest Animal Unit at the University of Western Sydney

“Professor Bowman is obviously trying to raise some very important issues that we face in Australia; the problem is that his comments are careless given recent proposals for the establishment of game reserves in NSW and introduction of new potential feral animals into these reserves. His comments about introducing more dingoes to control other feral animals are also irresponsible because the science behind meso-predator release or suppression is in its infancy and at best correlative. If we did go down the road of introducing elephants to Australia, we had better develop the technology to clone saber-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants.”

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Professor Patricia Werner is a Visiting Fellow at the The Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society

“Professor Bowman is the same fellow that made the headlines in the Northern Territory News about five years ago when he advocated introducing African large grazing mammals to rid the place of introduced grasses (i.e. gamba grass, mentioned in this article). So, this is not new.

As for elephants and rhinoceroses, these are browsers, not grazers (as are various types of antelope, cattle, etc.). They eat not only grass but leaves, twigs, fruits, roots they dig up, and even bark. An adult elephant can eat 150 – 300 kg of vegetation a day, only about half of which is grass. They digest only about 40 per cent of what they eat, so have to rely on volume to get enough food to sustain themselves.

There are countless studies in Africa showing that when elephants are removed from an area, tree cover increases. That is, elephants reduce/keep down trees, eating juvenile trees, stripping bark, etc. Are we in Australia prepared to try yet another landscape-scale “experiment” as we did with foxes, rabbits, etc, and merely hope that the elephants don’t find our native Australian trees tasty?  Can we somehow command them to eat only introduced African grasses?  And would we mind seeing our wooded savannas turn to a more grassy-savanna such as those that dominate in Africa – match any rainfall area to ours and you will find less woody cover than we have.”

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Dr Don Driscoll is a Fellow at The Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society

“Professor Bowman makes two critical points in his paper with which I agree. Australian ecosystems are in a desperate state of degradation due to invasive plants and animals. Invasive species have wiped out much of Australia’s natural heritage, they continue to destroy what we have left, and international trade combined with pressures to increase agricultural productivity worsen the problem. The second critical point that Bowman makes is that, because of this ongoing environmental catastrophe, we need to put all of the management options on the table to try to find ways of reducing the rate at which our biodiversity succumbs to the impacts of invasive alien species.

We should therefore consider introducing elephants and rhinoceros to Australia. We should also reconsider widely implemented practices such as culling dingos or burning forests to reduce fuels in southern Australia as an asset-protection measure. Introducing elephants to Australia would likely be rather quickly rejected as a method for controlling invasive gamba grass. The cost of fencing, the effectiveness of controlling the problem (think cane-toads and cane-beetles), and the risk of adverse impacts (e.g. elephants have a tendency to push trees down) would, I suspect, quickly render the elephant option less attractive than alternative actions for controlling gamba grass.

On the other hand, evidence is mounting that dingos have enormous environmental benefits with little increased risk to the cattle industry, and wide-spread fuel reduction in forests has negative environmental and water quality impacts, while having little influence over the risk of house loss in wildfires. It is crucial to consider all of the management options for dealing with invasive species (even ideas that might seem crazy at first), and it is just as crucial to consider their cost and the evidence of the kinds of impacts that each option will have on a range of societal objectives.”

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*Bring elephants to Australia?, Bowman., Nature, Vol 482, 2012

Embargo lifted at 00:01am AEDT on Friday 18 Nov 2011

Australia is about to open the world’s most advanced biosecurity research facility, a high-security centre within CSIRO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong. Minister for Science Kim Carr will launch the facility on Friday 18 November but there is an opportunity for journalists to talk to the leading scientists in advance and to tour the biocontainment facility before it ‘goes live’ and is protected under the highest level of biosecurity.

The AAHL Collaborative Biosecurity Research Facility (ACBRF) is dedicated to research on infectious diseases that affect human, domestic animal and wildlife health. The internationally shared resource includes state-of-the art microscopy technology which will enable fundamental research with infectious disease agents that require the highest levels of biocontainment.

Follow the briefing online to ask questions such as:

• What sort of viruses will be studied?
• What makes this new facility so unique?
• Will this make Australia safer?
• What will Australian researchers be able to do that they couldn’t before?
• What safety measures are in place to ensure infectious diseases do not escape this facility?
• Will this facility improve our chances of finding cures for diseases such as Hendra virus, SARS etc.?
• What international collaborations are being planned?

You can follow the full briefing here.  (Full buffering may take  a few minutes).  An audio file of the briefing is also available from us on request.

SPEAKERS:

• Professor Martyn Jeggo, Director of CSIRO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory: “Biosecurity of the Future”
• Dr Alex Hyatt, Head of the AAHL Biosecurity Microscopy Facility (ABMF): “Visualising the Invisible”
• Dr Linfa Wang, Leader of the AAHL Virology Group: “Containing the Contagion”

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Wednesday November 16, 2011
START TIME: 10am AEDT
DURATION: 45 min
VENUE:  AAHL, Geelong, Victoria

To arrange interviews with the speakers, contact: Emma Wilkins, Communications Advisor, CSIRO Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory (mobile: 0409 031 658 or email Emma).   Photos and broadcast quality video of the new facility are also available from CSIRO.  For any other general enquires, contact us on 08 7120 8666 or by email.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Dr Barry Smyth is President of the Australian Veterinary Association

“There is no evidence that dogs can spread Hendra and in fact the dog in question didn’t develop clinical signs, however there is a general need for good hygiene around all animals including family pets.

“This is a new development in the Hendra story and hopefully it could tell us more about the disease. In the meantime it’s important to continue to take appropriate precautions against Hendra virus infection, such as moving horses from paddocks or fence off tree with flying foxes, and not leaving out food like fruit or vegetables.

“It’s also important to remember if you have a sick horse to make sure you wash your hands and equipment, protect yourself from body fluids, and call you vet immediately.”

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Professor Martyn Jeggo is Director CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory

“This is the first time outside of a laboratory that we have evidence that an animal other than a flying fox, horse or human has been confirmed to have Hendra virus antibodies.

There has always been an understanding that other animal species may be susceptible to Hendra virus infection, however there has previously never been evidence of this in the field. It is something we have been aware of, which is a key reason for diagnostic testing being undertaken on infected properties.

There are areas of research that will now need to be looked at in light of this recent development, for example further research into how this virus affects dogs and the potential for risk of transmission to humans. However we still need to continue our vital Hendra virus research, including our work with the horse vaccine, which is currently on track to be available for potential use in 2012.

The other key research area that we need to focus on is to better understand why this disease emerges from bats, what causes it to switch hosts and what factors are involved in allowing this to happen.”

For further details on the current Hendra virus incidents and the risks these represent please contact Biosecurity Queensland (07 3405 6996), as they are investigating the situation in the field.

• For further information on our vaccine work please visit – www.csiro.au/multimedia/Hendra-virus-vaccine.html (podcast)
• For further information on our research with bats please visit – www.csiro.au/news/Bat-immunity-key-to-controlling-deadly-viruses.html

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Statement from the Queensland Chief Veterinary Officer:

Queensland Government
Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation
Queensland Health

 26 July 2011

Hendra virus infection confirmed in a dog

The Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong has confirmed that a dog has tested positive for Hendra virus.

Queensland Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Rick Symons said this was an unprecedented situation.

“This is the first time outside of a laboratory that an animal other than a flying fox or a horse, or a human, has been confirmed with Hendra virus infection,” Dr Symons said.

“The dog is on a property where Hendra virus infection has been confirmed and is currently under quarantine.

“Biosecurity Queensland’s policy is to test cats and dogs on properties where there are infected horses.

“In this case, the dog returned two negative results for the presence of the virus but a different type of test conducted at AAHL has confirmed the presence of antibodies.

“This means that at some point the dog has been exposed to the virus but to our knowledge has shown no signs of illness.”

Dr Symons said this case raised many questions for biosecurity and health officials and researchers.

“We don’t know how the dog contracted the virus or when it happened,” he said.

“Based on our knowledge to date, it is most likely that the dog caught the virus from an infected horse.

“The remaining horses and dogs on this property are still being monitored daily and show no signs of illness.

“Biosecurity Queensland has tested other cats and dogs on the eleven properties currently under quarantine in Queensland and has received no other positive results.

“We recommend that people keep dogs and cats away from sick horses to reduce the risk of such an infection happening.”

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said Queensland Health would today speak with the property owners to assess if there were any further people who may have had contact with the infected dog.

“We will continue to monitor the property owners and all previously identified contacts for infected horses on this property,” Dr Young said.

“While we have not seen Hendra virus in a dog before, I believe there is a minimal risk of infection to humans from this animal. For a human to become infected, they would have had to have significant contact with bodily secretions (saliva and/or blood) that contain the Hendra virus.”

Dr Young said Queensland Health continued to have a number of staff working on the Hendra response, including public health officials, medical and testing staff.

“Staff are also available to assist anyone with concerns via 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 84), and mental health staff are on standby to provide counselling or support,” she said.

Up to date information on Hendra virus is available at www.biosecurity.qld.gov.au or phone 13 25 23.

Media:
Biosecurity Queensland – 07 3405 6996

Queensland Health – 07 3234 1439

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