My attempts at being more up to date with my fieldwork updates, haven’t been that much of a success so far, but here’s an attempt to remedying it.
Last week was the heavy week of trapping at Walyungup and Cooloongup Lakes in Safety Bay. This site has 160 traps, which used to be manageable due to the relatively low numbers of quenda that I caught there. In Autumn the trapping at this site resulted in the capture of 16 quenda, 97 black rats, 15 house mice and 2 feral cats. Out of the same number of trap nights this trapping the results were these:
30 quenda (almost double the number caught in autumn)
3 bobtails
85 black rats
4 house mice
1 cat (someone’s pet this time)
The big jump in the number of quenda is really pleasing to see, even though it did create problems for the amount of time it took to clear the traps. The reason for the increase is not clear as the majority of the new animals were adults, so its probably not due to breeding, so it’s either animals that were present in the areas all along and have only just decided to go into traps, or animals have been moving into the trapping grids from elsewhere. My feeling is that it is most likely animals moving into the trapping areas as there was a noticeable increase in the amount of digging that was evident at the sites. Another thing that was really pleasing was that we managed to catch at least 1 quenda in each of the 4 areas that we trap.
Some people have made the suggestion that quenda and black rats might compete, but this data would suggest that this probably isnt the case as quenda numbers appear to have increased substantially while rats numbers have stayed fairly constant.
A quenda attempting to hide in the leaf litter
An update on Paganoni Swamp and Keralup will be coming in a week of so once I get me field PC back from being repaired. It turns out there are limits to how much water a rugged tabled can stand 🙂
I’m trying to be a bit more organised with fieldwork updates this time, and so here’s the first from my week of trapping at Market Reserve and Black Swan Lake straddling Mandjoogoordap Drive (otherwise known as the Mandurah Entrance Rd).
A great week weather wise resulted in a really successful week in the field. The final total was:
15 quenda
12 brushtail possums
12 ravens
6 magpies
11 rats
1 mouse
One of the female possum had twin pouch young, which is really quite rare for this species. It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever seen it. Several other females had pouch young that were nearly furred and big enough to microchip, and do hopefully I’ll be able to keep a track of them once they are weaned if they stay in the area.
Nearly all of the female quenda also had pouch young with some of them being quite large.
Unfortunately this was the first time that I’ve trapped at this site without catching any quenda at Black Swan Lake. The population here dropped quite significantly just after we started working in the area and it has never recovered, despite the efforts of Main Roads WA to remove Foxes from the area. The population has been at an estimated 3 individuals since, but it appears as though they may have now gone extinct. Hopefully I’m wrong and when I trap again in spring I’ll catch some quenda there again (fingers crossed).
I’m off to Paganoni Swamp this week, with a forecast of showers from Tuesday to Friday.
Some of the brush-tailed phascogales at Paganoni Swamp in Karnup have taken up residence in our nestboxes which is allowing us to begin to get a better insight into their ecology on the Swan Coastal Plain.
In May of 2010 I installed 31 nestboxes across the 700ha reserve with the intent of being able to monitor the preference of phascoglaes for nestboxes with and without nesting material and in different habitat types.
One of the nestboxes installed in Paganoni Swamp for use by brush tailed phascogales.
I have been monitoring the nest boxes on a monthly basis over the past 14 months and so far 10 of the 31 nestboxes have been used by phascogales. Four of these appear to have been selected by females for use as maternal den sites in the current breeding season. These four boxes have been packed full of nesting material by the females as you can see in the photos below.
A nest box packed full of nesting material by the industrious little female phascogale in the corner.
So far it appears as thought the phascogales are favouring the boxes where nesting material was supplied with 57% of boxes with nesting material having been used compared to only 12% without. Across the vegetation types in the reserve those boxes surrounded by Melaleuca heath have been the most used at 67%, then those in the tuart-banksia woodland at 50%. The other boxes in the Melaleuca swamp and jarrah-banksia woodland have seen only a small amount of use at 25 and 12% respectively.
It’s Breeding Season
Currently there are only female phascogales around as all of the males have died at the end of the breeding season. In the southern jarrah forest where our current knowledge of brush-tailed phascogale ecology comes from the earliest birth date for a litter of phascogales was July 9, recorded by Susan Rhind. The one female from Paganoni Swamp that I have been able to examine so far in this current breeding season had pouch young on June 11, a full 4 weeks earlier. Given that I’m not on Mythbusters I’m not prepared to draw conclusions from an n=1 sample size, but it does suggest there might be something interesting going as as far as timing of reproduction on the coastal plain.
Tiny 1-2 day old pouch young in the pouch of a female bush-tailed phascogale.
Last week I stepped up the nest box monitoring to include the use of temperature loggers in the nest boxes. Fifteen of the 31 nestboxes now have a temperature logger inside and outside in order to determine exactly how much the boxes are being used. By comparing the temperatures inside and outside the boxes we can determine when the boxes are occupied due to the temperature difference. I’m looking forward to next week when I check the boxes again to see what’s been happening.
Given that part 1 of this update dealt with the Mandurah Entrance Rd, Paganoni Swmap and Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes, that leaves Mandogalup and Roe Highway.
Mandogalup (The Spectacles and Jandakot Regional Park)
15 Quenda – overall the quenda population here hasn’t changed in size, however there was big drop in the population estimate of the eastern side of the freeway at Jandakot Regional Park and a big increase at The Spectacles.
4 Brushtail possums – including one that got a taste for one of my fingers that is still healing nearly 6 weeks later 🙂
7 Western bobtails
15 Black rats –
7 House mice
1 Cat (this one ended up at the Shenton Park Cat Haven where it was more than likely assessed as being not suitable for re-homing and put down.
1 Rabbit
Roe Highway
This was the first time we had trapped at this site, but its one of the more interesting sites as the area and the quenda in the area and their use of the fauna underpasses was studied by Ian Harris when stage 7 of the Roe Highway was constructed in 2005. At the time Ian found that the quenda readily used the underpasses very soon after they were built, but there was also circumstantial evidence for foxes using the underpasses to trap quenda. Each individual quenda that used the underpass stopped doing so after a few weeks and was then never captured again in the area (paper here). Because of this we were particularly interested to see if there were still quenda in the area or if the foxes had managed to finish them off.
So what did we end up with…
32 Quenda – this was really pleasing, although two of these quenda were already microchipped with a different brand of microchip to what we use. I’m still trying to find out who chipped them or if they were released there where they came from originally.
3 Western bobtails
1 Black rat
3 House mice.
There are also plenty of foxes getting around at this site, with tracks and scats all over the place. We also did a few nights of camera trapping last week and got these nice shots of one out for a leasurely stroll. Thanks for Frances Zewe for the GIF.
Its been a little while since I’ve posted on my blog, partly because I’ve been busy with 6 weeks of trapping (although that did finish nearly 3 week ago so it’s not that good an excuse). So here’s the roundup of that time in the field.
Mandurah Entrance Rd (Mandjoogoorgap Drive)
11 Quenda – The population at Lake Marlee has dropped from an estimated 15±2 last Spring to 9±1. Drops in quenda populations are expected over summer, but this drop was a bit bigger than normal. There has been a lot of fox activity in the underpasses at this site which might point to them being responsible. Over at Black Swan Lake the population is steady at 3±1 where it has been for nearly 18 months now. I’m not sure why there hasn’t been any increase in this population as breeding females have been captured each time we trap.
15 Brushtail possums – Current population estimate is 19±3 which is largely unchanged from the last couple of years where it has varied between 14 and 19.
1 (lonely) Western bobtail
5 Magpies
2 Ravens
12 Black Rats
3 House Mice
1 Cat – Someones pet that might have gotten home a bit late that morning
Paganoni Swamp/Keralup
13 Quenda – One of these was captured on the eastern boundary of Paganoni Swamp, the first adult that I’ve captured there. Hopefully a good sign of quenda starting to disperse into Paganoni Swamp from Keralup.
11 Brushtail possums – The most we’ve ever caught in this site, including 8 in Paganoni Swamp.
20 Western bobtails – A good sign for an upcoming honours project on the home range of bobtails in burnt and unburnt habitat within Paganoni Swamp.
5 Magpies
4 Black Rats
1 House Mice
Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes
13 Quenda
97 Black rats – No that not a typo. This was a massive increase from 16 captures with the same effort last spring. It looks like this summer was a very good one for rats at this site. Hopefully that doesn’t mean problems for the quenda, some people have suggested that they compete, but there’s no solid evidence for it (yet).
15 House mice
2 Cats – Proper ferals this time. We know there are at least 4 individual cats at this site from the underpass cameras. They’re all quite distinctive
Feral cat at Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes: Solid black coat
Feral cat at Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes: Solid white coat
Feral cat at Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes: Tabbie without white back paws
Feral cat at Walyungup/Cooloongup Lakes: Tabbie with white back paws.
More details of Mandogalup and Roe Highway coming soon, better get some reports finished first.
Back in 2010 I was lucky enough to be trapping with some undergraduate students in Paganoni Swamp Reserve in Karnup, when we captured a chuditch. This was only the second confirmed sighting of a chuditch on the Swan Coastal Plain in the previous 20 years and as such we were pretty excited. It was a young male and my theory was that it had probably come down to Paganoni Swamp along the Serpentine River from the Darling Scarp. Today I got a bit of evidence to back up that theory with the capture of another chuditch on the opposite side of the Kwinana Freeway on The Department of Housing’s Keralup property. This was another young male chuditch and hopefully he might stick around in the area, although given the apparent lack of females in the area his hormones may have something else to say about it.
Chuditch captured at Keralup on May 22nd 2012
Update: It turns out this little guy has quite an appetite for universal bait and chicken necks and was waiting for me in a trap everyday this week. Another couple of photos added below.
It sounds like a contradictory idea, but one that has received a bit of air time in the last week or so as a result of comments made by Prof. Hugh Possingham from The University of Queensland (original article here). For those who have read papers published by Prof. Possingham and the researchers in his lab the general theme is one that they have promoted for quite some years.
Hellfire Bay in Cape Le Grande National Park would provide a tidy sum to support conservation efforts if sold off for resorts or a seaside housing development.
Triage in conservation
The argument goes that we have too many species and too many ecosystems under threat to be able to save them all with the limited funding that conservation agencies, both public and private, have access to. So we need to prioritise the use of that funding to save species and ecosystems that we have the greatest chance of saving. The other side of that coin is that it necessitates leaving some species to become extinct and some ecosystems to become non functional. With approximately 12% of the Australian continent currently protected in conservation estate of some sort the cost of properly managing that land for invasive weeds, and animals, as well as managing fire regimes and diseases such a Phytopthera dieback are enormous and no conservation agencies have anywhere near the level of funding to do it properly. It’s been estimated that conservation funding would need to increase 10 fold in order to properly manage those threats. Obviously that requires a big change in the way our politicians think about conservation, which will only come if the voting public demands it.
Unfortunately my observations of Australian politics over the last few years leads me to believe that Prof. Possingham is right. The rise of The Greens at the last election led me to think that the support for conservation and environmental responsibility amongst the voting public was on the rise. However, the way that things have changed politically over the last couple of years has led me to believe that the vast majority of voters are only happy to support “green” initiatives when it doesn’t take any money out of their own pocket. Part of me wants to hold on to the hope that our governments will dramatically increase the amount of funding given to our conservation agencies, but my cynical side says it’s never going to happen. After all people will still vote for a government that allows some plants or animals to go extinct, but if the government makes them pay an extra $100 or $200 a year for electricity, or cuts middle class welfare to “struggling familes” that’s a whole different story.
What do you think? Do we need to write off some of our species and ecosystems as being too far gone and focus on those that we have a better chance of being able to conserve in the longer term? Or can we convince our political leaders to increase the value they place on and the funding they give to protecting our natural heritage?
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything on this blog and I’ve been in two minds about whether I should write about the loss of a student or not. Obviously I’ve made the decision that I’d like to write a farewell to my first PhD student, Paul Chachelle who unexpectedly died on February 24. Over the weekend I sat down to put together a speech for a memorial service that we held for Paul near the uni yesterday, and as I figured out what and how to speak about Paul it really dawned on me just how much we have lost in Paul’s untimely death.
The speech that I wrote for Paul is copied below, but here is a very abridged version: Paul Chachelle was a lovely human being, in addition he also happened to be a very talented and very hard working student. The sort of student that makes your life as a supervisor easier rather than harder, the sort of student every supervisor wants to get. I’m lucky enough to have a number of students that fit that bill at the moment, but in being the first student that I supervised, Paul had a special place (much like your first child that you make all your mistakes on as you figure things out by trial and error). Paul will very much be missed by myself, his fellow supervisors and the students that he worked along side.
Paul Chachelle on his first day catching kangaroos
A Farewell to Paul
A little over two years ago Roberta began talking to me and the other students in our group about this brilliant student named Paul who was applying for a PhD scholarship to come and work in our group. According to Roberta Paul had written an amazing honours thesis, was incredibly intelligent and could do 50 one handed chin-ups… I might have made up the chin ups part, but when Paul enrolled I had fairly high expectations, as did the other honours and post grad students. Paul didn’t disappoint, he was indeed very intelligent, hard working, self motivated and to top it off he was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Paul was always willing to help others, and others was a very broad term for Paul. Whether it was people or animals, Paul was always willing to lend a hand. Within our research group he was pretty much the older bother to the rest of the students and as such the person that they were always asking to help them out. Whether it was advice about grant applications, how to deal with your supervisors, or just to lift heavy things, Paul was the go to guy. If it bothered Paul that people were always asking him for help, he never let on, but I very much suspect he quite enjoyed the chance to help other people out. Paul also took the same approach to animals, if one needed help he was ready to do what he could, it didn’t matter to him if it was a native or introduced, threatened or abundant, if it needed help it was worth helping as far as he was concerned. A great example of this attitude took place right here where we are today. About a year ago we were having a bbq lunch here for the research group and as we were eating we heard a commotion coming from a nearby tree. It turned out to be a juvenile rainbow lorikeet, named Henry although he didn’t know his name was Henry yet, being attacked by a raven. Paul immediately jumped up and rushed over, chased the raven off and bundled the lorikeet up in his jumper. We started telling Paul that the rainbow lorikeet was an introduced pest, but Paul wouldn’t hear it, it needed help and he was going to provide it. Paul ended up taking the lorikeet home and Henry became a much loved pet.
Apart from being a generous and ever helpful person Paul was also a very talented student. His proposal and grant application were regularly used by the other students in our group as an example of the standard that they should be looking to emulate. I think I can speak on behalf of all of Paul’s supervisors when I say that we knew that we was bound to outgrow is terms of his abilities and his knowledge and at the time of his death I think he was already pretty close to doing that. Paul would never have let on when that happened though, he was too humble and too much of a nice guy. He would turn up at my office every now and then to ask some questions about his research and how he should go about things. I quite often got the impression that he already knew the answers though, but he just wanted to make sure I felt that I was contributing to his supervision.
Despite being very intelligent occasionally Paul would do things that really weren’t that bright. One day I was in my office just getting ready to go home and I had a phone call from Paul to say that he was badly bogged in Paganoni Swamp Reserve and needed some help to get out. Luckily for him I was able to get a 4wd and headed down to see what I could do. When I got there I found that Paul had tried to drive a dualcab loaded with temporary fencing panels along with a tandem axle trailer loaded with the same down one of the deepest sandiest tracks in the reserve. Not surprisingly he did need some help getting out and once we’d unloaded everything we eventually got the ute and trailer out. I was pretty sure he would have learnt his lesson, that was until I got another call from him a week later to say he was bogged again. To his credit he didn’t have any fencing panels on the ute that time and there was no trailer, just a load of concrete feet for the fencing. I’m fairly sure his lesson after that. Whether that lesson was not to load so much gear on the ute when you go driving in the sand or just to call someone else when you get stuck I’m not sure, but as far as I know he didn’t get bogged again. Sometimes it took Paul a couple of mistakes to work out the best way to do things, but once he’d figured it out he was set.
In short, Paul was the sort of student that any supervisor would be happy to work with, and the sort of colleague that anyone would be happy to work along side. Our thoughts have been and will continue to be with Elizabeth and Paul’s family and friends as we all work on coming to grips with his sudden death. Whether you know him as just Paul, Kangaroo Paul, or the Handsome Paul (that’s a story for the girls to tell) his happy demeanour and ever present willingness to help others meant that we were always happy to have him around and for that reason there will always be some sadness in our hearts that he is no longer with us.
2012 is only a couple of weeks old, but its already shaping up as a very interesting year for myself and the projects and students that I’m involved with.
My work on fauna underpasses is continuing with microchip readers going in to underpasses in the next few weeks, as well as the project expanding to include reptile species as well as the mammals that I’ve already been looking at. Once all the necessary approvals are in place I’ll be including western bobtails, western bluetongues, bungarras (Gould’s sand monitors) and manarr (southern heath monitors) as focal species for the work.
We are also welcoming some new students to our research group in the next few months who will be beginning their PhDs or honours. Leia Howes will be joining our underpasses project to look at the role that feral predators are playing in potentially using underpasses to trap native prey. Ayshe Kerimofski will be undertaking an honours project in parallel to the underpasses work looking at the home range of and habitat selection by western bobtails. Veronica Phillips will be returning to UWA after doing her honours in our research group a few years ago to start a PhD looking at the ecology and population dynamics of quokkas on Rottnest Island and Wei-Yeen Yap will also be joining us to start a PhD on the ecology of pygmy hippopotamuses in the Ivory Coast.
It’s going to be a busy year, but undoubtedly a very interesting one as well. Now if only I could find a way to stop people trying to steal the cameras in the fauna underpasses 🙂
Brian Chambers - Wildlife Research Blog 