An animal welfare group is offering a reward of up to $5000 for information leading to the conviction of the killer of a kangaroo at a national park north of Perth.
The kangaroo was shot with an arrow and then run over with a motorcycle at Yanchep National Park last week. The marsupial died of its injuries. Another kangaroo was also shot with an arrow in the ankle at the Melville Glades Golf Club last week but recovered after surgery at Perth Zoo and was released. The perpetrator or perpetrators of the attacks have not been found. Animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia is offering a reward of up to $5000 for information leading to the conviction of the person or people responsible for the attacks. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who are cruel to animals often go on to commit violent acts against humans, PETA said in a statement on Thursday. "Because animals cannot report their own abuse and can do little to fight back, they are the perfect `practice' victims for those who tend towards violence," PETA said. "As long as the perpetrators of these crimes are at large, other animals - including humans - might also be in danger." The penalty for injuring or killing kangaroos is a $4000 fine. And under the Animal Welfare Act, if a person is found to be have been cruel to or inflicted unnecessary harm upon an animal, they face a penalty of up to $50,000 and five years' imprisonment. Anyone with information about the attack is urged to call the Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW), which is investigating both incidents, on 9474 9055. "Firing arrows into defenceless native animals is cruel and unacceptable behaviour," DPaW senior wildlife officer Rick Dawson said. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/04/17/14/36/reward-offered-for-perth-kangaroo-killer They got their first glimpse of this little bundle of joy six months ago.
But the keepers at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium didn’t get a good look at their new baby red kangaroo until it recently started peeking — and now popping — out of its momma’s pouch. It did so yesterday to the delight of many ecstatic kids and their parents, hopping within feet of its mother’s side, nibbling a bit of grass. “It’s very exciting, especially since it’s been so loooooong coming,” said Ashley Wright, a keeper for the zoo’s “Australia and the Islands” exhibit. That’s where the baby and its mother are on display with 13 other kangaroos. Keepers haven’t yet gotten close enough to tell whether the baby, also known as a joey, is male or female. They won’t name the animal until they know the gender. It’s the zoo’s first baby kangaroo on display since 2005, which has added to the anticipation, Wright said. The Columbus Zoo received four young females from the Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Wichita, Kan., in September and hoped one would be pregnant. All four females had been with a breeding male, but “it was anyone’s guess,” Wright said. “We thought our best chances were with Stirling, which at a little over a year old was the oldest of the bunch.” Tanganyika Wildlife Park officials weren’t aware of the birth until yesterday. “We’re always excited to help out the Columbus Zoo and Jack Hanna,” Tanganyika director Jim Fouts said. “Baby kangaroos are great. They’re so cute.” The Columbus keepers got their first glimpse of the joey — in pouch — in October. Barely bigger than a jelly bean, baby roos must crawl from one of the mother’s uteri up her body to the safety of her pouch, Wright said. Because its eyes aren’t yet developed, the joey instinctively relies on its forelegs to grip the mom’s fur and reach the pouch. It then spends the next four or five months growing inside. Keepers started to see parts of the joey — an ear, a foot — sticking out of Stirling’s pouch about a month ago. Not quite ready for the world, the joey was moving around, trying to make more space for itself, Wright said. Now it’s about the size of a Chihuahua. Adult females grow to 4 or 5 feet tall and weigh 80 pounds, while males usually top out at 6 feet and 200 pounds. The baby will keep returning to the pouch until it’s 10 or 11 months old and doesn’t fit anymore, Wright said. And it will stay by its mother’s side, nursing, for several more months. As for Stirling: “She was a highly strung animal when we first got her, but now she’s really calm,” Wright said. “Motherhood really suits her.” http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/04/22/pocket-size-baby.html Two Queensland koala joeys were examined by keepers Thursday at the San Diego Zoo and found to be right on track in their development.
The 8-and-a-half-month male joeys, Coedie and Burra, and their mothers were brought down from the perching structure in their exhibit and placed onto a scale by animal care staff for their weigh-in. Coedie (meaning boy in the Aboriginal language) weighed 2 pounds and Burra (meaning big fella) weighed 2.49 pounds. “We weigh all of our koalas weekly, not just mom and joeys,” senior keeper Katie Tomlinson said. “It’s just to make sure they’re healthy, they’re growing like they should, and it’s a good opportunity for us to get a nice up-close look at them.” The San Diego Zoo has the largest breeding colony of Queensland koalas and the most successful koala breeding program outside of Australia. Researchers at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research are studying koala populations both at the zoo and in the wild to better understand the species’ complex ecology, mating behaviors and health. The information gleaned from this work will help further develop conservation strategies for koalas. http://timesofsandiego.com/life/2014/04/18/keepers-say-san-diego-zoos-koala-joeys-well/ ![]() The Australian Koala Foundation and others had been invited in for a briefing on this new idea, and the man in charge was nameless. He told us about “developer donations" and a "trust fund” that government would administer to manage the offsets.For the uninitiated, an offset is a policy for a developers, miners or foresters that is going to cut down trees which allows them to do so, and which then tries to "offset" the resulting destruction by another activity. In other words, cut something down and replace it elsewhere, sometimes miles from the original site. You can be forgiven for thinking offsets sound like a good idea, but there is so much wrong with the whole concept. During the meeting I mentioned above, I will never forget the faces of the people who work on the ground day in, day out. One in particular looked earnestly across the table and asked “what about the baby birds?”. The bureaucrat smiled. He didn’t answer and of course, and he wasn’t actually sure why the question had been asked in the first place. Of course, removing old trees with hollows (essential for baby birds) is disastrous for an ecosystem. Those hollows, which can often take 200 years to form, were of great concern to all on one side of the table and indeed a legitimate question, but it was dismissed. As it turns out the person in charge was an economist, so I do not think he loses sleep about the hollows or the baby birds, and indeed the koala habitat that is destroyed on a daily basis by the offset policy, which allows our nation’s environment to be constantly diminished, through urban development, roads, mining and forestry. Think about it from the point of view of a koala. Your tree has been chopped down. What is an offset going to do for you? Will the developer write to you and tell you where you are going? Or are you going to get there on your own? If you do, often terrified by the destruction around you, you have a pretty good chance of getting hit by a car or mauled by a dog as you are pushed out of your home. More often, you starve to death and then government will want to fund research into why you got sick. And if you do manage to survive the initial eviction, you still have to figure out where you are supposed to go to find this new offset area, this promised land. If you are lucky and you have managed to get to the reservation, it’s still going to be years before the new trees are of any use to you, and even longer before the ecosystem is completely restored, if ever. I mean, who thought this up anyway? It is ridiculous. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/03/from-the-point-of-view-of-a-koala-any-offset-program-is-ridiculous |