"Non-lethal control becomes very, very important with birds and of course birds get used to things like gas guns and noise control and scarecrows very quickly."

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In regard to camels, rabits, toads, foxes, pigs and other exotic pests, such as many weeds — including aquarium aquatic plants clogging lakes and destroying estuaries, one has to look no further as to who introduced these into the landscape. One has to to look no further as to who is doing the most damage to the earth with heavy spiky boots, poisons and plague-size populations... Control of "pests" has been failure upon failure, failing "success" trying to eradicate the rabbits, there is no efficient management of cane toads, of foxes and of domestic cats gone to the wild. We fudge the do-goody statistics with powerful poisons and hope. Nothing really works, except we're buggering the wild some-more with more stupid dangerous stuff. I rest my case.

From the BBC

An Australian scientist says the continent needs five or six seasons to suit its climate.

Tim Entwisle, chief of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, says Australia should "unhook" itself from the "arbitrary" four seasons it inherited from Britain.

Mr Entwisle has proposed "sprummer" - the season between spring and summer - and "sprinter" - an early spring.

He says a new system could help people better understand their environment and monitor signs of climate change.

"Having four three-month seasons... doesn't make any sense in the place we live," he told Australia's public broadcaster ABC News.

"Something with more seasons would work better and something that unhooks us from these arbitrary European seasons," he added.

Aboriginal Australians use up to eight seasons in some parts of the country to capture local conditions.

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Sure. One problem with this is that the "seasons" are very floppy. For example, there is often an "Indian" summer in the middle of winter (average 17 C) say in Sydney. Today, in mid August (mid-winter) we had 25 C, (same tomorrow) but this spell of hotter clime is difficult to gauge for how long or when it will come. "Usually" it lasts only a couple of days, although it seems with global warming, the "Indian" summer is getting iffier, longer. That's the second spell in August... And August is on track to be the "hottest" August on record, for Sydney that is. But then a cold wind from a fast melting Antarctic might put it back in the average... One needs to be also aware that Darwin and Hobart are on very different climatic regimes...

One-hundred-and-forty kangaroos have been shot on Bathurst's Mount Panorama ahead of the annual V8 Supercar race next week.

The cull of the eastern grey kangaroos is the first time animals have been deliberately killed ahead of the race.

The cull was authorised by Bathurst Regional Council.

But the New South Wales Greens have condemned the moved, labelling it a knee-jerk response.

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see toon at top and blog below it..

From the BBC

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

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See toon at top...