Keeping cats out (1 Viewer)

Looks like an expensive but neccessary option.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44235185



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andyadcock said:

Looks like an expensive but neccessary option.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44235185 A

Click to expand...

I spent some considerable time at Newhaven in 2004, when all this was but a dream in the future. It's a stunning place, that like many Australian locations varies in the impression it gives dependent upon what limited (or excessive) rainfall it may experience. We were fortunate to arrive about 6 weeks after a period of sustained rain, the first we were told for about 25 years. The desert was alive with swathes of colour as patches of flowers bloomed intensely. Because the period since the rains had been largely overcast, little evaporation had occurred and the soil was damp to a considerable depth and so the desert bloomed for more than two months..

Bird breeding activity was frantic. The bushes and scrub were covered in sticky pollen blossoms. Cats, foxes and dingos had a surplus of prey, but the birds and reptiles were thriving.

The reserve included the northern shore of Lake Bennett, a large salt sake that rarely filled with water but to which water continuously seeped just below surface level at the edge where plovers abounded.

Much of the reserve is covered by a considerable variety of desert plant life, which gives rise to many habitat niches, and efforts were being made to remove introduced European and Asian grasses that, although more nutritious for cattle, burned at higher temperatures than native grasses (and out-competed them), thus destroying seeds of native plants that required lower fire temperatures just to crack the outer shell, permitting germination to occur.

It's quite uplifting to hear that the provision of a large cat-proof enclosure is becoming a reality. The local people whom we met told us of the times when small marsupials were common. Perhaps now, their restoration can begin.
MJB

Sounds like a wondrous place.

I wonder if there's an eradication programme running parallel with this, not sure how practical that would be in such a massive area though?


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