Whether you’re on holiday on safari in Africa, treading the ice in Antarctica to catch sight of penguins or, more prosaically, simply note the warble of a Magpie on your morning walk – it’s hard to conceive a world without wildlife.
This week is Wildlife Week and for FAME, another opportunity to renew focus on its critical work to stop further extinctions of natural Australian species.
We humans are not entirely friendly to wildlife. We move into their territory, change the landscape, unbalance their ecosystems and we crowd them out – and yet we want wildlife to survive and prosper.
It’s an important week for FAME and all its stakeholders. And, just to remind you of our current work – take a look at our website www.fame.org.au – in particular our two most recent projects to save the Armoured Mistfrog in far north Queensland and the Red Handfish, off the coast of Tasmania.
Coinciding with Wildlife Week, today also marks World Habitat Day.
Both our major current projects to save the Red Handfish in Tasmania and the Armoured Mistfrog in far north Queensland face extinction, partly because we humans have messed with their habitats.
Habitats can be restored and the FAME community has done so many times. Western Quolls are prospering again in northern South Australia; the numbers of Numbats in Western Australia are on the up; we’ve ‘fought’ the invasive Cane Toad. Habitat restoration has underpinned much of our work.
There’s still so much to do. And, as always, we need funding to make it happen. If you have time, take a look at our website www.fame.org.au and then, if you can, consider making a donation.
Photo: Eric Vanderduys