Predators and the food chain and preventing the suburban extinction of small native creatures

It is springtime here in Mount Waverley, close to the Reserve. The air is filled all day with the anguished squawks of smaller birds vainly trying to divert enormous crows from taking babies from their nests. Pairs of noisy miners are squawking at crows; by dusk, they must be exhausted. In our reserve, the Australian raven terrorises the other birds and dive-bombs the smaller dogs. The bellbirds keep their portion of the reserve, and will not let other birds colonise their areas.

Every spring there are fewer little birds. Wrens and tits, which were quite plentiful in our garden twenty years ago, seem to have gone. Crows can be seen sometimes flying down the street with little birds in their beaks. We had no crows twenty years ago here. They are out of their ecological niche, whether native or exotic. The little birds have an ecological function in getting rid of noxious insects and other garden pests and these proliferate without them.

Surely small birds have enough predators with cats, foxes and cars. Surely there is no need to protect all of the growing hordes of native crows or Australian ravens, on the grounds they have an important role in the food chain and they are native.

While we mourn forall the wildlife extinctions we cannot personally stop, surely we can do something about what is happening in our own backyards.

The suburban environment poses many challenges for native birds. Introduced species of birds (starlings, common mynahs etc) and introduced predators (cats, dogs, foxes) must all have an impact, and there is the overwhelming issue thatnative bush land habitats are now scarce.Changes to habitats are the main driver of change for native species. However, for those native species that can survive in the highly modified environment of houses, gardens and street trees, there havealso been some benefits - more productive environments due to fertilizers and watering of gardens and so on. So, some species such as Red Wattlebirds and Rainbow Lorikeets are doing very well. We end up with a modified set of 'survivors' living in urban areas, with additional 'bush birds' surviving in some of the parks and reserves where there is remnant native vegetation. Prof Andrew F. Bennett, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University.

We began the depredations in our area with armies of crows, even bands of fifty at a time, perched down at our shopping centre, waiting for the litter that spills around.

One thing that could be done is for everyone to prevent that litter to keep these crows going when it is not baby-bird season.

Could crows be made more edible, like rook pie in the past? If crows were denied protection, it is VERY unlikely that THEY would become extinct.

It is not just the little birds in the garden that suffer from our wasteful littering. Today our little wild duck is back with her partner, flying around looking for somewhere to nest this springtime - but the last time she nested in the jungle by our back fence - the rats came and took eggs from under her even while she was sitting on them. She flew out with a terrible squawking scream, and never returned there. Instead, she and her mate went round inspecting every other possible place they could find - and still could not find anywhere safe. All the year round, when there are not the special spring delicacies ofbirds’ eggs and babies, rats as well as crows and foxes keep going on the litter we waste and the food put out for our pets.

So is there anything else we can do? Campaign to stop protecting suburban native crows and try to protect the small native birds instead. Stop allowing overflowing litter bins in public places and pet food in back yards.

I sent around last spring to state and local authorities, when murder filled our local bush land and gardens. The response of our local state department was that have no fear, the predators play a part in the food chain - disregarding that their intrusion into the existing food chain has been very recent. Birds Australia was equally helpless, paying more attention to the rare birds in the wild than to the wild birds in the cities.

People who let their cats catch wild birds at night and their dogs savage them by day are not helpless; they are culpable.

People who drive their cars fast at dusk on roads where native creatures cross, make road kill of the birds and animals. Does anyone keep a count of road kill, and mark the worst spots on the roadside and on maps, like the warnings kept of human accidents? Could we put signage there to drive slowly and not to kill? Already we have warning signs that animals are vulnerable at certain places, but they are not enough. Some people we know take a pride in what their behemoths destroy, and will even leave the creatures stuck on their bull-bars. Can they be shamed instead?

Making the world safe for predators

Who likes crocodiles, wolves, sharks, lions, tigers, pythons, piranha fish and bull-terriers? We do.

From prehistory until the past twenty years, the animals which have benefited most from human protection and affection have been those that could be tamed and domesticated. The fiercer the animal, the more fiercely it has been hunted, and many monsters, from sabre-tooth tigers to many species of tigers, wolves, bears, and other big cats, and dogs and are now extinct.

Now we are beginning to realise a bit late that our rate of extermination of whole species of animals and birds may be going to make the world a lot less interesting, as well as upsetting ecosystems. But it is very curious indeed what animals we seem to be taking most prominent interest in conserving.

Apart from pandas, whales, koalas, Gibraltar monkeys and some species of deer, human beings seem to be most fascinated by their animal rivals in danger and destruction.

It starts with books for little children. It's been taken for granted for a long time that children are fascinated with animals and identify with them. Victorian children's books were full of puppies, kittens, ducklings, chickens, and baby birds. Children's beginning readers today are also full of mice, rabbits, foxes and other vermin, for children to identify with (as small, weak, helpless, and possibly as nuisances to adults as well) as well as pigs and snakes. I am sometimes reminded of the ancient Greek saying; "I thank the gods that the tales told me at my mother's knee were tales of the open-breasted heroes, and not of vermin."

However, contemporary adults also appear to be identifying with animals - and on balance, more fascinated with the destructive and dangerous predators than the 'safe and friendly'. Horses, ponies and bulls have never lost their attraction - but now we have people trying to save animals that are dangerous to man and often dangerous to harmless animals too.

I remember in Britain an exercise in the primary school curriculum presenting in a sympathetic light a mink escaped from a mink farm - and helping them escape is a prominent concern of Animal LIberationists. Whether they should be in mink farms or not is one thing - but one place they should not be is in the British countryside, eradicating more of the other wildlife and also farm life than you could imagine even such vicious little creatures were capable of - including wiping out creatures that kept down smaller pests, and ruining riverbanks.

Certainly crocodiles should be a protected species in some proclaimed places, to avoid extinction - but to have them protected as more important than other forms of life including man seems going a bit far. There are also places where wedge-tailed eagles are not farmers' friends.

Lions and tigers are favourites for animal parks today - people drive through in cages (cars) to see them 'in the wild'. Imagine a scenario of them going wild again, including wolves. Wolves are seriously planned for in some natural parks to keep down other species.

Dangerous dogs - kept because of dangerous men and by dangerous men – are a problem. But there are other dogs which are affectionate, and good guard dogs, without importing a new terror for children and old ladies. Freedom from fear is mocked when women, children and old men are afraid of going down the street. 'Safe in the right hands' - but there are so many wrong ones.

Of course this goes for cars, guns and sex too, and we are not making any of these outright illegal either. There is a case to say we need all three and do not have adequate substitutes. But there are good animal substitutes that are every bit as sweet and affectionate and pretty as bull-terriers. Encourage them or face a nasty future.

The nasty people who get nasty dogs are liable to let them go wild in the bush, killing off everything.

Human beings including children can watch and photograph what happens in our reserve. Here is rature "red in tooth and claw" and human beings who are part of that nature.