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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/20/australia-greater-gliders-endangered-species-list-protection>
"Greater glider spotting is a meditative thing, says Bulga local Steve
Fredericks.
“A bad night of glider spotting is better than a good night of television.
“The excitement on people’s faces when they see one for the first time – it’s
just priceless.”
It’s a Sunday in July, just after sunset. We’re sitting in the Bulga state
forest, inland from Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast,
waiting for darkness to fall.
Six of us, including the independent MP for Mackellar, Sophie Scamps, are
huddled, focused on a single tree.
About 200m away, the former federal Treasury secretary Ken Henry and a small
group of Bulga residents are monitoring another patch.
Stationed further up a hill, towards the rough road that leads to the village
of Elands, is Susie Russell, the vice-president of the North Coast Environment
Council.
The groups talk over CB radios. Apart from the flashing of spotlights, the only
activity is what Fredericks calls the meditative wait for endangered greater
gliders to emerge from their dens in the hollows of tall eucalypts.
This environmental neighbourhood watch has become routine in the forest of the
Bulga plateau.
It is how members of the group hope they might save the area from logging by
the state-owned NSW Forestry Corporation, which is scheduled to recommence as
soon as the first week of August.
Citizen scientists have spent many nights over the past year spotlighting in
parts of the forest scheduled for logging. They register every greater glider
den tree they observe on the state government’s biodiversity database, BioNet.
Logging is not permitted within 50 metres of known greater glider den trees.
“Every 50m exclusion zone that we save, that’s a win,” Fredericks says."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
