Dingoes play an important role in Australia's ecosystems; they are apex predators and the continent's largest terrestrial predator. Because of their attacks on livestock, dingoes and other wild dogs are seen as pests by the sheep industry and the resultant control methods normally run counter to dingo conservation efforts.
There isn't much more that I can say about this that the pictures don't - other than a call for people to slow down when they see wildlife on the roads - but your thoughts are more than welcome...
According to the Shitbox Rally organisers "it isn't a race". But from what I saw over these two days last week some of the contestants thought that the Stuart Highway was their own personal dragstrip. Throw in - as on this past Thursday - a setting sun drilling straight through your bug-encrusted windscreen, more than a few triple-trailer road-trains and the plague-locust army of caravans - travelling at 80 km/h - that infests the Stuart Highway at this time of year and it can be a positively dangerous stretch. Particularly for those - such as most of the Shitboxers - that have never driven the road before.
A guy came in here from the Navy the other day and...I asked him if they’d taught him how to stop these from going off...and I handed it to him like this. He looked at me...for a split second his training crept in and he goes like “You’ve just given me a bomb”
So I'll take a stab in the commercially-confident-and-very-secret-dark and say you'll be pitching for $AU2.5 million for your visit to South Australia this year. Again, if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me - or get someone from Ranny's office to drop me a line.
Fires trash these mini-plant communities - bushfires are the main threat to snails here - it directly cooks the animals and destroys their food. In the long run I'd like get around to trying to identify some of the main crust plants they eat but that might be impossible. I'm told there hasn't been a lichenologist through central Australia in living memory so I suspect few species here are named.
The Swamp Jockeys were (are?) in that great tradition of Australian bands that form and play just for the sheer fun of it - they must have run out of fun after a few years or found something else to do and for most of us have passed slowly into the happier realms of our memories.
The New Cycling pathways research project will release it's first report; “I Wish I was Twenty One Today – Beyond Doing in the Australian Peloton”. The report's focus is on the perspectives and experiences of Australian professional cyclists and their cohort as they relate to new directions for their sport. This study engaged with, and ultimately represented the views of those directly affected by anti-doping policy.
This camouflage serves as both a protection from predators – and there is no shortage of hungry Kites, Goshawks and Falcons around that would grab a juicy Dragon for a snack – and also as a deceptive strategy for any small creatures that the Dragon would want to eat that might wander past within range.
