Threatened-Listed Species And The Proposed Cable Car

The debate about the proposed cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington has already been a dismal spectacle of false claims and questionable standards on both sides.  On this site I have already dealt with claims that concern polling or other poll-shaped objects that claim to mention public opinion (see the rolling Polling on the Mt Wellington Cable Car Proposal article and the earlier Public Opinion and the Mt Wellington Cable Car.) 

Now it is time for me to post a new article covering the already suspect claims in the area of threatened species impacts, in the hope of deterring any more threatened species nonsense and encouraging everybody involved to actually do some research.  While this is mainly a psephology site, most of my professional income comes from working on invertebrates of the non-political kind, and I am Tasmania's only living expert on native land snails.  I also have a keen amateur interest in native orchids, and have worked on or surveyed for a range of threatened species of various kinds.

The catalyst for the current burst of threatened species claims is a proposal by the cable car proponent, the Mt Wellington Cableway Co, to have its proposed cable car depart from a site on Main Fire Trail.  This proposal includes a new road from McRobies Gully (see route maps here and here) in an area of bushland that includes extensive areas of a state-listed threatened vegetation community (Eucalyptus tenuiramis on sediments.)

Sir David's Snail Is Not A New Species

Yes and no!

This is only slightly related to politics - in the sense that it is a good example of how media coverage often misreports and sensationalises environmental stories - but I thought I should just correct the record on the prominent announcement of a "new" Tasmanian snail.  It isn't a new species and it wasn't discovered in December 2016 as many sources are claiming.  What has happened is that an existing species has been moved into a new genus.

Sometime in the late 19th century, pioneering Tasmanian land snail expert William Frederick Petterd collected some snail specimens near Eaglehawk Neck.  Doubtless noting that some of them were much larger than a species considered  widespread through the state, Petterd left an enigmatic (and for me at least illegible) note with the specimens, but did nothing further with them.  Live specimens of the snail were first collected in the early 1970s resulting in the description of the new species Helicarion rubicundus by Dartnall and Kershaw in 1978.  At the time this was treated as a fresh discovery of a new species, Petterd's earlier specimens having not been noticed.

EMRS: Hodgman Government Would Lose Majority

EMRS July 2016: Liberal 37 Labor 32 Green 17 "Independent" 12 Others 2
Intepretation: Liberal 38.5 Labor 35.5 Green 14 Others 12
On this poll Hodgman government would clearly lose its majority
Seat projection 11-10-4 (Liberal-Labor-Green) or 12-10-3.
No seats are projected to fourth parties/independents as no prominent fourth parties are yet known to be running

Also now released EMRS May 2016: Liberal 41 Labor 29 Green 21 "Independent" 8 Others 1
Interpretation: Liberal 43 Labor 31 Green 18 Others 8
On this poll Hodgman government would have lost its majority in May as well
Seat projection for May 12-10-3

Aggregate of all recent polling 12-10-3 (no majority)

Lapoinya Scrapes The Barrel Of Tasmania's Forests Conflict

Tasmania has seen some big environmental contests down the years.  Lake Pedder, the Franklin dam, Farmhouse Creek, Wesley Vale, the Bell Bay pulp mirage, Ralphs Bay.  The latest flashpoint, Lapoinya, isn't one of them.  To many veterans on either side it must be astonishing that we now have a barney over the logging of forty-nine hectares of regrowth - that anyone would bother protesting it, let alone getting arrested over it, or on the other hand that anyone would bother with the logging or arresting.  To put it into perspective, bushfires in Tasmania have burnt almost 900 Lapoinya-coupes worth of native vegetation in the past fortnight alone.

The Lapoinya argument seems like nothing more than a vintage example of Sayre's Law (the contest is so bitter precisely because the stakes are so small).  Behind what has become a comically petty contest in the context of the battles of the past, however, are some players with a bigger game to play.  But before I get onto specifics of Lapoinya (then all that), I'd like to look at how we got here.

A Spot Of Bother About Quolls

source

(This article is a pseph-free-zone, but you can always vote in my Not-A-Poll to the right on how many federal Tasmanian seats Labor will win.  For those more interested in polls than quolls, I aim to post poll roundup very late on Monday night.)

 The species photographed above is the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus).  It's very cute.  It comes in two colours (tan and black) and, if you believe some people, our limited supply is very nearly gone.  If you believe others, its numbers are just on the bouncy side. 

The species featured on 7:30 Tasmania this Friday with a lengthy headline report concerning the decision by Environment Minister Brian Wightman to reject an application to list the species as Endangered on the Tasmanian Threatened Species List, even after approval was recommended by the Scientific Advisory Committee.   For the time being, you can see the main report here and a following interview with wildlife biologist Nick Mooney here.  These may not stay up for all that long.

Tasmanian Devils Not On The "Verge of Extinction"

This extinction talk is all a bit of a yawn really.  (Image credit: www.waynemaclean.com)

Late last year, fifteen Tasmanian devils were released on Maria Island, an action that had been in the pipeline for many years.  You can watch cute footage of their cautious emergence into their new environment here.
Devil populations statewide are being ravaged by Devil Facial Tumour Disease (warning: link contains some remarkably ugly and potentially distressing images), a very unusual contagious cancer spread when animals bite each other during fights, that was first photographed in the north-east of Tasmania in 1996.   The Save the Tasmanian Devil website noted:

"As at February 2011, there has been an 84% decline in average sightings of devils across Tasmania during the annual spotlight surveys. In the north-east region, where signs of DFTD were first reported, there has been a 96% decline of average sightings."

A figure of 91% reduction in spotlighting results has been given in some recent media reports.

What's Green, Tasmanian And Probably Isn't Endangered?

The Miena Jewel Beetle! (Castiarina insculpta)

The MJB: Giving extinction rumours the finger since 2004!

It's only tenuously related to politics, as a classic case of threatened species being considered firstly extinct and then endangered when in practice hardly anything is known about it - a problem which pads threatened species lists (especially Tasmania's) with unjustified or exaggerated listings, creates "green tape" and distorts conservation priorities.  The problem is, of course, that many of these species do not even become the focus of serious research attention until they are listed.  And even so, much of the research is done on an amateur basis, as it was in the recent first known find of the species in numbers, in which I was involved.  In fact, I found the first one of several found by our group faster than I could spot an 11% swing to Andrew Wilkie in the Sandfly Polling Booth!   You can see a rather low quality camera-video shot by me and read some more text about it here.  More pictures (by people who know how to use a camera!) on the Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club Flickr page here.

This post represents my own opinions  facts only.

Update (1 Mar):  See the ABC TV news item here.  Further searches through February have continued to reveal good numbers.  I can add that there was one other live sighting in recent times - by a very experienced entomologist who seems to have never drawn any public attention to the sighting or logged it, but fortunately, he did one day casually mention it to me.  It was at that site where we first found the species, but we've found it to be quite widespread in the area.