Sydney’s remnant urban wildlife
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Tawny Frogmouths, Glebe (Sydney inner suburb)
Photo: ©2010 Edwina Pickles, Sydney Morning Herald, 20101222.
.It is pleasing to learn that the City of Sydney council is funding $100,000 into its first serious biodiversity survey of inner Sydney, which is expected to take three months.
The aim is to support biodiversity information for an “urban ecology strategic action plan to conserve indigenous plant and animal species and identify ways to improve their habitats.”
The council has engaged the Australian Museum (located in the Sydney CDB) and specifically ecologists Henry Cook and Glenn Muir to identify all the native animals and plants living in inner Sydney. According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, Sydney has long lost most of its native fauna to 220 years of urban development and habitat destruction.
Amazingly, Native Green and Golden Bell Frogs and Grey-Headed flying foxes still exist in one or two isolated locations but are endangered. Brush-tailed possums, Ring-tailed possums and native water rats are amongst the more adaptable to human incursion, albeit often persecuted.
The ecologists expect to find about 60 indigenous bird species and several reptile and frog species and the survey results are due in mid-2011.
[Source: ‘Old-time residents cast eyes over a changing city‘, by journalist Kelsey Munro, 20101222, Sydney Morning Herald]
