If possible would you please write a letter to Peter Garrett and Bob Debus requesting urgent action by the Federal Government to save the Christmas Is Pipistrelle from imminent extinction.
The Honourable Peter Garrett,
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts,
PO Box 6022,
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT. 2600
The Honourable Bob Debus,
Minister for Home Affairs,
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT. 2600
Thanks,
Al Young
[/quote]From: abs-bounces@listserv.csu.edu.au [mailto:abs-bounces@listserv.csu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Lindy.Lumsden@dse.vic.gov.au
Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2009 5:39 PM
To: abs@listserv.csu.edu.au
Subject: [ABS] Christmas Island Pipistrelle - update and request
Hi everyone
The Christmas Island Pipistrelle is about to go extinct – possibly within months – we need as many members as possible to write a letter to Peter Garrett.
As you will have read in the last ABS Newsletter, things are looking very grim for the Christmas Island Pipistrelle. Well things are getting even worse! Greg Richards and I have just returned from 2 weeks on Christmas Island reassessing the status of the pipistrelle and attempting to catch some individuals to test how well they might cope with being taken into captivity as part of a captive breeding program. Staff from the Christmas Island National Park have been undertaking extensive detector surveys across the remaining known distribution of the species on the island (just the far west end) and at the only known roost. Three years ago the colony using this roost area consisted of at least 54 individuals. Now there are only 4 individuals using this roost. Based on their behaviour it is possible that these individuals are lactating females and so there is a chance that there are also four non-flying young in the roost as well. Three years ago there were at least another four similar-sized colonies – the roosts in these areas have either collapsed (the roosts are under bark on heavily decayed trees) or the roosts have been deserted. Detector surveys in the vicinity of these previous roosts suggests that these areas are no longer being used as roosting areas. Regular detector surveys at the key foraging sites have indicated a decline in activity levels of 98% since early 2006! We fear there could be less than 20 individuals remaining of this species (and even this might be an optimistic estimate!).
Therefore we need to urgently try and catch these remaining individuals and take them into captivity before the species disappears completely! We are proposing an emergency rescue program to try and catch as many of the remaining individuals as possible to form the basis of a captive colony. This is not going to be easy. We tried harp trapping and mist netting in the last known foraging area but the bats avoided the traps and the nets and no individuals were caught. It is possible that only 2 (4 at the most) individuals were using this foraging area (quite likely the same 4 as at the roost). We watched them with a night scope approach the traps and nets, circle in front of them several times checking them out, before flying off. All species do this to some extent but if you have 100 bats flying in an area, you are likely to catch at least some of them. But with only 2 bats, the chances aren’t good. It appears therefore that we will need to try and catch the bats at the roost (also not easy!!). We will also need to take over a lot of bat detectors and set them throughout the forest at potential roost trees to see if we can locate any more roosts. The bats circle around the roost many times throughout the night, and so it is possible, using the detectors, to distinguish between bats moving through an area, and ones at a roost. This will be very time consuming, however (130 potential roost trees have already been located by Parks and they are currently searching for more). The difficulty in catching individuals at forging areas means it will not be possible to undertake a more normal radiotracking program to locate roosts.
This has to be done within the next 3 months – if our assumption is correct that there are currently 4 non-flying young in the roost (due to start flying any day now) the trapping effort needs to be undertaken as soon as possible after they start flying to increase the chances of catching the maximum number of individuals possible.
We are proposing a three stage program
a) an emergency rescue program aimed at catching the remaining few animals and establishing a captive colony;
b) if sufficient individuals are caught and they survive being taken into captivity, a long-term captive breeding program in a purpose-built facility on Christmas Island with experienced staff to run it will need to be maintained for 10 years (it will take this long to build the numbers up sufficiently for a release program); and
c) targeted research to determine the cause of the decline so that mitigation actions can be undertaken.
To do this we need a significant contribution from the federal government. So we need to bring this to the attention of Peter Garrett as soon as possible, with as many letters as we can get. The ABS has written on a number of occasions and will write again with the latest information. However, politicians respond to multiple letters - the more letters the more attention they pay to the issue.
We therefore need your help. In the last newsletter we asked if members could write to Peter Garrett and Bob Debus asking them to take urgent action. If you have already written, thank you. If you were still thinking about it, the situation is now even more urgent. The attached file has the background information with the most recent estimates of numbers, and contact details. Can you also please pass this on to any of your contacts that would be interested to also write a letter?
It is possible that we are going to need partners in this program (the government might not commit the full $6M we need over 10 years). If anyone has contacts that might be interested in contributing financially to saving a species from extinction please let us know!! The amount we need for the emergency rescue phase is considerably less than this but we need this straight away - ie in the next month.
Thank you – we have one last shot at this – if we can’t make something happen in the next 3 months it will be too late for this species and this will result in the first extinction of an Australian bat in historic times - we have to try and stop this happening.
bye for now
Lindy
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Lindy Lumsden
Arthur Rylah Institute
Department of Sustainability and Environment
123 Brown St.
(PO Box 137)
Heidelberg Victoria 3084
Australia
Phone: 61 (03) 9450 8694
FAX: 61 (03) 9450 8799
Email: Lindy.Lumsden@dse.vic.gov.au