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Wildlife in the Balance Blog, Simon Mustoe

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BY
SIMON MUSTOE
Expert Ecologist, Consultant & Author

Even small numbers of predators can have a huge impact on suppressing rodent numbers, which is especially useful, if they can erupt into plague numbers. The difference is in having a few poor-dispersing predators like snakes where there are high concentrations of mice; and ,more mobile owls and other birds of prey, over the larger area. Using rodenticide instantly kills birds of prey. Snakes are largely shy and harmless, unless provoked, yet are killed on sight. Living with wildlife is shown to be a more sustainable outcome than using chemicals, on which we've become dependent, and make and ever-worsening problem for the farm economy. Picture by Simon Mustoe.

After recent mouse plagues in Australia the state and federal governments allowed widespread use of second-generation rodenticides. However, everything we know about farm pest management tells us this solution isn’t remotely the right thing to do. For anyone who understands ecosystems and nature, that’s pretty much common sense already. In …

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Simon Mustoe, Author of 'Wildlife in the Balance'

BLOG – ANIMAL IMPACTby Simon Mustoe

Wildlife has a huge and immeasurable impact on the stability, health and functioning of ecosystems. For this reason, humanity cannot survive without wildlife. Wild animals turn dust into soil, carbon into food and the weather into a fair climate for living.

These are the stories untold – the reason why conservation is essential for our survival. The orangutan doesn’t simply depend on rainforest canopy structure, it creates the structure. We humans don’t simply depend on forests or coral reefs, we live among the animals that make those places habitable. In this blog I explore the many and varied ways we connect with nature. This reveals the link between the way we think, behave and act, and the very basis for our existence and survival as a species on Earth. But only as long as we are surrounded by a colourful and diverse abundance of other animals.

More on the importance of wildlife

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