Most Aussies would know that there is a bit of an issue is SE Qld re the damming of the Mary River and the effect this would have on a very special species of fish, the Mary River Lungfish.
I'm always amazed at how ignorant people can be about nature. Sure most people are not fanataics like many of us but sol many people don't seem interested in continuing to learn after school and have no science knowledge what so ever.
This came to my mind recently when i read a letter that basically stated " I catch a lot of lungfish at the Wivenho spillway, therefore they are perfectly safe as a species."
Just reading this I thought of several question that would negate such a statement.
How does he know that they actually are lungfish, perhaps they are some other sort of species. And what is 'a lot'? 10, 20 100 a couple of hundred? Maybe he is catching the same half dozen individuals over and over again. And if ther are a 'lot' is this enough to create a viable population. What soirt of age and gender structure do they create. Maybe they are all old animals, released there 30 or years ago. Have they ever bred, can they breed. Or if they are breeding are they doing so successfully? Are enough young surviving to adult hood for replacement and are THEY breeding? Maybe there is a huge imbalance in the gender with 1 female for every 20 males (or even the other way round if lots of males are needed for breeding). Perhaps all the fish are descended from just one female and therefore it is terribly inbred, causing health issues.
Is the spillway an optimum eviroment for the fish? Does the spillway ever dry up and what happens to the fish then?
I thought of these just after reading a letter and I'm no biologist. I just know that there is a lot more to knowing that a species is safe then just saying that there are lots.
I'm always amazed at how ignorant people can be about nature. Sure most people are not fanataics like many of us but sol many people don't seem interested in continuing to learn after school and have no science knowledge what so ever.
This came to my mind recently when i read a letter that basically stated " I catch a lot of lungfish at the Wivenho spillway, therefore they are perfectly safe as a species."
Just reading this I thought of several question that would negate such a statement.
How does he know that they actually are lungfish, perhaps they are some other sort of species. And what is 'a lot'? 10, 20 100 a couple of hundred? Maybe he is catching the same half dozen individuals over and over again. And if ther are a 'lot' is this enough to create a viable population. What soirt of age and gender structure do they create. Maybe they are all old animals, released there 30 or years ago. Have they ever bred, can they breed. Or if they are breeding are they doing so successfully? Are enough young surviving to adult hood for replacement and are THEY breeding? Maybe there is a huge imbalance in the gender with 1 female for every 20 males (or even the other way round if lots of males are needed for breeding). Perhaps all the fish are descended from just one female and therefore it is terribly inbred, causing health issues.
Is the spillway an optimum eviroment for the fish? Does the spillway ever dry up and what happens to the fish then?
I thought of these just after reading a letter and I'm no biologist. I just know that there is a lot more to knowing that a species is safe then just saying that there are lots.
