Embarrassed by the stubborn refusal of polar bears to die out, or even to appear convincingly rare, climate scientists are touting a new poster child species for our collective climate guilt – the white lemuroid ringtail possum.
The possum is restricted to just one mountain range in tropical Australia. Previously numbered in the thousands, the species was almost wiped out by a heatwave in 2005.
“I think this really should be a wake-up call,” tropical rainforests expert and James Cook University researcher Professor Bill Laurance told AAP.
“We’re arguing this is a better icon for global warming than a polar bear because it typifies the type of biodiversity we will lose in the future.”
JUST four white lemuroid ringtail possums have been found in the wild and scientists say the species could soon become the first creature to be wiped out by global warming.
Source: https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24520231/possum-a-polar-bear-of-climate-change/
h/t to Eric Worrall
However, it may be down, but not out, from 2009:
Reports of white lemuroid ringtail possum’s extinction premature
A RARE possum said to be the first Australian species wiped out by global warming appears to be clinging to survival, if still vulnerable, in north Queensland’s tropical rainforest.
Last year, the white lemuroid ringtail possum was reported to have vanished from high-altitude rainforests in north Queensland. It was the first Australian mammal extinction attributed to climate change.
The white possums are native to the mountains that surround Port Douglas and Cairns. When news of their apparent demise was reported, rising temperatures and global warming were blamed.
Pamela
Breeding them is problematic, because their nutritional needs are hard to meet. There’ no such thing as Purina possum chow. Slugs, snakes, and rotten fruits are on the menu. Stale pizza seems like a favorite in my yard.
Pamela, that would be worth it, except for the fact that nobody knows if the white color ‘breeds true’. It’s NOT a separate species but, quite probably an inbred color variant of an isolated population.
Pamela Gray
… If they are like Willamette Valley possum they breed like cats, thus can produce a lot of furry offspring. If the skins are any good, this seems like a good business opportunity.
I doubt their fur is very good, it just doesn’t get cold enough in that part of the world – snowfall is very unusual, the temperature rarely drops below freezing, even at night in the middle of winter.
http://www.tablelands.org/weather.html
(the place is called Middle Earth, after “Lord of the Rings” – lots of verdant, green fields, a perfect climate all year around, and lots of strange hippy types smoking long Gandalf pipes living in ramshackle huts).
As for eating them, my missus won’t even let me buy kangaroo meat down the local supermarket, despite the fact it is a fraction of the cost of beef, and tastes delicious, so I don’t like my chances of serving up something which looks really cute in tonight’s stew…
This study deserves a “Golden Toady”
Pamela Gray says:
July 22, 2014 at 6:11 pm
Two thoughts:
1. How soft and thick is that white fur?
2. Can they be bred in captivity if that fur is soft and thick?
3. Is the meat any good?
Hi Pamela, here in NZ they are a noxious animal, devastating the forests, so trapping, shooting, 1080 are all used to bring the populations down.
Add in tuberculosis spreading into the dairy hers that border a lot of the forest areas, and they are a bloody introduced pest.
But to answer some of your questions
http://www.basicallybush.co.nz/
Some people do make a reasonable living trapping possums for their skin and fur.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
I was raised to understand that what you shoot you must be willing to eat. My grandpa was a master squirrel hunter and swore there was nothing better than a well prepared squirrel stew. So if I shoot for the pelt, I must be willing to eat the stew.
As for possum nutritional needs, I have slopped hogs and fed kitchen scraps to chickens. So it would be a cinch to figure out how to feed possum.
The takeaway message? One man’s varmint is another man’s business. I tried to eradicate marmots at the ranch (and did pretty well at it). Turns out that the Russian marmot is prized for its fur. Who knew? I shoulda been skinning the nasty little creatures. (cept for western marmots are mangy creatures with fur not fit for a hat much less a coat.)
And my dearly love grandpa passed away over a decade ago. So I did not eat the marmots I shot. No thanks! I just needed them to stop pooping on the hay in the barn and chewing up the floor joists!
Australia has Opossums? I thought the last glaciation wiped them out!
I used .22 ammo in a long gun with iron sight. Heck, they stand up, bark at you, and hold real still for an easy target!
They’re not dead, they’re just playing possum……
A tear for the possums and not a tear for the Palestinians murdered in “Operation Protective Edge”.
Israel DoD naming of operations seems to derive from condom advertisements in porn magazines.
Some would observe, “Well, that’s Israel”.
One way to tell the difference between New Zealanders and Australians is to watch what they do when they encounter a possum on the road. The New Zealanders are the ones that swerve towards the possum.
chris says: July 22, 2014 at 2:17 pm “There is a new ‘e-petition’ (UK): …… Classify the terms “denier” , “climate denier” or variants thereof as hate speech. ”
The idea of allowing the government to restrict speech is vile, I want hear what is on someone’s mind. When you put a cork in it – the pressure can only build.
As for “denier”, I wear that like a badge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-t9k7epIk
Just like the penguins discussed last week, the possums all moved to the other side of the mountain because of all the disruption caused by the study.
You know marmot is on the possums menu. That might be your answer.
Just repeating what other commenters have noted – this is not a species. It’s just a white colour form of the lemuroid ringtail, Hemibelideus lemuroides. The gene (or genes) for white fur would be dispersed in populations of the species, and could only become “extinct” if the entire species disappeared – which not even the wildest greenies are claiming.
Thanks for this Anthony, excellent timing.
I was just finishing off a post about low genetic diversity and the supposed increased risk of extinction claim aimed at polar bears, took a break to pop over here and look what I found!
A population reduced to four? Doomed, they suggest? I found several examples of drastically reduced populations that fully recovered with no apparent repercussions.
If you’re looking for a followup to this story with a bit of meat (metaphorically speaking), have a look. Almost all of the references are open access papers. I worked in a link back here for future reference.
http://polarbearscience.com/2014/07/22/low-genetic-diversity-will-not-make-polar-bears-more-vulnerable-to-extinction/
Cheers, Susan Crockford
Mods, please snip SIGINT EX for off topic nonsense.
Cynical Scientst
One way to tell the difference between New Zealanders and Australians is to watch what they do when they encounter a possum on the road. The New Zealanders are the ones that swerve towards the possum.
I turned the garden hose on the last possum I caught near our house. The last thing you want is for Possums to feel comfortable around your home, its not just the mess the possums cause, its the horrible parasites they carry.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/17/one-benefit-of-the-australian-heat-wave/
Nowhere but up, perhaps? Yes, another 10 Celsius temperature increase and they’ll be forced to migrate to the highest parts of the Daintree National Park.
Dead Possum in the middle of the road, killed by Co2 gasses. Sing along….
“Life finds a way.” – Jurassic Park
Apparently the greenish have self-appointed to be that way and help everythin dats fury and photogenic … for a fee … just a few billion … tis a bargain … nice pelt btw … conveniently slipper-sized too …
Anyway, to a bit of WX alarmism, it looks like the US is in for a bit of nasty stuff on Monday … brace.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/07/27/1800Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-104.40,40.53,748
GeologyJim: I had to laugh at the Costa Rican jungle toad that “may have gone extinct due to global warming”.
—
Whenever I read the words “… may have …”, within anything I hear/read from either greenies, politicians, scientific papers or media reports, I immediately mentally tag it with the words, “… and also may not have …”. Which immediately diffuses all the propaganda and foretune-telling BS that inevitably follows.
And in all honesty, it’s just about as likely to be true.
Any chance they just moved like the 10,000+ head herd of caribou that they thought had been wiped out in Canada?