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.
Maybe this gives new meaning to the age-old question: Who gives a rat’s ass? 🙂 ☺
These possums have just become the canary in the coal mine of Global Warming.
Chris,
Petition signed.
Some years ago a local rabbit had a litter of six white babies. Other rabbits had babies at the same time.
Every evening for six evenings the local tawney owl arrived and carried off one white baby rabbit. It could see them more easily in the twilight.
Does anything prey on these white possums?
The only Green’s member of parliament, the righteous, pious and holier than though Adam Bandt, will no doubt label the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, as solely responsible for this foul deed.
Whoever wrote about their wish that all opossums go extinct is operating at an ignorance level that is more than disappointing. It makes this entire community look bad.
As to the possim in question, call bs: albino variants are incredibly rare in the first place. It is doubtful if this is an actual species at all. Additionally if it is a species, claiming that heat waves in Australia, which is famous for heat waves, is going to drive it into extinction is transparent bs.
What is likely more dangerous to this animal is habitat loss due to things like deforestation to make room for wind power turbines.
I went ‘possumming’ on a visit in 1969 with my father in law who had a ‘possum line’ in the NZ Catlins district at the south end of the South Island. Possumming was putting out poison bate and making the rounds every several days. He and the mother-in-law had a home on a spectacular lookout at Papatowai on the south coast overlooking the most beautiful estuary and beach I’ve ever seen.
We also went out at night with a lantern and speared flounder when the tide came up the sandy estuary (a tricky business until you factored in the apparent displacement by refraction of flat target lying on the bottom). A real treat was to get a trout that came out into the brackish water but I wasn’t good enough with the spear for this. Digging cockles and ‘pippies’ in the sand for a cook-up was also part of the idyllic life there. These shell fish could sink themselves into the sand almost as fast as you could dig them. The in-laws didn’t mind the bit of sand in the fry-up but for me they put the shellfish in a pale with groats so that the shells would expel the sand and replace it with oatmeal.
I also came upon a penguin moulting in a cave – it looked like a plucked chicken and it stood there and shivered away for probably a week or more until it had grown enough down.
There sure was no danger of these possums going extinct. I don’t know if they are related to the variety of this thread but, if so, there is no chance of losing this species. They are a nuisance. Oh and Pamela? The fur is very soft. One use for it is in lining artificial fibre-making machinery (nylon, etc) to prevent damage to the thread and to take off static charges.
hunter says:
July 23, 2014 at 3:21 am
The area is dense rainforest, mostly on hillsides, close to the coast or else at elevations that are innately cooler anyway. Actual heat waves are rare in the area. 1998 was probably about as bad as it gets, so heat is unlikely to be a significant stress.
Deforestation is unlikely because the entire area is world-heritage listed and it and the reef are major tourist attractions.
Because it’s a small area it could be vulnerable to a particularly large cat-4 or 5 cyclone hitting the area and demolishing the forest, but those intense storms have been battering the area periodically for the past 10k years so they seem to cope with severe disturbances.
Personally, I think the ‘environment’ is not as fragile as some vested groups continually apply or assert it replicates and regenerates rapidly and human damage is rapidly overcome and eliminated unless humans persist in an activity. We’ve learned a lot since the errors of mid last century, and frankly the environment is remarkably healthy and vibrant. And as it turns out the cute and conveniently slipper-sized white possums were there all along.
Don’t mistake dark humor for a lack of responsibility though. Those possums will be OK, and much of the rainforest is basically in pristine condition and not going anywhere. 😉
Acording to the IUCN they are Near Threatened, that is just one step below Least Concern. The IUCN also agrees that the white ones are NOT a seperate species.
As far as threats the IUCN says, “There are no major threats to the species at present. Selective logging was a past threat, but now much of its range is within the Wet Tropics World Heritage area. It is very sensitive to canopy removal, and is adversely affected by the construction of wide roads and clearing for power lines resulting in open areas within its habitat. It is likely to be sensitive to global warming as it is found at high elevations (Winter et al. 2008).”
We know that logging, construction of wide roads and clearing for power lines adversley affect them. None of which are caused by climate change. But it is ‘likely’ that global warming will adversely affect them. So the known threats all have no tie to climate change and there is just a WAG that climate change may be a threat.
How do these people get away with calling themselves scientists?
” ddpalmer says:
July 23, 2014 at 4:33 am
How do these people get away with calling themselves scientists?”
Because psychic, seer and astrologist are all taken?
How soon before Sarah McGlaughlin is asking me for $.14 a day to save this creature?
They don’t talk about 2005 being a record heatwave year, so what about previous heat waves, and why didn’t they wipe out the cuddly things before 2005. And if, as they continually shout, the world has been warming since 2005, then why do we still have them living in their normal habitat?
At least they don’t look like they will kill you like a polar bear or a panda bear but I wonder what they taste like?
Perhaps a bit of garlic!
I’ll try one next time I’m up there and hopefully it will be the last excuse for ‘environment’ corporations to rip money off people.
NoFixedAddress
At least they don’t look like they will kill you like a polar bear or a panda bear but I wonder what they taste like?…
Aussie possums are a significant vector for paralysis ticks and other horrible parasites – if you approach too closely, you’ve got a good chance of experiencing more of what the Aussie bush has to offer than you would like to.
Reply to mjc ==> I believe you are correct == it is not a separate species by any measure, only a rare color variant, with what, if I recall is correct, a recessive gene for white fur. Therefore there are sufficient white possums in an area, they multiply (there are enough white-white breedings to perpetuate the strain). The recessive gene was more prevalent in the Cairns area, thus more white possums.
Any Aussie biologists out there to confirm? Are we dealing with a color variant caused by a recessive gene?
… and fur seals are now being born 8% lighter apparently:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28372468
Apparently the krill is declining, causing this. That must be CAGW, then?
So many canaries, so few coal mines (or something)
Informative, funny thread. One local guy was having a problem with large numbers of recently reintroduced wild Turkeys roosting in a tree outside his house. His solution,”Mason Jars”
Jer0me says:
July 23, 2014 at 5:45 pm
… and fur seals are now being born 8% lighter apparently:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28372468
—
But could there be a more simple explanation given this is a thirty-year trend? From Wikipedia:
“Fur Seals
They are marked by their dense underfur, which made them a long-time object of commercial hunting. … Many fur seal species were heavily exploited by commercial sealers, especially during the 19th century when their fur was highly valued. Beginning in the 1790s, the ports of Stonington and New Haven, Connecticut were leaders of the American fur seal trade, which primarily entailed clubbing fur seals to death on uninhabited South Pacific islands, skinning them, and selling the hides in China.[4] Many populations, notably the Guadalupe fur seal, northern fur seal and Cape fur seal, suffered dramatic declines and are still recovering. …”
And the BBC article actually says: “… The fur seals gather in huge numbers on beaches of Bird Island and all around South Georgia. …”
So the population has been exponentially recovering, and is still growing, so just maybe it’s now running into the limits of available food, for more and more mouths each year, thus the mothers can eat less, so their pups are getting lighter.
But that would be an environmental success, right?
And nasty humans are innocent on all counts! … well we can’t have that! lol
Next ‘they’ll’ be militating that the (non-disclosed rapidly recovering numbers) seals are endangered by a pending global ocean food-supply collapse … caused by humans!!! … of course … rotters …
For we have no innate right to eat fish as we are really aliens, an introduced galactic pest that did not evolve on this planet and are not a key part of the natural planetary food-chain and have not survived in spite of all challenges and thus earned our place in it and to eat from it without feeling guilty about it. Oh, hang on … none of that’s true, we are in fact native to the planet and the competition between species is otherwise known as survival-of-the-fittest, the most adaptable, and the outcome of that competition leads to the bulk NET evolution of the entire biota, and not just the evolution of individual isolated species.
And this has always be the case, aerospace technology notwithstanding,
So the seals are currently benefiting hugely from the dewy-eyed greenie’s feeling or inferiority and guilty about humans being cleaver and being able to eat fish, so they militate for dumbness to prevail instead, because they are rather anti-competitive, on energy and on global evolution based on the natural tot and fro of survival of the fittest over time.
So are we proud to be human and play our part in the planetary web of life, or brow-beaten into insane apologetics about daring to build things like A380s, and Hubble space telescopes, and fishing fleets and eating fish and chips?
Well, good luck to the fur seals, but I’m going to eat krill rissoles if I want to, I may even have a fur seal BBQ, if they become to prolific … for the good of all those pup’s weight gain.
But the more curious question is why do such BBC ‘stories’ (and others like the BBC) constantly put one side of the available explanations for observation? Did the scientists involved not use their brain, or did they really only give the BBC a jaundiced view of the possible explanations? Or did the BBC get the whole story but cheery-picked an ‘explanation’ which it liked and wanted to emphasis, and thus excluded others that were more reasonable or sensible?
Somehow the one-sided explanations/theories published are almost always in the direction of weird and extravagant doom, an AGW or CAGW bias, rather than prosaic commonsense accounts for an otherwise trivial but not quite insignificant observation. The way in which this comes about is more intriguing than the original science observations regarding pup weights.
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This is recycling news from 2008 – 2009.
The Australian “Greens” need a mascot and this possum suits nicely as it certainly is cuddly.
As for their survival…….clearing of their forest home has probably had more impact than any effects of warming [if there has been any].
Their range is quite restricted and took quite a hit from Tropical Cyclone Larry in 2006.
They had considered changing our football mascot to the possum because they played dead at home and got killed on the road.