Another whale stranding made the news in Australia this week - the second large whale stranding this month. This time, eighty seven long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) and five dolphins were found stranded on the beach at Hamelin Bay, south of Perth in Western Australia early Monday 23 March.  A few of the animals were returned to sea,  but more than 70 whales died on the beach.

On 2nd March, nearly 200 Pilot Whales and a few Bottlenose Dolphins stranded on King Island off the north-west coast of Tasmania. About 140 of the whales died.

54 pilot whales and the five dolphins were rescued from the beach and guided out to sea by island residents, volunteers and parks and wildlife staff. One of them cam back onshore again overnight

The figures below are from a report in Brisbane’s Sunday Mail (January 17, 2009) …

• 577 great white sharks caught off New South Wales beaches between 1950 and 2008
• 901 great white sharks caught off  Queensland since 1962.
• Over 45,000 sharks caught in Queensland nets since they were introduced, according to the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries.
• 578 sharks were netted off Queensland beaches, in 2008. Almost half of them over 2m long.

The Fish section of the OzAnimals site is being updated  - there are now over 300 species.  The picture below shows a small selection of the fish species on the site, and a complete list of all the fish species on the site is included in the table at the end of the post.

The descriptions (fact sheets) will be added progressively over next few weeks.

This is one of our videos that has been up on YouTube for a while. It was shot at David Fleay Wildlife Park on Queensland’s Gold Coast.  The crocodile was minding its own business late in the afternoon, when the turkey decided it was time to send it packing. David Fleay Wildlife Park is home to many Australian native animals displayed in bushland surroundings similar to their natural habitat.

There are about twelve species of Tree Kangaroos , but only two species are found in Australia - Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) and Bennett’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus bennettianus). Most of the other species are from New Guinea and nearby islands. The Australian species are fairly easy to distinguish - Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo has pale coloured band across the forehead and down each side of the face.

The Bird section of the OzAnimals site is being updated with over a hundred new species added. The picture below shows a small selection of the bird species added, and a complete list of all the bird images on the site is included in the table at the end of the post.

We have used the book “A Guide to Australian Moths by Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards” to identify some of the moths on this site.

It has 214 pages and about 400 colour photos. Now there are over 20,000 species of moths in Australia, so this book only covers a small percentage of species. But it is handy for helping to identify the families. For each family it gives the characteristics of that family and some photos of representative species.

Here is a link to some cool shots from the shortlist for the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition (from the New Scientist site).

The shot of the bat in flight is neat, and I had no idea that the sandpiper photo was thousands of birds until I read the caption.

The Courier Mail reports a story about a koala that survived being hit by a car travelling at 100km/hr, near Petrie in Queensland. The koala’s head and arm were forced through the car grille by the impact.

A call was made to the Caboolture Koala Care and Rescue group, who cut around the car’s grille mesh to release the animal. The koala was taken to the Australian Wildlife Hospital at Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast have dubbed the 8-year-old marsupial Ely “Lucky” Grills, after the late Australian television actor.
The 8-year old male koala suffered no serious injuries in the unusual car versus koala clash.