There has been a lot of publicity recently about the proposed cull of 500 kangaroos in Belconnen in the Australian Capital Territory. Compared with the total number of kangaroos killed each year in Australia, this is a small percentage of the total. There is a significant commercial kangaroo industry in Australia that “harvests” wild kangaroos - mainly for meat and skins. The total kangaroo quota for 2007 was about 3.6 million. There are over 50 species of kangaroos and wallabies in Australia, with the following species killed commercially:

I got an email the other day from Hans Engstrand in Sweden. Hans is breeding King Parrots and currently has 23 of them. They are hardy birds and can thrive in Sweden in temperatures down to minus 20 degrees. On his web site www.kungsparakit.com he has photos of King Parrots in the snow.

For more information on this bird, see the OzAnimals King Parrot page

Did you know that Praying Mantis eyses changed colour at night - I didn’t realise this until a couple of days ago. I photographed this Mantis at night on one of our potted fig plants, and the red eyes were very noticable.

Granny’s Cloak Moth is a large brownish grey moth. You often see them in dark buildings like in your garage, or shed or in outdoor dunnies. They look faily drab boring moths but in the light of the flash they have quite a nice pattern. Click on the pic for more info.