Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

Australia's first tufted duck sighting creates a 'mega-twitch' at sewage pond

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tufted duckThe Werribee sewage ponds are one of the most popular bird-watching locations in Australia. On a good day, says Birdlife Australia’s Sean Dooley, you may see as many as five or six other cars there.
That was before the tufted duck arrived.
“I counted when I left, there were 35 cars of birders,” Dooley said, adding: “It was a mega-twitch.”
“It’s the biggest twitching event I have witnessed first-hand in Australia — it felt like I was in England,” he said.
The cause of all this fuss is a rather unassuming-looking black duck with white flanks and bright yellow eyes. It was spotted and identified by some visiting American twichers on 2 January as a male tufted duck, Aythya fuligula, a species of diving duck native to northern Eurasia but not uncommonly found in coastal areas in North America.


It is the first time the species has been sighted in Australia.
The visiting twitchers alerted the locals, who shared the find on social media.


Dooley was among the crowds who travelled to the ponds, properly known as the Western Treatment Plant, the day after the tufted duck’s first sighting. More than 50 other birders lined the shores, and crowds have grown daily.
The tufted duck is not as striking to the untrained eye as New York City’s so-called “hot duck”, an escaped mandarin duck that made its home among the more pedestrian species of Central Park and experienced a brief but intense period of international celebrity.
But for Australian birdwatchers, it’s even more exciting. For starters the tufted duck, on current assumptions, made the journey on its own.
Melbourne Water, which owns the treatment ponds and manages them as a bird conservation area, provides permits to allow bird-watching. It has welcomed the sudden spike in visitors.


The area has also seen an influx of bird numbers as waterbirds pushed off their usual habitat by drought seek refuge in a wetland that, for water processing reasons, is always full.

“Melbourne Water deserves a pat on the back for the seriousness with which they manage the land for its conservation values,” Dooley said.





Credits: The Guardian
Written by David Davidson


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Australian vets leaving the profession ‘in droves’ over stress and poor pay

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Vet examining a kitten
The number of Australian veterinarians leaving the industry because of stress and poor pay is increasing, a survey has found, adding to concerns about high suicide rates in the profession.
The Lincoln Institute survey found that nearly 90% of veterinary business owners and managers reported unprecedented difficulties in filling vacancies over the past two to three years.
Of those, 41% waited longer than six months to fill positions while 18% waited up to two years or more to find new vets for their clinics.
The Lincoln Institute co-director and veterinary surgeon, Gary Turnbull, said the shortage was not linked to the number of graduates but because people were leaving the profession “in droves”.
“I have been a vet for 23 years; personally I’m starting to back away from the industry,” Turnbull said.
“I feel like I can’t keep going at the pace I have for so long.
“Seeing the pain that veterinary business owners and their teams are going through right now is alarming.”
A separate survey of working vets found that about 37% were considering leaving the industry within a year, and 40% were contemplating leaving their current job.
Stress, poor work conditions and low remuneration were listed as the top reasons, and 40% would not recommend becoming a veterinarian.
The government has highlighted the shortage – data from the Department of Jobs and Small Business reveals that only 28% of vet vacancies were filled last year, a rate of about 1.5 applicants per vacancy.
Turnbull has called on the government to encourage foreign vets to fill the vacancies and expedite the process.
Vets are four times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, double the rate of doctors, pharmacists, dentists and nurses.
“We’re dealing with emotion and grief all day every day and it’s hard not to take some of that on board,” Turnbull said.
“A lot of practices are struggling to be profitable at all. For those that do, the owners are often not paying themselves an appropriate salary.”
It costs about $1m to $2m to set up a clinic, he said.
To be registered, clinics have to offer out-of-hours emergency care.
And while there are specialist emergency clinics in capital cities, Turnbull said regional and rural areas did not have the numbers to support it.
Even on late-night callouts, pet owners often complained to vets about the cost, he said.
“This is the attitude that wears you down. You don’t feel particularly appreciated.
“The closest comparison that people typically have is their own medical care, which in some aspects is so heavily subsidised.”
An industry steering group is expected to release a working paper in March, with recommendations on how to keep vets within the industry.





Credits: The Guardian
Written by David Davidson

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