Tahlia+Vanessa+Amy

**What is the state of our backyard?**

** By Tahlia Amy and Vanessa **

**So What is the state of your backyard?** **Have you ever reaslied any of the birds or plants or do you just take it for granted?**


 * Q1/2. We made a map of some of the places that were affected by the fires and some of the species. **

** Please go and have a look! **

The key to this map is on the link View Bush fire map - press that and it will send you to the same map but with a key
 * Map **media type="custom" key="10307025"

Q3. Choose 3 animals endagered spieces and summarise the animal. Amy and Tahlia have been researching 3 different animals first we had to chose those animals that we wanted to learn about, we chose the Leadbeater possum. Helmeted Honeyeater Sooty owl.

1. **The leadbeater possum**

On black Saturday many animals were affected. One of them was the leadbeaters possum. The leadbeater possum is Victoria’s State Fauna emblem. This is an endangered species. This animal doesn’t exist anywhere except Central Highlands forests, Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve and Alpine areas between Lake Mountain & Mt. Baw Baw.

Prior to the 2009 bushfires the leadbeaters population was around 2,000 – 2,500. When the black Saturday hit, they estimated the population declined by 1,500, which left this species with only 1,000. The leadbeaters have many problems with there environment, one of the huge impact including the timber harvesting, salvage logging, and fuel reduction burning. But the main reason why their population decreased was because of the black Saturday fires.


 * 2. The Helmeted honeyeater **

The helmeted honeyeaters are a bird that is around 20cm tall and there skin tone/feathers range from a black to light brown and yellow. There are currently only 19 pairs left in the wild. This means that the helmeted honeyeaters are critically endangered. The honeyeaters live in the remaining patches of eucalyptus swamplands and the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve. Currently Zoos victoria have been involved in the captive breeding of helmeted honeyeaters this has been going on since the Recovery program began in 1989 and is still continuing till this day.

//Sooty owl//
 * 3. The Sooty owl **

//The sooty owl is a medium sized owl around 45cm tall.There are now only less than 1000 breading pairs of sooty owls left. Sooty owls are//﻿ //very secretive bird that lives Eastern Victoria and New south whales. If you were to look for this bird you probably find it around Rain forests and Eucalypt Gullies. The bush \fires have made a big impact regarding to this animals habitat lose, this also has made the sooty owls population decrease. This animal is Vulnerable in Victoria but endangered in New South Whales. The sooty owl lives hallow trees although because most of the trees got burnt down in the bushfires that’s also one of the reasons the sooty owl could become extinct. They are trying to reproduce the animals habitat by plant trees so they can have a place to live..//


 * 4. The Background of the fires **

 A week before the Black Saturday fires, an exceptional heatwave southeastern Australia, Melbourne broke records through three consecutive days about 43 °C, with the temperature peaking at 45.1°C on the 30th of January. This was the 3rd hottest day in the city’s history.

The heatwave was caused by a slow moving high pressure system that settled over the Tasman Sea, with a combination of an intense tropical low located off the North West Australian coast and monsoon trough over Northern Australia, which produced ideal conditions for hot tropical air to be directed down over southerneast Australia.

On February 2009 the day before the fires started the Premier of Victoria John Brumby issued a warning about the extreme weather conditions that were expected on 7th of February. John Brumby said “ It’s just as bad a day as you can imagine and on the top of the state is just tinder-dry. People need to exercise real common sense tomorrow!” John Brumby went on and stated that tomorrow was expected to be the worst day of fire conditions in the history of the state!

On February the 7th 2009 the black Saturday fires killed 174 people, with 5000 people left injured. This fire damaged 2,030 homes and killed countless animals. This fire travelled a huge 4,500 square kilometres of land!




 * Q5. This is a description of how the animals have been supported after the fires. **

**Healsville Sanctuary saw the lack Saturday fires. Some of the staff members lost their homes. When the fires ended Healsville sanctuary had a line of animals in need of help! Healsville Sanctuary worked extremely hard to get all of these poor animals back on their feet and so they were healthy and could release the back into the wild. **

**Healsville sanctuary played a huge part in preventing the extinction of many Australia’s most endangered species including the helmeted honeyeaters, Tasmanian Devils and the Mountain Pygmy- possums. Healsville Sanctuary was a wonderful organization that really cared about the animals that had been affected. Thanks Healsville sanctuary! **




 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px;">Q6. We have had the oppourtunity to talk to the Lorax. We asked the Lorax what we he would do if another fire <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">occurred <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px;">? **


 * Hi I’m the Lorax, and yes, I speak for the trees. I suggest that if everyone puts in and puts as much effort as they can into rehabilitating our environment, the animals and plants will not become extinct. I say that we need to protect our environment and our native species. We need to make sure we have a huge amount of trees also don’t forgot that trees give you air to breath! We need to make sure we are prepared and stop these fires before they hit our environment. Even though we are re-establishing the environment and peoples homes we could have thought about this before the fires hit. We could have made sure that there were less animals that were hurt and made sure we were prepared for a fire. We needed to make sure we had another place where we new the fires wouldn't hit. We also need to make sure the animals keep producing babies so that we can have many of animals on this earth not less. So, my main thing I’m trying to say is to be prepared! **



** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Q7. How are the affected animals recovering from the fire? **


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The Victorian and commonwealth government are funding for recovery projects as a part of “rebuilding together”. Restoring the population of the affected species, they are temporary moving native fish species such as: Barred Galaxias and Macquarie Perch to safe and clean areas, controlling of predators at the large hit areas such as foxes and cats at Wilsons promontory and foxes at King Lake, replacement of the nest boxes where they are apart of a monitoring or research program like the leadbeater’s possum at Lake Mountain and the Brush-tailed Phascogale at Kinglake The flora that was affected have now been replanted and have protected fencing surrounding to stop browsing and grazing from kangaroos, deer or rabbits. The local council and volunteers have a big part in the recovery of the fire hit areas supporting the animals in need and replanting the native flora. **

**BIBLIOGRAPHYS** "Helmeted Honeyeater." //Helmeted Honeyeater Volunteer Endangered Friend Bird Conservation Nursery Emblem Yellingbo Education Victoria Status Endemic - Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater Inc.// Ed. Paradigm4. Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater. Web. 24 Aug. 2011. <http://www.helmetedhoneyeater.org.au/>. "Sooty Owl." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 23 Aug. 2011. < [] >.

"Helmeted Honeyeater." Australian Animals. Web. 22 Aug. 2011. < [] >.

"Leadbeater's Possum - Simple English Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." Wikipedia. Web. 22 Aug. 2011. < [] >.

Google Maps. Web. 22 Aug. 2011. < [] >. "Map of Keppel Falls, VIC." //Map of Keppel Falls, VIC//. Digital Atlas Pty Limited, 2011. Web. 24 Aug. 2011. <http://www.bonzle.com/c/a?a=p>.

Map of Marysville, VIC." //Map of Marysville, VIC//. Digital Atlas Pty Limited, 2011. Web. 23 Aug. 2011. <http://www.bonzle.com/c/a?a=p>.

Preliminary-report-impact-2009-vic-bushfires-on-nature-and-wildlife." //Bushfires//. Govnment, 2009. Web. 2011. <http://www.wilderness.org.au/files/preliminary-report-impact-2009-vic-bushfires-on-nature-and-wildlife.pdf fri 26>.

"Healesville Sanctuary." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, 15 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Aug. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healesville_Sanctuary>.