Wildlife adventures

by John Q on March 10, 2009

We may not have mutated beavers (jokes on this topic to the beaver thread, please!), but life in Australia is still interesting. I’ve never had a roo in the house, but I once had to remove a green tree snake which had come in through the window. And that reminds me of my favourite Australian tourist promotion.

{ 7 comments }

1

Kieran Healy 03.10.09 at 4:46 am

I remember being told not to worry about snakes because the spiders killed most of them. Drop Bears, of course, are a different matter.

2

Another Duncan 03.10.09 at 4:47 am

I remember a few years ago finding a website that sold all manner of lethal arachnids. The scorpions ranged from one described as having a weak venom, like a bee sting and a mild demeanor. Your basic, entry-level scorpion. At the other end of the spectrum was the “Australian Desert Brown”, the poison of which was almost instantly lethal and had a “highly aggressive” temperament. The advisory said: “Not for beginners.”

3

John Quiggin 03.10.09 at 4:54 am

Kieran, similarly with sharks and crocodiles. We have great faith in the balance of nature, which drop bears help to maintain.

4

ndg 03.10.09 at 10:00 am

It’s not as good as this one from The Gruen Transfer…

5

Jacob T. Levy 03.10.09 at 11:50 am

When I was backpacking around Australia and traveling by long-distance bus from place to place, the bus drivers effectively did this. Everyone aboard was a tourist (who else takes the bus, er, “coach,” from, e.g., Darwin to Cairns?) So the bus drivers would act as local tour guides, informing us about all the interesting ways that the local fauna could kill us.

Unlike the video, the drivers never warned against Vegemite. Who knows how many innocent tourists they could have saved from the horrible fate of tasting the stuff?

6

Nick 03.10.09 at 1:09 pm

AnotherDuncan:

Someone was pulling your leg:
http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/Infosheets/Scorpion-facts-and-fallacies/

“None of these potentially lethal species occur in Australia.”

7

Barry 03.10.09 at 1:31 pm

Nick, not yet, but there’s an international wildlife plan to relocate breeding colonies of all known lethal creatures to Australia, in case they go extinct in their native lands. The reckoning was that Australians wouldn’t notice a few hundred more lethal poison critters; they’d just be a drop in the bucket :)

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