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Letnic, Mike

doi:10.1023/a:1008913826686

Cited by 29 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…and Newcastle by deployment of convicts armed with axes. From the 1830s, livestock production expanded from Port Phillip into the Western and Wimmera Districts of Victoria, corresponding with the dispossession of the local indigenous people (Letnic 2000) and changes to fire regimes likely resulted (Gamage 2011).…”

Section: A Brief History Of Human Impacts In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Homo sapiens is the apex animal: anthropocentrism as a Dionysian sword

Fleming

Ballard

2017

Australian Zoologist

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Anthropocentrism, where humans are central, is a natural human viewpoint, but a threat to objective ecological study. Human population, resource use and resource expectations are expanding, turning our ecological footprint into a deep rut. We believe that, while many studies deal with the consequences of human effects on ecosystems, the outcomes are viewed as if humans were observers rather than participants in ecosystems. Humans are the apex animal, manipulating most ecosystems with forestry, mining, agriculture, manufacturing and urbanisation: we engineer the landscape, the air, the water and even the climate. In many situations, humans are also the top predator, killing both our competitive mesopredators and their herbivorous prey. Leaving the top predator out of models reduces the alternative hypotheses and imposes directional bias on the responses of subordinate trophic levels. Our objective here is to discuss the roles of the human in the room and the consequences of ignoring them when designing experiments, proposing explanatory models and interpreting studies.

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Section: A Brief History Of Human Impacts In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Homo sapiens is the apex animal: anthropocentrism as a Dionysian sword

Fleming

Ballard

2017

Australian Zoologist

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“…Large areas of the world's rangelands are degraded by changes in plant composition, (such as decreased vegetation cover, shrub encroachment), nutrient loss, increasing soil erosion and salinization (D'Odorico, Bhattachan, Davis, & Runyan, 2013) and loss of functional species (Chillo & Ojeda, 2012). Such impacts can reduce resilience to environmental variability (Fensham, Wang, & Kilgour, 2015; Healy, Tulloch, & Fensham, 2020; Letnic, 2000; Milton, du Plessis, & Siegfried, 1994), although some impacts may be reversible (Silcock & Fensham, 2019). Legacies of pastoral degradation (Eldridge & James, 2009; Fensham et al, 2015; Letnic, 2000; Tiver & Andrew, 1997), including impacts of artificial watering points (Healy et al, 2020; James, Landsberg, & Morton, 1999), compounded by introduced species, particularly rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus , red foxes Vulpes vulpes , and feral cats Felis catus , have resulted in local mammal extinctions (Woinarski et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such impacts can reduce resilience to environmental variability (Fensham, Wang, & Kilgour, 2015; Healy, Tulloch, & Fensham, 2020; Letnic, 2000; Milton, du Plessis, & Siegfried, 1994), although some impacts may be reversible (Silcock & Fensham, 2019). Legacies of pastoral degradation (Eldridge & James, 2009; Fensham et al, 2015; Letnic, 2000; Tiver & Andrew, 1997), including impacts of artificial watering points (Healy et al, 2020; James, Landsberg, & Morton, 1999), compounded by introduced species, particularly rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus , red foxes Vulpes vulpes , and feral cats Felis catus , have resulted in local mammal extinctions (Woinarski et al, 2011). This has disrupted trophic networks (Morris & Letnic, 2017) and degraded ecosystems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic adaptive management planning—Restoring a desert ecosystem by managing introduced species and native herbivores and reintroducing mammals

Kingsford

West

Pedler

et al. 2020

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Arid rangelands are degraded worldwide, suffering vegetation transformation, soil erosion, introductions, and extinctions. Wild deserts is restoring a desert ecosystem in Sturt National Park, New South Wales, Australia (35,000 ha), eradicating or controlling introduced animals, managing native herbivores, and reintroducing regionally extinct mammals. We describe a Strategic Adaptive Management Plan for restoration of this desert ecosystem, including a vision, model of ecosystem processes, stakeholder input, a hierarchy of objectives linked to triggers and their management actions, producing outcomes and outputs. Our management treatments included two "no restoration" areas and three "restoration" areas. The latter include two exclosures (each 2,000 ha), free of introduced animals (foxes, cats, rabbits), with previously abundant kangaroos removed and regionally extinct mammals to be reintroduced. The third management treatment is a Wild Training Zone (10,400 ha), with introduced animals and kangaroos managed at low levels, using innovative methods, improving survivorship and avoidance behavior of reintroduced mammals to introduced predators. These measures will allow populations of threatened animals to establish, initially in the exclosures, then the Wild Training Zone and potentially more widely. Our strategic adaptive management planning approach is generic and implementable for any natural resource management project, providing explicit steps and processes that track and report transparently on outcomes, fostering learning by doing.

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