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Pet Industry Development Officer

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CATALOGUE

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Locally Wild launch: Christopher Cheng teaches children to bond with native pets

Adults and kids recently gathered together at Sydney Wildlife World to celebrate the launch of Christopher Cheng’s exciting new book Locally Wild.  

Held opposite the humid butterfly habitat, and with some snake petting to keep people on their toes, the event was launched by Simon Marnie, Tony Moore, Verity Firth, Minister Assisting the Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Professor Michael Archer, and of course, Christopher Cheng.  

Locally Wild is a glossy, fully illustrated book and it reflects Chris’s belief that Australians need to live close to native animals if we wish to have any hope of conserving them.  

The book explains state laws and licenses to children in a fun and smart way, and demonstrates easy ways to attract native animals into their backyard by creating the shelter, food and habitat they require. It takes a look at enthusiasts who care for native pets as varied as turtles, cockatoos, bats, native honeybees and marsupials, and provides information on how to keep native animals as pets, with helpful details on caging, feeding and keeping them healthy. 

MCing the launch of Locally Wild was Simon Marnie, presenter on 702 Sydney during weekends. He has owned his fair share of native pets, including a kangaroo on two separate occasions. Aside from the novelty of owning a native animal, he found that they made great pets and bonded quickly, regularly taking him by the shoulders and giving him big hugs. Unfortunately, he explained, “on both occasions we had to get rid of the kangaroo because the neighbourhood dogs would come up and harass them.”  

If it weren’t for Tony Moore from Pluto Press, there wouldn’t have been a book to launch. He made the original call to Chris suggesting they publish a book about keeping native animals as pets. Sharing a passionate belief that people get to know Australian animals by caring for them, the two created the book as a ‘how to’ for parents and children to look after pets. Tony believes that it teaches children not to be passive consumers, but rather to become interactive in keeping native animals. Despite being warned never to work with either children or animals, Tony said, “Thanks to Chris Chen it was an absolute hoot.”  

Described by Tony as “more child-friendly than playschool”, Christopher Cheng is an award-winning author of a number of picture and information books, short stories and novels. Among his many literary achievements, Chris is the official Federal Government’s mascot for Literacy Week ’07. He is familiar with TV appearances, and has been seen on shows including Playschool discussing animals and promoting his books.  

He acquired a love of native animals during his eight years as Education Officer at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, and developed Australia’s first Zoomobile taking zoo animals to schools and community groups throughout NSW.  

At one point he and his neighbours planted Australian bushes in his home in Newtown, and before long they found lizards and cockatoos making their homes there.  

Speaking about the book, Chris explained, “I wanted to make it really accessible to kids.” He also wanted parents and teachers to get involved.   

“There is no better way than having first-hand experience,” said Verity Firth. She believes that Locally Wild teaches children to respect the environment they live in and encourages a better relationship with local wildlife.  

“We have to find ways to get native animals into our kids’ lives,” said Professor Michael Archer, who is a big fan of Australia’s native animals. In 1967 he came from the US to study fossils of Australia’s carnivorous marsupials, and was given a baby quoll by a friend. It crawled into his shirt and stayed there for the day. He soon discovered that it ate everything he put in front of it, and was obsessively clean. They bonded within a couple of days and “we had a great relationship,” he said.  

Conducting a small survey, Michael went up to kids and asked them to name ten animals off the top of their heads. Time after time they named exotic species. Only 15% of them named native animals.  

Illustrating how dangerous introduced species are to these vulnerable native animals, Michael explained that his quoll was killed after biting a cane toad, and a Squirrel Glider which he later owned was attacked by a cat.  

He believes that sanctuaries can only do so much. In Eastern Australia quolls are now only found in Tasmania, and he is certain that if they were to be kept as pets, they could be saved from further extinction. For example, in the USA Sugar-gliders are kept as common pocket pets. “There are probably more sugar-gliders kept as pets in the US as there are in the whole of Australia,” he said. 

Above all, the launch highlighted the importance of books like Chris Cheng’s Locally Wild in encouraging children to responsibly own native pets. With children’s help, Australian native animals may just be saved from a grim future.

This book is available from Pet Industry News at a retail price of $26.95 or contact Pluto Press in Melbourne for wholesale purchases.

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Measures to prevent the spread of equine influenza (EI)

A stern warning has been issued by NSW Department of Primary Industries to anyone currently in contact with horses: keep them at home.

Equine influenza (EI) is highly contagious and has been confirmed in a number of horses stabled at separate locations in NSW, resulting in a major campaign to control the spread of the viral disease. A horse stand-still has been implemented in NSW and the whole state declared a Control Area for EI. All horse events and movements in NSW have been stopped, including the movement of equine products.

Suspect properties are located in the Sydney region of Camden, Londonderry, Box Hill, Concord and Arcadia; in the Hunter at Aberdeen, Gloucester, Wybong, Muswellbrook; and in the north west at Moree. Restricted area maps are available at the NSW DPI website http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/horse/influenza. 

Horse owners in all Restricted Areas will be given material to allow them to register their details with the Local Disease Control Centre (LDCC) at Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute (EMAI). They will be asked to monitor and record the temperature/s of their horses twice daily and report any temperature increase or signs of illness to the LDCC.  It is planned that the LDCC will have telephone contact with all registering owners for follow up within 10 days of their registering.

The main symptoms of EI in horses and donkeys include a high temperature between between 38.5 and 41 degrees Celsius, a deep, dry, hacking cough, and a watery nasal discharge that may become cloudy or coloured. Other signs can include depression, loss of appetite, laboured breathing, and muscle pain and stiffness. The virus is not transmittable to humans.

The public is being urged to report horses with these signs to the Local Disease Control Centre (LDCC) for follow up – (02) 4640 6485.

Sick horses are not being destroyed and usually recover within ten days.

NSW DPI has outlined some basic steps to protect your horses and prevent the spread of equine influenza:

1. Keep your horse(s) at home or wherever they are currently situated.
2. Look after your own horse(s) but avoid visiting horses at other places. The greatest risk of spread is horse people visiting other horse people and/or houses!
3. Likewise, until the epidemic is over, don’t allow other people to visit your horses.
4. If you have absolutely no alternative to visiting other horses venues or horses please shower and wash carefully and put on a completely fresh set of clothes (including shoes). Wash your clothes in a full wash cycle and scrub your shoes with disinfectant for 5 minutes.
5. Horse equipment (saddles, bridles, rugs, horse dentist equipment etc) are very difficult to disinfect and should only be used within one horse establishment/farm.
6. Horse flu is so infectious that you can safely assume that if one horse in your stables / farm has the disease, all the horses will get it. Precautions within your stables / farm are not necessary - but it is crucial that we cease the contact between horses in different stables / farms until the epidemic dies down.
7. If you suspect that your horse has horse flu, please contact your local vet or ring the Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.
8. Stay up to date on the epidemic by regularly visiting the NSW DPI website http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/horse/influenza. If you register on the Horse Emergency Contact Database (HECD) at www.horsecouncil.org.au you will receive updates by email.

EI is exotic to Australia and would have a major impact on the Australian horse industry if it were to become established here. 

In view of this, veterinarians, farriers, equine dentists and other paraveterinarians are advised to keep visits to horse establishments to an absolute minimum, for emergencies only, and particularly to avoid sequential visits on the same day. Only essential and emergency visits should be undertaken until 6th September 2007, while the true extent of the disease is established. 

KEY CONTACTS
Public help hotline:  1800 675 888
For veterinary advice:  (02) 4640 6561

Media contact: (02) 6391 3455

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