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All good observations from the lucky country but the glaring stain on the great republic of Australia is something absolutely hideous that I first noticed in 1988....
Some of them call their daughters "Peta"!
Yes, as in Peta Williams, Peta Snell, Peta plumbly walker etc
Give me a thousand huntsmen and a troop of chlamydia riddled koalas anyday over asking to see "Peter" and having a chick show up!
Yeah sure mate, you'd complain if Peta Wilson showed up
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Cane toads in Queensland... I might be a socialist* who sees some value in keeping the native fauna around, but fuck them.
*Not really.
I don't think they are native , they were bought over to keep down some sort of bug in the sugar cane but they don't jump high enough to get the bugs at the top of the cane.
Nuke the fluffybunnies from orbit , its the only way to be sure.
A mate told me when you run them over it sounds like a tire blowout, any truth to this?
Not sure, it's been decades since the last time I saw them in person.
You're correct on their (not) native status - that's another reason not to care about their survival in Australia...
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Yeah they go pop
It's fun to get the 3 wood and smack them in to the neighbors yard
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@mariner4life cricket bat ...
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Speaking of computer simulations...
"Mutant Marsupials Take Up Arms Against Australian Air Force
The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia’s armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training , programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of the their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and — in the case of the Northern Territory’s Operation Phoenix — herds of kangaroos (since groups of disturbed animals might well give away a helicopters position).
The head of the Defense Science and Technology Organization’s Land Operations/Simulations division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials’ movements and reaction to helicopters.
Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachments reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures’ speed of movement.
Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies “buzzed” the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the Americans nodded appreciatively . . . and then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten the remove “that” part of the infantry coding).
The lesson? Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of the old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with the utmost respect for the Australian wildlife.
Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onwards have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.
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mind you I ain't taking on no fucking kangaroo ... deys fuckas is scary ...
I often walk past one on my morning constitutional that lives down the bottom of our hill. Scares the bejeebus out of me. And he's only one of those mid-sized buggers. Scarier than Sammy the coastal taipan (Straya!). Don't go giving them stingers.
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@booboo if thats the one you walk past, I'd start taking a different route, or stop being so predictable, he looks like he is just waiting for his moment!
No more Booboo!
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@taniwharugby or Booboo will be walking home funny!
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@Victor-Meldrew Aussie Armed forces have taken on the wildlife before (and lost)
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i love how they stand really staunch. We have one at one of our parks that is muscular as fuck. He's staunch as
Dumbest thing about roos is driving in the outback at dawn and dusk. the silly fluffybunnies are big for jumping in front of cars. If you don't have bars your car is going to get fucked up.
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@Victor-Meldrew Aussie Armed forces have taken on the wildlife before (and lost)
Funny seeing this from back then.
By December 1932, word of the Emu War had spread, reaching the United Kingdom. Some conservationists there protested the cull as "extermination of the rare emu".[19] Dominic Serventy and Hubert Whittell, the eminent Australian ornithologists, described the "war" as "an attempt at the mass destruction of the birds".[20][21][22]
For some reason my mind always goes to a variant of this image when the Emu war comes up.
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Emu are terrifyting. They are huge, they are stern looking, and they have big fuck off beaks and claws.
Thankfully they aren't as angry as Cassowary. Cassowary will fuck your shit right up.
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@mariner4life said in Straya!:
i love how they stand really staunch. We have one at one of our parks that is muscular as fuck. He's staunch as
Dumbest thing about roos is driving in the outback at dawn and dusk. the silly fluffybunnies are big for jumping in front of cars. If you don't have bars your car is going to get fucked up.
During the cooler months down here, the roads are littered with corpses. Everyone's going to or from work around dawn/ dusk when they're about feeding. If you light up the side of the road it can be quite disconcerting how many and how close they are.
Especially when they come in as a result of drought.
Some of them are big. They do a hell of a lot of damage. Taking out suspension, or worse through windscreens still kicking. They're dumb as shit too. Run alongside a slow moving car, and then simply turn into you. Fucking stupid animals.
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Growing up on a dirt farm in country NSW you're never far from the wildlife. Possums in the roof. Spiders in the eaves - or the shitter - and snakes around the backyard loving the water and occasional rodent.
Mustering sheep one day as a lad, had to take a piss, so I got off the motorbike and started my business. Red belly black about 4 feet long slides out of the grass between the tips of my toes and the landing point of my stream.
You can bet I pushed as hard as I could for as long as I could until he buggered off. Not risking a drop on the scaly bastard's back to cause a whip around and sink fangs in my leg.
Earlier in life, got bitten on the bottom of the foot by a Huntsman. Screaming ensued, but I was probably 7.
One day at school not long after there was a brown snake in the verandah area where we hung our bags. Fortunately it was dead, because primary school me was too fucking stupid not to want to touch it.
Things have changed though with the drought - particularly animals coming into urban areas. Most disturbing is the lack of bug splatter on the windscreen when you drive out in the country. In the old days you'd have to clean the windshield at the end of every day and sometimes at lunch.
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Things have changed though with the drought - particularly animals coming into urban areas. Most disturbing is the lack of bug splatter on the windscreen when you drive out in the country. In the old days you'd have to clean the windshield at the end of every day and sometimes at lunch.
interestingly enough I saw a 'meme' on social media recently showing that very fact...
some fella came on and said most modern cars are more aerodynamic and therefore bugs will most often bounce or glance off, which is why you get less bugs on w/s...sounded plausible enough, but who knows, I'm not a bugmotortologist
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Talking of roadkill, has anyone been to Tassie?
Spent 10 days there over Christmas (excellent trip, barely scratched the surface) and was amazed at the incredible amount of roadkill. Wobbles, pademelons, possums, the odd devil (or at least looked like it), and definitely a quoll or two.
Dunno if you get similar amounts elsewhere in Aus but certainly not here in Qld, and I don't recall it in SA either.
Straya!
Emu War - Wikipedia
