Saturday 31 January 2009

Cassowary dung and DNA


There have been a number of articles this week on using DNA sampling of faeces from the Southern Cassowary to project population levels in Queensland, Australia.
Unfortunately these days one is never quite sure how much media hype is involved and how much factual reporting is substituted by sensationalism.
The Southern or Australian Cassowary, Casuarius casuarius johnstonii, is an endangered species. At the time of the first European settlements in the early 19th Century, the cassowary lived in the tropical rainforests which stretched for over 600km from the Paluma Range, north of Townsville, to the tip of Cape York and probably had a population in excess of 10,000.
It is now only to be found in two rainforest segments, the Mission Beach and Daintree areas, representing perhaps 20% of the original habitat.
At the last estimate its numbers were assessed as between 1,200 and 1,500. In the meantime tropical storms, like Larry, have certainly had an impact and road-kills are continuously impacting (no pun intended) on the population. A new survey to establish population numbers would certainly be useful.
Using modern technology to extract DNA samples from faeces is possible and would establish which individual had deposited it. The Cassowary is an extremely shy bird under normal circumstances and any population survey must rely on indirect observation rather than a head count. Faeces are evidence of a bird’s presence, but in themselves only indicate temporal passage (again no pun intended) of a bird. The main advantage of using this technique would be to specifically identify the Cassowary in question and perhaps thereby map the home range and indicate the breeding potential. Although hunger, as evidenced after tropical storm Larry and other similar disasters, will cause Cassowaries to migrate, normally these birds inhabit well delineated ranges which are strongly contested. Once these ranges have been established it is, except for offspring in the male ranges, very unlikely that other Cassowaries will be found in them, except as transients. Young adults do migrate looking to found their own range and depending on the availability of suitable forest will travel great distances to find them.
For any attempt at wildlife conservation, accurate information is an essential prerequisite for the ultimate success of a project. Certainly the proposed DNA sampling is likely to produce useful information about which Cassowaries are where, but the required scale of sampling will have to be huge to be meaningful. Traditional methods of extrapolating head counts, local reports allied with faeces observed will need to be intensified and frequently repeated to give a meaningful result and of a suitable accuracy to form the basis of future conservation measures. It seems that some funding has been made available to CSIRO for the project, but the A$ 50,000 recently donated will hardly employ a DNA technician for very long. If CSIRO are serious about DNA sampling it will require some substantial investment over a few years. The Cassowary is worth it, but projects have been trumpeted before and subsequently collapsed due to lack of resources. With hindsight, the Cassowary may benefit more from preventing road kills and stopping human expansion into rainforest habitat than from employing another member of staff at CSIRO to analyse its defecated food remains.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Legal responsibility

Legal responsibility

There is an ongoing case in the High Court about compensation for illnesses possibly caused by radiation on servicemen who took part in Britain’s atomic tests in the 1950s. The Ministry of Defence will contest the claims, saying they refer to events which took place too long ago, but contend that they normally pay damages to servicemen when they have legal responsibility.
Injury and death compensation to servicemen and women is something one would expect since their ‘trade’ is dangerous and the likelihood of something unpleasant happening must be fairly high. Where workers in commercial operations are at risk, compensation for industrial injury is covered by heavy insurance. In the case of the armed services the Ministry of Defence is the insurer and judging by recent cases to do with the Falklands and Irak wars is not very prompt or generous in its compensation.
Surely servicemen and women deserve at least the level of commercial industry compensation should anything happen to them? Without going into an argument about whether they are serving their country or paid mercenaries, it would seem that they deserve better treatment in regard to compensation for ‘accidents’ made while serving in the forces.
As an employer I would have thought that the Ministry of Defence had a moral as well as a legal duty towards looking after its employees. While compensation certainly costs money, considering the pain, anguish and suffering caused in service it should be made with a reasonable attitude towards how difficult it must be for ex-servicefolk to prove everything in detail and make a legal case, not to mention fund the legal battle. Would it not be more just to perhaps err on the side of generosity and be more amenable towards claims?

Saturday 17 January 2009

A dreadful mistake

Nationalising anything is a dreadful mistake if the intention, in the medium or long-term (pace Keynes), is to facilitate efficient administration. Anyone who can remember dealing with a nationalised bank in central Europe prior to 1989 probably still has nightmares about the frustrations endured. At best nationalisation should be replaced by an administrator charged with maintaining some shareholder value before business can become stable again.
You cannot improve banks by turning them into part of the state apparatus as the management incentive is irreconcilably different. It will be interesting to see if Northern Rock proves me wrong.
Banks occupy a very special position in our economy and allowing any of the major ones to become bankrupt would have a domino effect of catastrophic proportions for the UK.
A ‘bail-out’ with taxpayer’s money should be seen as an, admittedly unexpected, investment in the commercial blood supply of the economy – one which will, over time, be fully repaid. This ‘bail-out’ is only likely to succeed if those managing the banks can look forward to advancing their own personal wealth. Our tax system has benefited enormously from the financial sector and with the right future modulation and supervision will continue to do so. ‘Toxic’ assets are not entirely composed of unredeemable features and, given time, a fair proportion may be realised. Writing down is inevitable, but writing off is stupid.
If we had been privy to more information about individual banking activities regarding credit swaps and leveraging, market forces would have long ago forced a change in these practices. One thing we do need for future stability is up-to-date transparency.