David Knowles is the Spineless Wonders Biodiversity Inventory Surveys consultant based in Perth Western Australia.
He has always lived and breathed for the environment and its inhabitants. David has had 44 years of biosurvey experience in Australia, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and New Guinea. Alongside surveys, he studies, photographs, writes and encourages the appreciation of invertebrates and reptiles to many through school and other presentations and displays. His photographic library contains the largest private collection of WA macroinvertebrate images.
With world insect populations in decline for all sorts of anthropogenic reasons it is time for the few eco-literate members of our society to again stand up to eco-illiterate governments and their bureaucracies in their war of ignorance against the major proportion of our terrestrial macrofauna – the insects (‘bugs’). Some in the northern suburbs may have noticed the extensive burning occurring In the Moore River drainage. In my macro-invertebrate inventory surveys, I tend to target prime adult macroinvertebrate activity times like spring. A significant proportion of insect biodiversity is mature and seeking mates in springtime. DFES could not have targeted a better time to kill as many of our pollinators and leaf litter recyclers as possible!
“I suspect over the spring burning season that multi millions, if not trillions, of breeding animals die as a result. How do we change this extinction culture?”