{"id":26,"date":"2004-12-11T09:07:39","date_gmt":"2004-12-11T01:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=26"},"modified":"2012-05-01T12:54:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T04:54:57","slug":"the-easter-bilby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/environment\/the-easter-bilby-26","title":{"rendered":"The Easter Bilby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since Europeans arrived in Australia, they have done a lousy job of protecting the environment. Land and water degradation - due to farming of marginal land - are only some of the woes. The introduction of successful predators like the domestic cat to the ecosystem has meant the rapid decline of many small native animals.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imgRt\">\n<img src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2012\/04\/bilby_sm.jpg\" alt=\"The bilby. Image from: www.users.on.net\/ chrisoaten\/bilby.html\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>The native bilby, a marsupial, has been disappearing alarmingly in recent decades. A creative project at Currawinya National Park in Queensland aims to protect the bilby from extinction. They built a fence around a 25 km<sup>2<\/sup> area and this will prevent dingos, cats and other predators (and the main competitor for food - the rabbit) from entering the area.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imgRt\"><img src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2012\/04\/whiteEasterBilby.jpg\"  alt=\"Easter Bilby. Image from: http:\/\/members.ozemail.com.au\/~bilbies\/Easter_Bilby_3.htm\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>To raise money for the project, park rangers hit on the idea of replacing the Easter rabbit with the <strong>Easter bilby<\/strong>.  Confectionary maker Darrel Lea agreed (hey, it seemed like a good way to make more money, have a warm and fuzzy feeling - with tax breaks to boot) and began marketing Easter bilby chocolates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"alt\"><a href=\"#respond\" id=\"comms\">Be the first to comment<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Europeans arrived in Australia, they have done a lousy job of protecting the environment. Land and water degradation - due to farming of marginal land - are only some of the woes. The introduction of successful predators like the domestic cat to the ecosystem has meant the rapid decline of many small native animals. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}