FauNature - Brnging You and Wildlife Together

This delightful little poem, adapted from the original by Carol Soulsby, is a plea, if you are a pet owner, to consider our wonderful Australian wildlife.  While it is important for owners to be responsible for their pets year round, probably the most critical time is spring.  Please read and reflect...

We folk who have pets should beware

Now that Spring is in the air

For the wildlife that's found, with young on the ground

Are becoming extinct everywhere.

Now a dog by its nose will be led

To the place where the thrush has its bed

Hid by shrubs and leaf-litter, with just an occassional twitter

Its future remains full of dread.

Or a cat in a garden will stay

Hiding in shrubs all the day

Then on its prey it will pounce, though it weighs little more than an ounce

Not for hunger, or need, but for play.

The balance of nature each year

Would be fine, if we did not intergere

Bandicoots, birds and the possums, not to mention the blossoms

Are part of the food chain I fear.

However, our pets have no part

To play this ecology's heart

So to pet owners I now PLEAD: KEEP CATS INDOORS AND DOGS ON A LEAD

And let's give New Life a fair start...

Adapted from an original work by Carol Soulsby (Waddesdon, England; April 2005)