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r Yirrkala
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or
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t

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ool

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erp

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Contents
Australian Geographic NovemberDecember 2017
Your
Society
Find out about the
2017 Australian
This common octopus Geographic Gala
model belongs to the Awards and get
Natural History Museum, the news. p123
London (p40).

Features
40 A menagerie in glass
Discover exquisite 19th-century
models of marine life.
64 A dolphin dominion 84 Ghosts of the
44 Love your neighbour
Often seen as pests, possums are
Enter the world of Shark Bays
super-smart dolphins.
Nullarbor
The dry, treeless plain was once
wildlife we should welcome. a lush, biodiverse habitat.

52 Way out west

74 Faces of the fence
Meet the people who keep the 94 On the Romani road
World Heritagelisted Shark Bay legacy of WAs Rabbit-Proof The 1000-year-old community of
is brimming with unique species. Fence alive. travellers is thriving in Australia.

4 Australian Geographic
 Contents

Find all this issues related content at:

australiangeographic.com.au/issue141

DONATE: Help save the northern hairy-nosed

wombat with your donations (p32).
Madison Stewart p20
VIDEO: Enjoy a video of the epic AG-
Top 10 p24 supported cloud forest adventure (p114) at
australiangeographic.com.au/issue141

WIN: Enter to win a copy of Australias

Most Dangerous (p107).
Members of Indigenous communities are warned that
this edition of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC may contain images
and names of deceased individuals.
Sandy Robson p16

Geobuzz & regulars

12 Your Say 26 Defining moments in
Mailbag and Australian history
reader photos
27 Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
14 Big Picture Conception-
Unforgettable confirming toads
images
29 Space
16 Global kayaking epic Exploring a star
20 Meet our Young 30 Wild Australia
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: GUIDO MOCAFICO/ COURTESY OF HAMITONS GALLERY 2013; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Conservationist Essential highlights

of the Year
SCIENTIFIC NAMES, PREVIOUS PAGE: Octopus vulgaris; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Pterois volitans; Lamprima aenea

34 Our history
22 Beetle baubles Racial discrimination
whats that?
24 Top 10
Subscribe and save
LEFT: KARINA HOLDEN; MADHAV BHAKTA; JUSTIN WALKER; ROGER DE KEYZER; GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES

Dangerous sea Beetles p22 38 Fishermens friends

creatures Subscribe to Australian
Geographic for
1 year via automatic renewal
Walkabout for $69.99 and save 22%!
106 The List See page 50 for more details
Travel, visit, listen, view,
read, download and more

108 Going wild On the cover

In Tasmanias Walls of
Jerusalem National Park
114 Three peaks in three weeks
An AGS-supported trip to
Queenslands cloud forests
130 Parting shot
Fred Watson on Australias
new space agency
Walls of wonder The Walls of
Jerusalem NP offers heavenly
hiking (p108).
The world of the
playful, intelligent
Indo-Pacic dolphin
(Tursiops aduncus),
captured on our cover
by Nana Takanawa,
is, it turns out, much
like our own. One of
the worlds longest-
running dolphin stud-
ies has been following Shark Bays dolphins
with all their familiar everyday dramas of
birth, death, grieving, forming social net-
works and making a living. See p64 for more.

November . December 5
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Online
The content doesnt end with this issue of the journal. Youll find
FREE

thousands more articles, images and videos online. Discover the stories
highlighted here at: australiangeographic.com.au/issue141

Sign up to the Australian

Geographic email newsletter on our
homepage and well deliver fresh
content to your inbox every week!

Talkb@ck

Urban birdwatching guide to Brisbane

The stunning scaly-breasted lorikeet is on our list of
20 birds you can expect to encounter in and around Brissie.
In August, a century-old
fruitcake left behind by
Captain Robert Falcon Scott

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: GRAHAM WINTERFLOOD; ANTARCTIC HERITAGE TRUST; PARENT GERY; BERNARD DUPONT
was discovered in relatively
good condition in Antarcticas
oldest building at Cape Adare.
Heres what you had to say:

GAIL MACKLIN
Someone will probably nd my

The golden tortoise beetle
wears its tiny spacesuit well
It might look ready to explore the
galaxy in its perfect little helmet and
protective suit, but this amazing
insect hasnt always been so pretty.
ACTIVATE
YOUR WEB EXCLUSIVE
ACCESS
CONTENT
Three decades of
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
at your ngertips!
Subscribers have access to the
entire digital archive of
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC magazine.
Join now: australiangeographic.com.au
Top 10 places to
fossick for gemstones
Want to dig for your destiny? Youll
nd that some of Australias best
fossicking sites are in our smallest
towns and most remote areas.
SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus; Aspidimorpha sanctaecrucis
scones in 100 years time!
I dont have much success with
them; they could be used as
paving stones.
LAURETTA NAGEL
There are at least two ways to
look at it: 1. Youll notice Scott
still didnt eat it, and 2. Man, he
dragged it a long way away to
get rid of it!
ELIZABETH ROBARDS-SUTTON
Fruitcakes taste better when
they are at least a year old. Dont
know about one that age. I often
let mine mature for at least six
months, more if possible.
LISA MAURER
I am a rarity in that I actually do
like fruitcake. But I dont think
Id want to eat this one!

8 Australian Geographic
If the
military
depend
on them,
you can.
Its not enough to make a timepiece that
looks rugged. It actually has to be rugged.
Fit for purpose. However tough that
purpose might be.
Our military watches are developed in
cooperation with, among others, US Navy
squadrons and leading ejection seat
manufacturer Martin-Baker.
Like all Bremont timepieces, this new
Airco Mach 1 is tested and certified by
none other than COSC, the official Swiss
Chronometer Testing Institute and is
hand-built on British shores, at our
headquarters in Henley-on-Thames.

British Engineering.
Tested Beyond Endurance.

SYDNEY Gregory Jewellers 02 9233 3510 - Wamada Jewellers 02 9281 8182 PERTH The Horologist 04 525 92824
MELBOURNE Monards 03 9650 9288
 From the Editor-in-chief

Time to act
T
HE OCEANS ARE a hot topic
right now. And thats not just
because the Aussie summer
holidays are around the corner. Some
experts are predicting an environmen-
tal catastrophe the likes of which we
have never seen before as climate
change increases ocean acidification
and temperatures, plastic infiltrates
every link in food chains under and
above the water, and unscrupulous
fishing practices drive marine species
to the brink of extinction.
Its a grim picture thats hard to
reconcile with the stunning coastal
vistas we take for granted as we head to
the coast during the next few months.
In this years Australian Geographic
Society awards, we recognise the
contributions of a number of ordinary
Australians doing extraordinary things
to highlight the plight of our oceans.
They range from scientists dedicated
to furthering our knowledge of the
Australian
Geographic
biggest denizens of our seas, the whales,
to a young woman whos vowed to Society
change perceptions of and save our
most feared ocean predators, the sharks, Gala
to courageous adventurers who have Awards
used their epic achievements to draw
attention to the state of the waters
2017
through which they journeyed.
Each of us who cares about the kind
Without the generous ongoing
of planet well leave to our descendants
support of our advertising sponsors,
is also called upon to act. Its not always the Australian Geographic Awards
easy to know where to begin, but you would not be possible.
could start by checking out the
brilliant Aussie documentary Blue, We acknowledge their contribution.
screening in cinemas now. For loca-
tions where you can view this impor- Main event Category
tant film, go to bluethefilm.org/screenings sponsor sponsors
Follow me on Twitter at:
twitter.com/chrissigoldrick

Contributors
OUR STORY Ghosts of the Nullarbor
(page 84) offers a unique perspective
on one of Australias most recognisable
landscapes. Having privileged access
to the expertise of palaeontologist
Professor Gavin Prideaux and his
groundbreaking Flinders University
team, science writer Susan Double
and specialist natural history illustrator
Barry Croucher explore a time when
the Nullarbor Plain teemed with life.
Susan Double
works in vertebrate palaeon-
tology at Flinders University,
Adelaide, but when not doing
science writes about it. She
has a passion for popular
science and creative prose with a natural his-
tory theme, believing that together these can
bridge the knowledge gap between scientists
and the general community. In 2016 she
placed runner-up in the Bragg UNSW Press
Prize for Science Writing. Susans work has
been published in Australia and internationally.
Barry Croucher
was born in England but
soon moved to New Zealand,
where he rst developed a
fascination for the natural
world. After returning to the
UK and a brief career in sheries research, he
attended art college and gained a graphic
design degree. As a freelance artist he initially
specialised in wildlife illustration using tradi-
tional media but today mostly uses 3D soft-
ware including Modo and Z-Brush to depict a
range of environmental and historical subjects.

Contributing editors: Joanna Hartmann, John Pickrell, Geordie Torr.

More contributors: Mauricio Anton, Fleur Bainger, Esther Beaton, Gary Bell, Anne Collins, Maria Comas Soberats, Roger De Keyzer, Christopher Farmer, Andrew Gregory,
George Hangay, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Alasdair McGregor, Caitlin Maxwell, Peter Meredith, Dean Miller, Bruce Newton, Kel Richards, Leonie Richards, Josephine Sargent,
Mandy Sayer, Ivy Shih, Nana Takanawa, Shannon Verhagen,Justin Walker, Fred Watson, Thomas Wielecki, Paul Zborowski, Mark Ziembicki, National Museum of Australia.

November . December 11

YOUR SAY
Featured Letter
ON A MISSION
Your article Into The Wet (AG 138)
paints an enthralling picture of
the Wet Tropics of far north
Queensland (FNQ). I am familiar
with most of the locations and
activities it describes, having lived
in that area for 22 years. I was
fortunate to live and work near
the sugarcane/banana town of
Tully and beautiful Mission Beach.
While I enjoyed Jeremy Bourkes
text and Don Fuchs images, I was
sad no mention was made of
Mission Beach other than on the
HIDDEN GEM
We appreciate and respect the
Australian Geographic Society, the
research you sponsor and the magazine
you produce. Every edition contains so
much interesting information about
our wonderful country. On page 31
of AG 140 there is a small reference to
the reef shark nursery at Coral Bay in
WA. The coastline from here all the
way up to Exmouth has amazing places
to visit and experience. The whole
region is excellent for snorkelling. One
of the best locations is Turquoise Bay.
You walk a few hundred metres south
of the car park, wade out 2030m into
chest-deep water and float with the
gentle current over a wonderful reef
with amazing coral and wildlife,
including turtles. No excessive energy
is required and its safe for all ages. The
whole area is one of Australias best-kept
secrets. By the way, you mention that
Coral Bay is north of Exmouth when
it is south. No big deal but thought you
would appreciate the information.
PETER AND JILL PIKE
LATHLAIN, WA
MILLING AROUND
I was delighted to see Jill Oates
reference to a SA communitys plan to
conserve old wind-driven windmills in
a museum in Penong. My cousin and
12 Australian Geographic
November . December 2017
map and in a description of nearby
Djiru National Park. In my opinion,
the Mission Beach area comprises
some of the most picturesque
FNQ experiences and I saw
much of the region during my
years there! It is classic Wet
Tropics, with rainforests, casso-
waries, Ulysses and Cairns bird-
wing butterflies and amazing
beaches with stunning views to
offshore islands. The author
enlarges on many experiences
and attractions connected to
the articles theme. But I find it
her husband installed a windmill when
they first built their home in a Perth
suburb about 65 years ago. It drew
water for a while then unfortunately
ran dry, but remained there because
of the fond attachment their family
had to it. Now their newly married
granddaughter has had it transported to
her organic vegie garden in an outer
Perth suburb. She arranged for an
expert to examine it, and, before long,
he had the rusty old windmill working
again. The family was promptly invited
for the official turning-on of the
wonderful 100-year-old windmill,
when it drew water again, using just
wind power.
JUDITH-ANNE TAHIR
DELORAINE, TAS
Avid AG reader and
Ireland resident Basil
Minihane, a regular
visitor to Australia,
proudly sports his AG
cap at a Clarecastle
Show Society event in
County Clare, alongside
Mairead Slattery.
Thanks for ying the AG
ag for us in ireanns
green isle, Basil!
MAILBAG
WELCOMES
FEEDBACK
Send letters, including an address
and phone number, to editorial@
ausgeo.com.au or to Australian
Geographic, GPO Box 4088,
Sydney, NSW 2001. Letters will be
edited for length and clarity.
astounding that there is virtually
no inclusion of magnificent
Mission Beach!
PAUL STEVENS, HOPE ISLAND, QLD
Ed: Thanks, Paul, we will add that to
our bucket list of destinations yet
to be covered by AG.
DROP US A LINE!
Send us a great letter about
AG or a topic of interest to you
for a chance to win an AG
backpack and bumbag.
NOT HAPPY!
I am disappointed with your carbon
emissions graphic (AG 140): what
a distorted opinion it represents.
When the USA, Russia, China and
India put out virtually all emissions
between them, your article is trying
to blame the small countries. I agree
three of the countries mentioned are
up-and-coming nations so should be
given some leeway, but the USA has
no excuse. They have the wherewithal
to put their country up with single-
figure emissions, but no, they are still
snubbing the rest of the world with
their views and couldnt care less
attitude by opening old coalmines
and power stations.
GERRY HAYMAN
MINDARIE, WA
 READERS PHOTOS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Chrissie Goldrick
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mike Ellott
CONSULTING EDITOR Karen McGhee
ASSISTANT EDITOR Jess Teideman
SUB-EDITOR Hannah James
DIRECTOR OF CARTOGRAPHY Will Pringle
PROOFREADER Susan McCreery

COMMERCIAL EDITOR Lauren Smith

DIGITAL WRITER Angela Heathcote

FOUNDER, AG SOCIETY PATRON Dick Smith

AG SOCIETY EXPERT ADVISORY PANEL
Chris Bray, Tim Flannery, Tim Jarvis AM, Anna Rose
AG SOCIETY ADMINISTRATOR
Rebecca Cotton

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The natural spa by David Ashley PRIVACY NOTICE

South-west WAs Wyadup Rocks is often lled with people. On this evening I waited 20
minutes for the last tourists to leave. With sufficient swell, waves breach the rock
face, cascading into the sheltered pool below, earning the name the natural spa.
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AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC , journal of the Australian Geographic Society, is

Frog friendliness by Christopher Farmer
There are many benets to having a frog-friendly backyard. Frogs are a natural form of
pest control, they sound wonderful and you can get to capture the full glory of what
are often stunning-looking little creatures without having to leave your home!
published six times a year (cover dates JanFeb, MarApr, MayJun, JulyAug,
SepOct, NovDec) by Bauer Media Limited (ACN 053 273 546), part of the
Bauer Media Group, 5458 Park Street, Sydney NSW 2000. The trademark
Australian Geographic is the property of Bauer Consumer Media Limited and
is used under licence. All material 2017. All rights reserved. No part of the
contents of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written
consent of the editor. This issue went to press 16.10.17.

November . December 13
 buzz

14 Australian Geographic
 Big picture

The Scratch
This beautifully backlit portrait
of a western grey kangaroo
(Macropus fuliginosus) was
captured by Georgina Steytler
and entered into the 2017
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
Nature Photographer of the
Year competition where it
was shortlisted in the Animal
Portrait category.
The 2018 competition is
now open for entries and will
close on Thursday 25 January
2018 at 5pm (ACDT). Entry
is open to photographers of all
ages and nationalities who focus
their lenses on the fauna, flora
or natural landscapes of the
ANZANG bioregion: Australia,
New Zealand, Antarctica and
the New Guinea region.
Cash prizes are on offer for
category winners and runners-
up of the competitions nine
categories, and the overall
winner will receive $10,000
cash and a holiday prize.

FOR MORE INFORMATION visit:

naturephotographeroftheyear.com.au

November . December 15
 buzz
Global kayaking epic
The grit and determination that it took to paddle from Europe to Australia, 23,000km across the world, has
seen Sandy Robson awarded one of the Australian Geographic Societys highest accolades.
A
HIP REPLACEMENT in2004
irrevocably changed the
course of Sandy Robsons
life. The operation meant
Sandy, a lifelong outdoor enthusiast,
could no longer disappear for days on
the bushwalking adventures she adored.
Instead the West Australian native, now
aged 49, heeded the oceans call and
embraced kayaking, which offered a
similar solace and sense of challenge
while being gentler on the hips.
Then, at a party, a friend told her
the extraordinary story of German
canoeist Oskar Speck. Hed paddled an
incredible 50,000km across the world
during the 1930s, and after arriving in
Australia in 1939, ended up interned
as an enemy foreigner for the duration
of World War II. I went home and
Googled him, Sandy recalls. In 2007
I paddled more than 6000km around
the coast of Australia, but that expedi-
tion halted because I got attacked by a
crocodile. I was hooked on the idea of
a long adventure when I came across
the idea to retrace Oskar Specks
expedition. I mentioned to my dad
that I was going to do part of it and he
said, Why not do the whole thing?
After studying Specks diary at the
Australian National Maritime Museum
in Sydney, Sandy launched on the
Danube River, in Germany, in 2011,
and headed for Cyprus. It heralded the
start of a 23,000km trip that would
ultimately span 20 countries and
almost six years.
Speck took just seven years to
complete his longer journey, but his
16 Australian Geographic
Australian Geographic Society
Adventurer of the Year 2017
September 2011: near the end of the rst
leg of her adventure, Sandy packs up her
kayak in Antalya Harbour, Turkey.
only breaks from paddling were to raise
money, undertake repairs or recuperate.
To fund her trip, Sandy needed to work
back in Australia between separate
stages. Additionally, some regions visited
by Speck, including parts of the Middle
East and Myanmar, had to be left out of
Sandys voyage because they were either
deemed unsafe or kayaking wasnt
permitted by authorities.
During her journeys Indian leg,
which she started in 2012, Sandy was
mobbed each time she came ashore.
Hundreds of people surrounded me,
and when it first started happening,
it was hard to get used to, she says.
India is different with personal space;
everyone is squashed into you, and it
would take at least two hours for
people to stop coming to look at you
I just had to factor in that time.
She paddled Indias west coast in
201213. Then, in 2014, Sandy circum-
navigated Sri Lanka and tackled Indias
east coast before heading to Bangladesh,
breaking records and creating firsts in
her wake (see opposite).
Among the biggest challenges Sandy
faced were the logistics of crossing
international waters. In Bangladesh
they didnt know what a kayak was and
dont even have a word for kayak, she
explains. Culturally, women dont go
out on the sea and paddle on their
own, so its almost impossible for
administrators to understand what you
are requesting. Sandy problem-solved
by engaging locals to represent her
PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: SEYFI YILMAZ; FOLLOWING PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
to authorities, a process that could,
frustratingly, often take months.
A trip this long, undertaken solo
and without support, was not without
KHANDAKAR RAHMAN; INDIAN COAST GUARD; SANDY ROBSON
physical risk. Sandy was run over by
a fishing boat in India after being
mistaken for a terrorist, suffered
malaria, had to organise a support
group in Papua New Guinea after
being chased by a fisherman for 8km
and had to navigate Bengal tiger
territory in Bangladesh alone.
I was paddling through the
Sundarbans Mangrove Forest and
knew the tourists had guards with
guns, Sandy says. I was always
looking over my shoulder, thinking
that a tiger was going to jump out
December 2014: Bangladeshi locals
inspect Sandys kayak at Nhijum
Dwip. Most had not seen this type
of boat before.

A trip this long, undertaken

solo and without support, was
not without physical risk.

August 2011: sailing in rough March 2013: the Indian

seas was always a balancing act
Sandy embraced. She snapped
this sele in waters off Greece
in an attempt to capture the
fun of powering along at
1012km/hr towards Rhodes.
First woman to kayak the coast of Papua New Guinea: 2016
Sandys major achievements
First woman to kayak the coast of India: 201214
World record circumnavigation of Sri Lanka: 2014
First woman to kayak the coast of Bangladesh: 2014
Paddled the Straits of Malacca: 2015
Paddled the Indonesian archipelago: 201516
Coast Guard supported Sandys
journey. Here she receives cold
drinks and watermelon from
the crew of a Coast Guard
hovercraft in the Gulf of Mannar
Marine National Park.

November . December 17
 buzz
The inspiration for Sandys epic journey,
Oskar Speck, poses with his folding kayak
during the expedition from Germany to
Australia in the 1930s.
and follow me. I didnt see any but Im
sure they saw me.
Her journeys longest leg was almost
13,000km and took her from West
Bengal in India to Australia.
When she arrived in Bali in 2015,
Sandy was hit with what she
describes as reverse culture shock.
I wasnt going where tourists go,
following along the coast, she
explains. In Bali there were heaps of
tourists, but I had been living with
local people and experiencing their
culture. Then I came to the resorts
where you see lots of [tourists] and
no locals, you get reverse culture
shock. My first night on Bali, I went
and paddled to where the local people
were and asked if I could camp in their
backyard. I didnt want to hang out
with [tourists]!
Crossing in late 2016 from PNG
to arrive on the Torres Strait island of
Saibai, her penultimate destination, was
bittersweet. I felt like I wanted to keep
going, Sandy says. Looking to my
right, there was New Guinea and to
my left was the first island of Australia.
By Kel Richards
Bewdy,
bottler, ripper
SANDYS EPIC
JOURNEY
November 2016: still smiling after
23,000km of paddling, Sandy is welcomed
to Saibai Island, in the Torres Strait, as she
completes her epic journey.
undertaken long expeditions. I sleep
on the floor, not in the bed, and find
the western world quite strange, she
says. People are very affluent, but are
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM NANCY JEAN STEELE
Even after all those miles, a part of me hesitant to give money to help others.
wanted to keep going and complete Sandy agrees she was excited to be
the circumnavigation of New Guinea. told she was being named the AG
Sandy now plans to write a book Societys 2017 Adventurer of the Year,
detailing her incredible adventure but says it isnt really her award. It
alongside the story of Speck who belongs to Oskar Speck, she says. He
became a Lightning Ridge opal miner, never got any recognition, and I
then dealer and settled permanently in paddled just a small portion of his trip.
Australia following WWII. JOSEPHINE SARGENT
Back home in WA, Sandy has found
adjusting to life on dry land difficult, a TO nd out more about Sandys adventure,
common scenario for those who have visit sandy-robson.com
BEQUEST; BRETT CHARLES; BIRD ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL STREICH
Three words with the same meaning: terrific! Theyre sometimes strung
together, sometimes used individually. Bewdy is the slack Aussie way of
saying beauty, as in You little bewdy! Bottler is also straightforward.
It means Your bloods worth bottling and was coined by Aussie diggers
in WWI, after the development of blood transfusions. But ripper remains
a mystery. So far, every linguist and lexicographer Ive asked about this has
responded with a shrug: why should something terrific be a little ripper?
Youd think ripping would be bad not good! If you can help, email me at
kel.richards@2CH.com.au Help solve this mystery and youd be a little ripper!
 2017/18 Packages Out Now
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Fly FREE to South America! *

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 Australian Geographic Society
Young Conservationist of the Year 2017
Shark girl
D
ONT CALL Madison
Stewart a conservationist or
an environmentalist. In fact,
dont try to pigeonhole this
committed and courageous young
woman at all. She sees herself simply as
an individual taking action in defence
of something she loves thats in
desperate need of protection.
The subject of Madisons activism is
guaranteed to strike fear in the hearts
of many, and addressing a whole gamut
of misconceptions around sharks, the
oceans top predators, is on her agenda.
Despite her youth, the 24-year-old
is an undersea veteran. She grew up
sailing around the Great Barrier Reef
on her parents yacht and spent her
early life snorkelling and freediving
while patiently ticking off the years to
the day when she could gain her scuba
diving certification, aged 12. Already
fascinated by sharks, Madison was now
able to observe them in their own
domain. I got to know the sharks
20 Australian Geographic
I could recognise them by sight and
I got to know their personalities,
Madison says. Other people had dogs
around them growing up. I had sharks.
But within a couple of years, she
saw a dramatic decline in shark
numbers on the reef. One day I went
in the water and couldnt find my
sharks anywhere, sharks Id spent my
childhood with, she recalls. Theyd
been caught and killed in a legal shark
fishery. It was a watershed moment
for Madison.
She left school at 14 to be home-
schooled so she could spend more time
in the ocean. She taught herself to
shoot underwater video to document
sharks in their own world and share
her sense of wonder, and outrage, with
others. She launched a YouTube
channel and built a significant follow-
ing for her documentaries where she
targets issues like inadequate protec-
tion for vulnerable shark species, the
global shark fin industry and the
cruelty and futility of some shark
attack mitigation strategies.
In 2014 Madison was the subject
of the inspirational documentary Shark
Girl, which introduced her to a global
audience. In 2017 she appears as an
Ocean Guardian, alongside the likes
of ocean advocate Valerie Taylor, in the
new cinematic documentary release
Blue that explores a range of threats
PHOTO CREDITS: PERRIN JAMES; COURTESY MADISON STEWART
to the worlds marine environments,
including the unsustainability of the
global shark fishery. The catastrophic
scale of the oceans environmental
problems depicted in Blue makes for
sobering viewing. But ultimately the
film exhorts viewers to get involved
and includes practical steps to empower
them to do so. It closely echoes
Madisons philosophy that the power
of the individual to make a difference
by their own direct action should never
be underestimated.
CHRISSIE GOLDRICK
Swimming among sharks is where Madison
Stewart (left) feels most at home. She regards
them as family. Magnicent tiger sharks
(above) are her avowed favourites.

Museum
Treasure
Race to the
Gold Diggings of Australia
board game
On display at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra
I
N THE 1850s, hundreds of
thousands of immigrants arrived to
seek their fortunes on Australian
goldfields. In the UK, in particular, the
discovery that this remote convict
colony was rich in mineral wealth
caused much excitement.
Race to the Gold Diggings of
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LANNON HARLEY/NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA; JOHN OXLEY LIBRARY, STATE
Australia was made in London in
about 1855 and reflects how the
hot news topic of the day had cap-
tured the imagination of everyone,
including children. Printed on linen
and handpainted, it isnt quite a
traditional board game, either physi-
cally or conceptually.
In the 19th century, board games
were mostly intended for children,
and attempted to instruct as well as
looking up
with Glenn Dawes
LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND; WIKIPEDIA
Glenn Dawes is a
co-author of the
yearbook Astronomy
2017 Australia
(QuasarPublishing).
buzz
THEN AND NOW
Do you recognise this
building pictured in 1920
and 2012? Its in a town
founded in 1870 that,
after the 1871 discovery
of gold, grew quickly into
a bustling metropolis. It
became known by locals
at the time as The World,
and was soon the second
largest city in its state.
entertain, preaching the virtues of hard
work and thrift. In contrast, this game
is purely for fun, focusing on the
adventures and perils of the high seas
and of digging for gold.
Players leave the port of Plymouth
in England and sail past Madeira, the
Canary Islands, Sierra Leone and St
Helena, before rounding the Cape
of Good Hope in South Africa.
They eventually arrive in Port
Phillip bay in Victoria and attempt to
find their fortune (represented by big
bags of gold), all the while trying to
avoid landing on numbers that mean
they miss a turn or get eliminated. Its
telling that the winner is the first to
arrive in Australia, where their untold
wealth awaits.
x1 x10 x100
Naked eye
With the Milky
Way low in the evening
Binoculars
The colours of
stars are evident in the
Small telescope
Mercury has
emerged from behind
sky, the far southern sky V-shaped Hyades open the Sun into the evening
is quite barren, but two cluster, the face of Taurus twilight. Watch its
stars, both associated the Bull. The giant orange changing disc as it heads
with water, shine brightly. Aldebaran makes a towards Earth, growing
Achernar is in Eridanus brilliant bovine eye, with from 5.1 arcseconds ()
the River. Fomalhaut is the remaining dozen or and full-Moon shape in
the brightest star of so bright members being early November to a thin
Piscis Austrinus, Latin mostly blue amid a crescent, 8.7 in diameter,
for southern fish. scattering of yellow ones. a month later.
November . December 21
 NATURE WATCH
Beetle baubles 3

Australia has some of the worlds most

beautiful and colourful stag beetles.
TEXT BY GEORGE HANGAY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL ZBOROWSKI AND ROGER DE KEYZER
32mm
Actual size

About 1400 species of stag beetle (family

Lucanidae) have so far been scientically 2
described and named worldwide. Of these,
95 occur in Australia, including some of the
most spectacular species. Many, however, lead
cryptic lives. Their grub-like larvae chew away
quietly in or under fungus-riddled dead logs
on forest oors, where they pupate and
eventually turn into attractive adults. These
often stay hidden under the logs, males ven-
turing out in the open only when looking for
mates. The adults of many species cant y
and dont eat, surviving on reserves built up
during their larval lives, which may be just
enough to see them through until they mate.
But not all stag beetles lives are the same.
Some, including quite a few pictured here,
can y after they emerge as adults and feed
on ripe, soft fruit, the oozing sap of wounded
trees or nectar of some owers.

FEMALE): ROGER DE KEYZER; L. latreillii (MALE MANDIBULARIS FORM): PAUL ZBOROWSKI

PHOTO CREDITS: Lamprima latreillii (BLUE FEMALE): PAUL ZBOROWSKI; L. latreillii (RED
2 3

1
Lamprima latreillii
(blue female)
1
1624mm
As for all Lamprima, this
species develops in
decaying wood infested
with white rot-producing
fungi. Larvae live in fallen
logs, preferring eucalyp-
tus but also in other
24mm rainforest timber if white
Actual size rot is present. This blue
form is usually found in
northern Queensland,
especially on the
Atherton Tableland.
L. latreillii L. latreillii
(red female) (male mandibu-
1624mm laris form)
1832mm
Lamprima adults are good
flyers that feed on flow- A species from the
ers of trees and shrubs Herbert River area in
and may gather on plants Queensland described in
thought to emit an odour 1885 as L. mandibularis
attractive to both sexes. is now thought to have
This red form is more been a male L. latreillii.
common than blue in Note its huge mandibles.
females. Beetle breeders Once common on the
may add substances Atherton Tableland, its
to food to achieve now rare in the wild due
unusual colourations. to habitat destruction.
Some stag beetles
are good, albeit slow,
yers, helped by
a wingspan thats
slightly longer than
their body length.

22 Australian Geographic
 7

4 5

75mm
Actual size

6
4 5

Lissapterus obesus Lamprima aurata

(major male) (purple male)
2842mm 1432mm
Lives in drier rainforests This is a purple form but
in the western Great the golden stag beetles
Dividing Range, from colour ranges from red/
northern NSW to south- golden-red to near-black.
ern Queensland, above Found in eastern NSW,
PHOTO CREDITS: Lissapterus obesus (MAJOR MALE): ROGER DE KEYZER; Lamprima aurata (PURPLE MALE): ROGER DE KEYZER;
Lamprima aenea (MALE): ROGER DE KEYZER; Phalacrognathus muelleri (MAJOR BLUE MALE): ROGER DE KEYZER; Hoplogonus

950m. Preferred habitat ACT, Victoria and Tasma-

is in or under logs on the nia, like other Lamprima
forest floor, where larvae it breeds in decaying logs,
develop. Flightless adults mainly eucalypts, but
emerge December also she-oaks (Casuarina,
January, moving slowly Allocasuarina) and even
and seeking mates. introduced willows.

6 7 8
8
Lamprima aenea Phalacrognathus Hoplogonus
(male) muelleri simsoni
2730mm (major blue male) (major male)
2475mm 1332mm
Green is this species
typical colour; variations The describer of the All three species in this
include dark bronze and king stag beetle in 1885 genus live in north-east
simsoni (MAJOR MALE): PAUL ZBOROWSKI

even blue. Its Norfolk called it the most beau- Tasmanias wet forests
Islands only endemic tiful insect I have ever and are endangered. Lar-
stag beetle but, due to seen. Its the rock star vae feed and develop in
destruction of its forest of stag beetles due to its rotten logs for up to two
habitat, it has become vivid colours (this image years before pupation 32mm
rare in the wild. However, shows an uncommon commences. Emerging Actual size
there are good numbers blue form), elegant shape adults live under fallen
with breeders mostly and rarity. Found in north- timber on the forest floor
in Taiwan and Japan. eastern Queensland. and in leaf litter.

November . December 23
 TOP 10
Lookbut dont touch!
Sure, weve got killer white sharks and deadly box jellyfish, but
Australias waters boast many more dangerous marine creatures
that arent so well known. Here are 10 of them.

M
OST BEACHGOERS and ocean
users around Australia give 1
thought, before entering the
water, to sharks, jellyfish and crocodiles.
But you might want to also consider the
lesser-known marine creatures that can
deliver nasty bites and stings. While not
as notorious as our headline-grabbing
biters and toxic avengers, many other
aquatic species come equipped with
weapons that can cause severe injury
and, occasionally, death. 2

1 CONE SHELL 5

Of the 80 species of cone shell in Australian

waters, a handful are potentially lethal to 6
humans. These predatory sea snails have a
harpoon-like tooth that injects a fast-acting
venom. Serious envenomation causes intense
pain and swelling at the sting site, numbness,
tingling, nausea and vomiting. Seek medical
attention immediately.
3

2 STONEFISH
Two stonefish species occur in Australia,
mainly in the tropics. Their venom is among
the most potent of any fish and can be fatal.
Excellently camouflaged, these ambush
predators grow to about 35cm and rarely
swim away if disturbed. Instead, they erect
venomous dorsal spines that can be strong
enough to pierce rubber-soled shoes. Seek
medical attention immediately. 4

3 SEA ANEMONE
The largest and brightest occur in coastal
tropical waters where they attach to rocks
or reefs, waving venomous tentacles in the
current to snare passing prey. For humans,
brushes with some species produce similar
symptoms to jellyfish stings.

24 Australian Geographic

4 FIRE CORAL
These colonial animals are hydrozoans; they
are related to, but are not, true corals. Highly
variable in size, shape and colour, all have a
hard skeleton with tiny pores from which they
protrude tentacles armed with stinging cells.
These stun prey and can cause divers and
snorkellers in tropical waters intense pain
if they brush against them. However, theyre
not particularly toxic.
5 SPONGE
Some sponge species have developed toxins
and tiny, sharp spines as defences. These can
cause skin irritation if touched, with symp-
toms including redness, prickling, itching and
tiny blisters, which can develop later into
burning and pain. Symptoms may worsen
over 24 or more hours and the area can take
a week or more to return to normal. But
sponges are not very toxic.
6 STINGING HYDROID
These fern-like colonial animals grow on sub-
merged rocks or reefs, often where there is a
current that carries plankton prey past their
fronds, which are lined with stinging polyps.
Even a brush against a stinging hydroid can
produce pain. The effects seem variable,
ranging from no reaction to intense pain and
weals that can take weeks to heal.
7 9
8 10
PHOTO CREDITS: 1. TEXTILE CONE SNAIL (Conus textile), GETTY;
2. REEF STONEFISH (Synanceia verrucosa), GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE
IMAGES; 3. ANEMONE (Actinodendron sp.), GEORGETTE DOUWMA/
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY; 4. FIRE CORAL (Millepora platyphylla),
GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES; 5. SEA SPONGES (Porifera),
GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES; 6. STINGING HYDROID
(Aglaophenia cupressina), GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES;
7. BRISTLE WORM (Chloeia sp.), GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES;
8. RED LIONFISH (Pterois volitans), GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES;
9. FIRE URCHIN (Asthenosoma ijimai), GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE
IMAGES; 10. OLD WIFE (Enoplosus armatus), GARY BELL/
OCEANWIDE IMAGES
buzz
7 BRISTLE WORM
These are common and widespread, and
have stiff protruding bristles which can injure
skin on contact. In some species, including
fireworms, the bristles are venomous. They
break off easily in skin and are hard to see;
a rash is often the only sign. Symptoms,
including itching, burning, pain and swelling,
are usually worse in the first few days but
can last up to 10 days.
8 LIONFISH
Lionfish are Australias best-known scorpion-
fish. They grow up to 35cm, usually have
stripes and feathery fins, and are often seen in
tropical and subtropical waters. They can be
aggressive, and have venomous spines that
cause extremely painful stings. This isnt nor-
mally fatal, but symptoms can include head-
aches, vomiting, seizures, paralysis and
breathing difficulties.
9 SEA URCHIN
Sea urchins occur in a variety of sizes and col-
ours with spines that range from stubby and
blunt to long and sharp. Some are venomous.
Long-spined species cause the most common
problem: a spine breaking off in a victims skin,
which can cause infection. The spines of some
species disappear in a few days; others have
spines that can stay under the skin for
months and emerge some distance from the
original wound. The punctures are painful.
10 OLD WIFE
Many fish have sharp spines that can cause
puncture wounds. In the old wife (the some-
what derogatory name comes from the
grumbling sound the fish makes when taken
from the water), dorsal spines contain
venom known to cause pain. They occur in
sheltered habitats such as seagrass beds,
wharfs, jetties and coastal reefs.
Want to know more?
Check out our new book
Australias Most Danger-
ous, a concise, accessible
field guide to our remark-
able but often dangerous
snakes, spiders and
marine creatures. On sale
now, it includes up-to-
date first aid advice. Head to
magshop.com.au to order online or call
136 116. For a chance to win a copy,
turn to page 107 to find out how.
November . December 25

I
N 1906 THE YOUNG nation of
Australia became a colonial
administrator when it assumed
responsibility for the external territory
of Papua the southern half of what
is now Papua New Guinea.
Australia saw the administration
of the territory as an opportunity to
secure its borders, expand commercial
and colonial interests and prove itself
as a mature and modern nation.
German colonialism
On 7 February 1883, the Sydney
Morning Herald published an article
about German intentions to annex the
eastern portion of the island of New
Guinea. (The western part was already
controlled by the Dutch.) Because the
island lies only 150km north of Cape
York, the article heightened anxieties
here about the Australian continents
vulnerable and sparsely populated
northern borders.
A month later, Queenslands colonial
government pre-emptively annexed
eastern New Guinea. But Lord Derby,
Secretary of State for the Colonies,
promptly repudiated Queenslands claim
when news reached him in London.
Free to act, Germany annexed New
Guineas north-eastern section in 1884
and named it Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. At
the same time it claimed the Bismarck
Archipelago, which included New
Britain and New Ireland off New
Guineas north-eastern coast, as well
as other small island groups.
Britain responded by proclaiming
the protectorate of British New Guinea
(covering south-eastern New Guinea),
providing a buffer between German
territories and the Torres Strait, which
was vital to Australian navigation.
26 Australian Geographic
1906: Australia takes control of
Papua as an external territory
Administration of the Protectorate
was shared between Britain and the
colonies of Queensland, New South
Wales and Victoria. But in 1906 full
control of this area was handed to the
Commonwealth of Australia and
it was renamed the Australian
Territory of Papua.
World War I
Shortly after the outbreak
of World War I in 1914,
Australian military and naval
forces occupied Kaiser-
Wilhelmsland to prevent
it being used as a German
naval base.
Part of the Dening Moments in Australian History project.
To nd out more: nma.gov.au/deningmoments
An Australian patrol officer (left) trades a
stick of tobacco with local tribesmen in New
Guinea, in about 1950. This mask (below)
was one of many artefacts collected by
Sir Hubert Murray, who in 1908, was appointed
lieutenant-governor and remained head
administrator of Papua until his death in 1940.
After the war, the United Nations
mandated that German New Guinea
come under Australian rule. Both
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA (NMA); OFFICIAL PAPUAN COLLECTION,
territories, however, were administered
separately and retained their own
identities. In 1949 the Papua and New
Guinea Act brought both territories
together under one administration
based in Port Moresby.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA COLLECTION; NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA
During the 1960s debate grew,
both in Canberra and Papua New
Guinea, about the future role of
Australias administration. There
was a view that the Australian
administration favoured Euro-
pean interests over those of
locals. By November 1973
Papua New Guinea had
attained self-government and
on 16 September 1975 it
was granted independence.
 NEED
TO KNOW
Conception-confirming toads
CANE TOADS WERE introduced into
Australia in 1935 and by the 1950s
were a pest in Cairns. In classic Aussie
style, Cairns Base Hospitals Louis Tuttle
and Bill Horsfall found a use for the
plentiful amphibians by developing a
pregnancy test that used them.
A couple of decades before, in 1928,
German gynaecologists Selmar
Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek had
discovered the presence
of a distinctive hormone
in the urine of pregnant
women. They injected the
urine of potentially preg-
nant women into mice,
twice a day for three
days then killed the Cane toad.
mice 100 hours after
the first injection and
examined their ovaries. If
the scientists could see
with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
new blood vessels on the ovaries, they
were 99 per cent sure the woman who
had supplied the blood was pregnant.
This evolved into the Friedman test
for pregnancy, which involved injecting
early morning urine from a woman into
an ear vein of a virgin female rabbit, aged
at least 12 weeks. The rabbit was killed
after 36 hours so its ovaries could be
examined: characteristic changes in
female organs showed the woman was
pregnant. One problem with using
mice or rabbits was that they
needed to be killed for a
diagnosis. Toads, unlike
mammals, didnt.
Tuttle and Horsfalls
test involved separat-
ing male and female
toads for a few weeks,
to ensure the males
were not generating
sperm. At 9.30am, a womans urine
sample was injected into the back of a
male cane toad and the animal was then
examined at 3pm and 5pm on the same
day. If it produced sperm, the pregnancy
test was positive. The male toad did
not have to be killed and could be
used repeatedly.
Soon cane toads were being flown
out of Cairns airport to hospital labora-
tories across Australia. The only down-
side was that this didnt really reduce
cane toad numbers.
In 1960 an immunological test for
pregnancy was developed. It became
available over the counter in Canada in
1971 and its use soon spread worldwide.
DR KARL is a prolic broadcaster, author and Julius
Sumner Miller fellow in the School of Physics at the
University of Sydney. His latest book, The Doctor,
is published by Pan Macmillan. You can follow
him on Twitter: @DoctorKarl

Ask an expert On this day

Dr Maria Comas Soberats, Research fellow, Woolcock Institute
of Medical Research, University of Sydney

Q Is jet lag more pronounced when travelling during an equinox?

The most important factor that helps us synchro-

AFTER A DECADES-LONG battle, Australias
women voted for the first time. Only the
second country (after New Zealand in 1893)

A nise our body clocks to a new time zone is

daylight exposure. Generally, the higher the
exposure the easier and faster it is to achieve
synchronisation. This is why adjusting to a new
time zone when travelling during summer is easier
than in winter. Equinoxes are simply in between
these two seasonal extremes. So, we could say
PHOTO CREDITS: SHUTTERSTOCK; WIKIMEDIA; GETTY
to enfranchise women, Australia started along
that path in 1884 when Henrietta Dugdale
(pictured) founded our first suffrage group.
Seven years later, in 1891, its members, and
those of other organisations, took a petition
with 30,000 signatures to the Victorian
Government. The SA Government (which then
included the NT) granted women the vote in

that, in general, jet lag would be more pronounced 1895. In 1899 WA did the
in the equinox compared with summer but not same, followed by NSW in
1902, Tasmania in 1903 and
compared with winter. There are other factors
Queensland in 1905. Despite
that affect synchronisation. Direction of travel,
the heroic efforts of the
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Rhinella marina

for example, is important. Jet lag is worse when petitioners, women only
flying east rather than west. Arriving in the received the right to vote in
evening is better than the morning. Our own Victorian state elections in
chronotype has an effect also. Morning people, 1908, six years after they
for example, generally suffer less than evening were granted the right to
types when travelling east. vote in federal elections.

November . December 27
 Netherlands
buzz Belgium
Switzerland
Montenegro
POPULATION
Ireland

600 million Greece

35 inset countries
combined
New
United Zealand
Kingdom France
25 million Sweden
Australia Macedonia
Moldova
Italy

Austria Belarus

Slovakia Serbia
Germany
Spain
Hungary Kosovo

Romania
Norway
Slovenia Poland
Japan

Bulgaria Croatia
Portugal
Albania
Estonia
Luxembourg

Real-world mapping Bosnia and Denmark

Herzegovina

Size matters Lithuania

ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO project a flat map that preserves the
shapes, angles and areas seen on a globe. Cartographers must
choose which of these properties are most important for any
particular projection. Navigational charts, for example, prefer
projections that preserve angles and shapes because this makes
it easier to identify routes. An example is the projection of
16th-century Flemish globemaker Gerardus Mercator, which
became the standard for world wall maps displaying continen-
tal land masses and is still the most widely used today.
Unfortunately, although comparative areas on a Mercator
Projection are reasonably accurate in equatorial regions, they
are less so towards the poles. The result is widespread confu-
sion about comparative sizes of some countries. Greenland on
a Mercator map, for exam-
ple, looks about the same
size as Africa but you could,
in fact, fit 14 Greenland-sized countries
into the area covered by the African continent.
A truer comparison of relative country sizes requires an
equal-area map projection. The illustration above has been
created using the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection,
which maintains relative sizes of different countries, with the
methodology adapted to preserve shapes so countries look
familiar. Using this approach reveals that most of Europe
could fit into Australia (see above) with room for Japan and
New Zealand as well.

*THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES OF MAINLAND USA

How we compare
Area measures allow realistic size comparisons
of countries. The six largest are listed below,
and, at right, the top four projected in compari- Australia Australia
son with Australia, the sixth-largest country. and Russia and Canada

Area in % of the
Country sq.km world*
INFOGRAPHIC BY ROGER SMITH

1 Russia 17,098,242 11.50

2 Canada 9,984,670 6.70
3 USA 9,833,517 6.60
4 China 9,596,961 6.50
Australia Australia and
5 Brazil 8,515,770 5.70 *USA
and China
6 Australia 7,741,220 5.20

* Based on total world land area of 148,429,000sq.km

28 Australian Geographic
 This artists impression of
the star Antares is based on
images of unprecedented detail,
constructed by astronomers
using the Very Large Telescope
Interferometer facility.
Exploring a star
Look into the turbulent heart of a Scorpion and youll find
H
AVE YOU EVER looked at stars
through a telescope? Chances
are you have, because its the
most obvious thing to do with a
telescope at night after youve taken in
the Moon and planets. What you saw
might, however, have disappointed.
Certainly, stars appear brighter
through a telescope and, when grouped
in a cluster, can be radiantly beautiful.
You might even be able to detect
differing colours among them.
But what you wont see is any detail
in the stars themselves. And that goes
not just for backyard viewing, but for
most of the worlds big telescopes. The
fact is that, with the exception of the
Sun, stars are simply too far away to be
seen as anything other than points of
light. They are unresolved, as we say
in the trade.
What would be required to amplify
star images into detailed discs of light
PHOTO CREDIT: ESO/M. KORNMESSER
is a bigger telescope. Todays largest
optical telescopes have dished mirrors
of about 10m in diameter, but you
would need one perhaps 20 times
bigger to see features on the surface
of a star. Such telescopes do not exist,
yet. But there is a technique known as
interferometry that allows the wave
SPACE
so much more than mere radiance.
properties of starlight to be used to
mimic the effect of a single big mirror
by combining the light from several
smaller ones.
At the European Southern Observa-
torys Very Large Telescope in northern
Chile, there is a facility known as VLTI
(the I is for interferometer) that works
in exactly this way.
VLTI has recently been used to
make the first detailed image of a star
other than the Sun. The target object
was the red supergiant star Antares,
familiar to southern stargazers as the
heart of the Scorpion. Antares is known
to be losing mass and, by making
careful measurements of its rainbow
spectrum,VLTI researchers have also
been able to chart the turbulent motion
of gas in Antares extended atmosphere.
This extraordinary achievement
paves the way for a completely new
branch of astronomy that will explore
the surfaces of stars.
FRED WATSON
is an astronomer at the
Australian Astronomical
Observatory.
buzz
FRED ANSWERS
YOUR QUESTIONS
Ive heard that Saturns moon Titan
is a model for the early Earth. What
does this mean?
Steve Wishart, Hawthorn, VIC
Titans distance from the Sun makes
it a very cold world, with a tempera-
ture of about 180oC, and a surface
made of rock-hard ice. But its
similarities to Earth include a thick
atmosphere, with clouds and rain.
The raindrops are not water, but
liquid methane and ethane, which
pools into lakes and seas the only
ones known beyond our own planet.
This strange world could sustain
microorganisms based on hydrocar-
bons rather than water, making it an
analogue of the young Earth. Future
space probes will target the seas of
Titan in the search for life.
If you have a space question for Fred,
email it to editorial@ausgeo.com.au
November . December 29
e

Wild Australia
NOVEMBER . DECEMBER 2017 Essential wildlife highlights that cant be missed
 QLD BENNETTS TREE ROO,
DAINTREE RAINFOREST
Wild Bennetts tree kangaroos are hard to spot in the wild but
chances improve in about December when they move from the
Wild Australia
with John Pickrell

rainforest canopy closer to the forest floor to avoid the summer sun.
Look in lowland forest south of Cooktown or try a Jungle Surfing
Canopy Tour at Cape Tribulation, where a family of these roos has settled.
More info: Call Jungle Surfing on 07 4098 0043 or visit junglesurfing.com.au

Big picture

Cryptic beauty
Early summer is the time to
watch for pregnant male weedy
seadragons in the coastal waters
of southern Australia. These
exquisitely camouflaged fish
occur nowhere else in the world,
and, as is the case for their close
relatives the seahorses, male
seadragons are responsible for
brooding and hatching eggs.
Unlike seahorses, however, male
seadragons lack a pouch and
instead the female lays eggs on a
brood patch on the underside of
the males tail, like the resplendent
pink mass seen on this one (left).

ACT INTERNATIONAL

SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Dendrolagus bennettianus; Phyllopteryx taeniolatus

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: GETTY; GETTY; GARY BELL/OCEANWIDE IMAGES
MOUNTAIN DAY,
NAMADGI NP
Mountains cover 22 per cent of
Earths land surface. Explore peaks
near Canberra on International
Mountain Day on 11 December. At
1913m, Namadgi NPs Mt Bimberi is
just 315m shorter than Australias
highest peak 2228m Mt
Kosciuszko and can be reached via
the Australian Alps Walking Track.
To enjoy Bimberis bigger brother,
Kosciuszko NP is just along the trail
in NSW. More info: Call Namadgi
NP on 02 6207 2900 or visit
environment.act.gov.au/parks-
conservation/parks-and-reserves

November . December 31
31
 Wild Australia
NOVEMBER . DECEMBER 2017

QLD
LARGEST BUTTERFLY,
FAR NORTH QLD
December is perfect for spotting
Australias largest butterfly, the
Cairns, or Cooktown, birdwing
(Ornithoptera euphorion), found
north of Mackay, a beauty with a
15cm wingspan. Wings of males
are black with emerald green,
yellow flashes and a touch of
red. Females lay eggs on native
Dutchmans pipe vines, so try
cultivating some to attract these
butterflies. You can also see
them at the Australian Butterfly
Sanctuary in Kuranda. More info:
Call 07 4093 7575 or visit
australianbutterflies.com
With wildflower season not quite done, November is a

BLOOMING
WA great time to soak up some nature along Perths many
walking tracks. WA has 12,000 wildflower species, one of
the worlds most diverse collections of native blooms. Bold
Park more than 400ha of urban bushland in the suburb of NSW NATIVE
BEES, BLUE
City Beach, 8km west of the CBD offers relative wilder-
WILDFLOWERS, ness in which to enjoy a selection of them. Look for marno,
MOUNTAINS BOTANIC GARDEN
BOLD PARK coastal honey myrtle, fan-leaved triggerplant, sand-dune More than 200 native bee
fringed lily and jarrah, all of which should be in bloom along species that call the wider
the parks 15km of walking tracks and horseriding trails. Sydney region home become
active again in spring. Find out
about the simple steps you can
take to attract them to your
garden at Blue Mountains Botanic

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DON FUCHS/AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC; GETTY;
Garden, Mount Tomah, and learn
from native bee expert Megan
WOMBAT WORRIES

SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Eucalyptus macrocarpa; Ornithoptera euphorion; Lasiorhinus krefftii

AVERAGING ABOUT 32KG and growing
to more than 1m in length, the north-
ern hairy-nosed wombat is Australias
largest wombat species. Compared
with the common wombat, it has
longer, pointed ears, softer fur and a
broader muzzle fringed with whiskers.
Its numbers have been falling for many
years due to competition for food with
sheep, cattle and rabbits, protracted
droughts and predation by wild dogs.
By the 1980s just 35 survived in the
wild, prompting this wombat to be
listed as critically endangered on the
IUCN Red List. Conservation efforts
botanic garden on 02 4567
have brought its number up to about
250 but the species remains at high
risk. Please help The Wombat Founda-
tion restore the northern hairy-nosed
wombat to its former range.
TO DONATE: Visit australiangeographic.com.
au/society or post a cheque to the AGS Adminis-
trator, Level 9, 54 Park St, Sydney NSW 2000.
Halcroft on 18 November during
Australian Pollinator Week
(1219 November); tickets
QUEENSLAND DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE PROTECTION
$2225. More info: Call the
3000 or see bluemountains
botanicgarden.com.au
GOING WILD
For a truly wild experience, check out our
new occasional section that helps you
connect with nature. This issue we head
to the Walls of Jerusalem NP, in the
Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage
Area, where we investigate wild walking
options, climb mountains, camp by glacial
lakes and explore historic huts left by
possum and wallaby trappers (page 108).

32 Australian Geographic

Which came f irst:
the dinosaur or the egg?
Like modern birds, some dinosaurs had coloured eggs and they may have been scribbled and speckled too.
B
IRDS EGGS
come in a
beautiful
diversity of colours,
shapes and degrees of
speckling. They range
from the dark verdi-
gris-green eggs of
emus, which can be 13cm long, to the
tiny eggs of comb-crested jacanas,
which are just a fraction of that size,
and beige, with lovely scribbly-gum-
like lines daubed all over their surface
(see AG 134).
A number of bird species are the
only modern animals that lay coloured
eggs the eggshells of lizards and
crocodiles are white, as are the eggs of
many other species of bird. For this
reason, ornithologists long thought that
coloured eggs evolved among birds
themselves. But a new analysis of
dinosaur eggs from China has revealed
some dinosaurs laid coloured eggs too,
and that birds likely inherited this trait
from their dinosaurian ancestors.
Researchers led by Jasmina
Wiemann and Martin Sander at the
University of Bonn in Germany have
analysed eggs in a series of fossilised
dinosaur nests found at three sites in
the south and east of China. These eggs
belonged to a species of oviraptorid
dinosaur called Heyuannia huangi,
which lived about 7067 million years
ago in the late Cretaceous Period and
was an emu-like, fast-running species
with a beak a little like a parrot.
Several years ago, the scientists
noticed that these fossil eggs were
often a pale blue-green colour,
PHOTO CREDIT: WIKIPEDIA
which stood out against the reddish
surrounding rock. They noticed the
similarity of the shade to the blue-
green eggs of many birds today and
decided to chemically test the fossils
NATURE
Fossilised oviraptorid dinosaur eggs, such
as these, are often pale blue-green, which
stands out against surrounding reddish rock.
for the pigments that colour these
modern eggs.
They were proved correct. In the
fossils they found biliverdin and
protoporphyrin, which colour the eggs
of birds such as emus, cassowaries and
American robins today. Non-avian
dinosaurs and modern birds apparently
use the same molecules to create
eggshell coloration, they wrote in a
paper published in August in the
journal PeerJ. They argued that this
type of colouration may have first
evolved in dinosaurs that laid their eggs
in open nests. The colour may have
helped camouflage them amid the
vegetation of the habitats where the
dinosaurs nested.
Living birds that lay pure-white
eggs tend to be species that bury eggs
in mounds, such as scrub turkeys and
malleefowl, or those that sit on them
continuously while brooding, and
therefore have no need for camouflage.
Oviraptorids such as Heyuannia laid
their 20cm-long, capsule-shaped eggs
around them in a circle in open nests
Wild Australia
with John Pickrell
of dirt on the ground, and may have
benefited from them being less obvious
to predators when fathers stepped away
from the nests. As for many birds today,
including cassowaries and emus, it was
probably the males of dinosaurs such as
oviraptors that brooded eggs and cared
for the young.
Other dinosaurs, such as the
long-necked giant sauropods, laid their
round eggs in mounds that were
buried under dirt and vegetation, so
they may have been white in colour.
We hypothesise egg coloration
evolved after the switch from burying
eggs to building an open and exposed
nest, wrote the authors of the study.
Selection for egg colour would only
have occurred after the eggs themselves
became visible. The scientists point to
Australias emus and cassowaries, which
today lay their blue-green eggs in open
nests on the ground where they blend
in well with leaf litter and vegetation.
Colour is something that, until
recently, experts thought wed never
understand about dinosaurs. But a
series of studies since 2010 has made
educated guesses about plumage
colours of feathered dinosaurs (see
AG 122). There is now every possibility
more fossils will be found that begin
telling us something also about the
range of patterns and colours seen in
dinosaur eggs.
This discovery about dinosaur eggs
adds to the many features such as
beaks, feathers, paternal care and
eggshell structure that were once
thought to be unique to birds, but now
have been shown to be traits inherited
from the dinosaurs.
JOHN PICKRELL
is a former AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC editor. Follow
him on Twitter: @john_pickrell
November . December 33
 OUR HISTORY
Racial discrimination
whats that?
Fifty years ago, in the run-up to Australias 1967 referendum on including Aboriginal people
in the census, one image summed up the mood of the nation.
T
WO DAYS BEFORE the 27 May 1967
referendum, this image appeared on the
front page of the Sydney Morning Herald
(SMH) under the headline Racial
discrimination whats that?
The boys pictured holding hands in a lane in the
Sydney suburb of Chippendale were six-year-old
Mark Anthony (right) and five-year-old Victor
Hookey. The caption beneath read To these two
Australians, Saturdays referendum on Aborigines will
not mean much they probably have not heard of
racial differences.
The image was part of a series taken on 24 May
by photographer George Lipman and it appeared in
the newspaper the following day alongside a story
with the headline Few people understand nexus
issue. This talked about another matter being voted
on in the referendum the nexus question on
altering the balance of numbers in the Senate and
House of Representatives.
A common misconception today is that the 1967
referendum was a vote for Aboriginal rights, or that
it was about allowing Aboriginal Australians to vote.
In fact, Aboriginal people could already vote and
had done so in the 1962 Commonwealth election
everywhere, that is, except Queensland, which
didnt legislate for that right until 1965.
The 1967 referendum was actually on whether
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would
be counted in the census and on changing the
constitution to give the federal government powers
to make laws specifically for Indigenous Australians.
34 Australian Geographic
What isnt in doubt is that 90.77 per cent of
people voted yes for changes they hoped would
improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people. This is the most overwhelming
landslide ever recorded in an Australian referendum,
and the result reflected a widespread desire for
political progress on issues surrounding
Indigenous affairs.
In 2005 the SMH launched a campaign to track
down the kids in the photo and 10 years ago, on the
40th anniversary of the referendum, the newspaper
announced it had been able to find Victor. He
acknowledged the photo had been staged. In the
style of the times, the photograph was a set-up,
noted the 2007 SMH article. In reality, the boys
werent found holding hands, instead theyd been
holding out their hands asking for money.
The two were friends who had sneaked out of
Erskineville Public School, but when George
Lipman found them they were begging. We were
just mischievous things, asking people for money
and pretending we were lost, Victor told the
newspaper, which failed to locate his mate Mark.
Sadly, the referendum didnt deliver, as many
people had hoped it would, on rapidly improving
the lives of Indigenous Australians. But it is credited
with sowing the seeds of the Aboriginal rights
movement that grew in Australia in the 1970s,
including the creation of the Tent Embassy on
the lawn of Parliament House in 1972 and the
subsequent push for Indigenous land rights.
JOHN PICKRELL
 PHOTO CREDIT: GEORGE LIPMAN/FAIRFAX

November . December 35
snapshot
 buzz
Fishermens friends
Before the arrival of the First Fleet, many of Australias
coastal Aboriginal groups had close relationships with pods
of dolphins, some even partnering with them to catch fish.
D
OLPHINS FEATURE IN Dream-
time stories from around
Australia. One from the Gulf
of Carpentarias Groote Eylandt tells of
dolphin leader Dinginjabana and his
mate Ganadja who transformed into
humans and became the ancestors of
the areas Aboriginal people. Such
accounts hint at many historic and
some ongoing relationships between
dolphins and Australias first peoples.
Byron Bays Arakwal have a dolphin
totem.Victorias Wurundjeri regard
dolphins as sacred. The Noonuccal of
south-east Queenslands Minjerribah
(North Stradbroke Island) also believe
they share an ancestor with dolphins.
Former University of Queensland
researcher Dr David Neil, now at
Hanoi University of Natural Resources
and Environment in Vietnam, has
written on cooperative fishing between
Aboriginal people and dolphins. He
says that, before European settlement,
central east coast Aboriginal groups
regularly collaborated with dolphins
to catch fish. Minjerribah men, for
38 Australian Geographic
example, would attract dolphin pods by
jobbing the sand with spears to make
a squeaking that probably travelled well
under water. Theyd also slap the water
with spears. Reports suggest dolphins
would chase mullet towards the beach,
where men speared or netted them.
Years ago, when Aboriginal people
wanted fish, theyd wade into the sea,
calling in their language and clicking
boomerangs and spears, Aunty Margaret
Iselin, an elder of the Minjerribah
Moorgumpin of North Stradbroke and
Moreton Islands, has recounted in a tale
to the Queensland Museum. When
the dolphins heard the people calling
out in their language, they then herded
the fish into the shallows where the
Aboriginal people would take enough
for their tribe. The rest would be for
the dolphinsTo this day our
Aboriginal people have never killed
the dolphins. They are our friends.
British naturalist J.K.E. Fairholme
noted in 1856 that local people on
North Stradbroke were helped to fish
in a most wonderful manner by the
This plate from the 1813
book Field Sports of the Native
Inhabitants of New South Wales
suggests the fascination that
European colonisers had for
Aboriginal shing practices.
porpoisesa sort of understanding has
existed between the blacks and the
porpoises for their mutual advantage.
He described how men with spears
and hand nets quickly divide to the
right and left, and dash into the water
In the scene of apparent confusion that
takes place, the blacks and porpoises are
seen splashing about close to each other.
So fearless are the latterthey will take
a fish from the end of a spear.
Similar cooperative fishing was
practised by the Bundjalung of
northern New South Wales and in
Edens Twofold Bay in the states south.
Beyond acquiring food, historic
PHOTO CREDIT: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
accounts and cultural memories held
by Aboriginal people today also suggest
something significant emotionally and
spiritually about the relationship they
had with dolphins, David says.
These interactions set a precedent
for modern dolphin feeding today
in places such as Moreton Islands
Tangalooma and Western Australias
Monkey Mia (see feature on page 64).
JOHN PICKRELL
Expeditions to > Great Barrier Reef > Cape York & Arnhem Land > Papua New Guinea > The Kimberley > Spice Islands & Raja Ampat > Tasmania
Exquisite glass models of marine
invertebrates, meticulously crafted
and assembled piece by piece by
19th-century German artisans Rudolf
and Leopold Blaschka, were collected
by the Australian Museum and
similar institutions worldwide. This
sand anemone a species found in
Australian and New Zealand waters
is part of a collection owned by Cornell
University, New York.

40 Australian Geographic
A menagerie in glass
The rediscovery of a set of superbly handcrafted sea
anemones in the Australian Museum reveals a lost art
that captured the beauty of marine life in glass.

STORY BY IVY SHIH

November . December 41
 Sagartia pura Stomphia churchiae
THEYRE SIMPLY EXQUISITE 48 delicate,
vibrantly coloured glass models depicting an array
of sea anemones and other marine invertebrates.
When they were rediscovered in the vast archives of the
Australian Museum, in Sydney, these extraordinarily detailed
figurines captured the imagination of all who saw them. But
where did they come from and who crafted them?
In 2009 museum staff decided it was time to trace the origins
of these mysterious glass creations and the task fell to archivist
Patricia Egan. After navigating her way through numerous
minutes, memos and letters from the museums early history,
Patricia hit paydirt. In the Trustee Minutes for 1879, she found
reference to the museums attempts to enrich its collection of
educational and comparative anatomy specimens, along with
recommendations from museum trustee Archibald Liversidge
for some items to purchase and suitable suppliers.
This led to the discovery of a copy of a letter sent the same
year to Vclav Fric, who ran an educational supply business in
Prague, regarding the purchase of specimens illustrative of
comparative anatomy, including glass models of invertebrates
made by Dr Blaschka. It confirmed the belief among museum
staff that the models had been crafted by Leopold and Rudolf
Blaschka, father and son craftsmen from Dresden, Germany.
During the late 1800s, the Blaschkas developed a method of
using glass to craft replicas of soft-bodied sea creatures that were
so lifelike it was as if theyd just been scooped from the ocean.
The mid-19th century was an era when natural history explo-
ration f lourished. Scientific expeditions to the far corners of
the globe regularly delivered new species to eager scientists and
museum curators in Europe. However, the preservation of
marine invertebrates such as jellyfish proved extremely difficult.
The traditional method, using formalin and alcohol, caused
specimens colours to fade and their shapes to distort, making
them useless for display and educational purposes. With this in
42 Australian Geographic
Calliactis decorata Caryophyllia smithii
mind, in 1863 the then director of Dresdens natural history
museum, Professor Ludwig Reichenbach, convinced Leopold
Blaschka to focus his attention on the production of scientific
glass models.
Leopold and Rudolf were descendants of a long line of
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: THE CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS; THIS PAGE: SCOTT HUMPHRIES/AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM
glassmakers. The Blaschka family had been creating costume
jewellery, laboratory equipment and even glass eyes for more
than 300 years. Following Reichenbachs suggestion, father and
son devoted themselves to developing techniques that would
enable them to copy marine invertebrates with something close
to perfection. Attempting to make the models as anatomically
accurate as possible, they pored over scientific illustrations, fre-
quently borrowing books from the library of famous German
naturalist and illustrator Ernst Haeckel.
The models were crafted using a technique known as lamp-
working, which involves glass being melted over a flame and
pulled into shape using hand tools. The Blaschkas constantly
experimented with new materials and developed their own
glues and dyes.
The two craftsmen assembled glass sections with animal glues
SCIENTIFIC NAME, PREVIOUS PAGE: Oulactis muscosa
and attached model tentacles with fine copper wire. To create
texture, they employed wax, resin and painted paper. Speckles
of paint applied to the underside of glass re-created the trans-
lucent and dappled tissues often observed in marine creatures
such as squid.
The Blaschkas model-making abilities were unmatched,
and they built a successful business selling their works to muse-
ums and universities worldwide. Estimates suggest that during
a 27-year period they created about 10,000 marine invertebrate
models. Records of sales have been traced to 177 collections
throughout the USA, UK, Europe, India, Japan and Australia.
 Ilyanthus scoticus
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SCOTT HUMPHRIES/AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM; BLASCHKA ARCHIVES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Rudolf Blaschka, left, and his father, Leopold Blaschka, were part of a
family who had been crafting objects from glass ranging from costume
jewellery to prosthetic eyes for more than three centuries.
Although Patricia managed to track down the source of the
Australian Museums models, the species they represented were
unknown. She was unable to link the models with the surviving
specimen display labels, which outnumbered the models.
However, some of the models had numbers stuck to their
undersides and, with the help of Chris Meechan from the
National Museum Wales, she was able to link some of these to
model numbers in the Blaschkas 1871 catalogue.
The Blaschkas
model-making abilities
were unmatched.
Identifying the others was always going to be more difficult.
The problem is that some of them had been reclassified, and
what they look like in the wild and look like in the model can
be different, because in a marine environment, they can be
clustered together, Patricia explained.
So, she enlisted the help of Australian anemone expert
Michela Mitchell from Museums Victoria. She came up here
once and saw them, but mainly she worked off photos we sent
to her and copies of the catalogue that we had from Chris
Meechan, Patricia said. It took her quite some time and she
did it out of love.
Michela was able to link many of the models to illustrations
in Actinologia Britannica: A History of the British Sea-Anemones and
Corals, an 1860 work by Philip Henry Gosse that the Blaschkas
themselves had studied. Eventually, Patricia and her helpers
were able to identify all but one of the species represented by
the models.
Although the Blaschkas figurines are no longer used as edu-
cational models, their beauty and artistry is impossible to deny,
and a selection is now back on display at the museum. AG
November . December 43
After eating dinner on the back
verandah of their home on the NSW
Central Coast, the Carson family Nick,
Sharon and their children share some
scraps with a female common brushtail
possum visiting their backyard.

44 Australian Geographic
 Love your
neighbours
Its time to stop thinking of
possums in our cities and suburbs
as pests and vermin and welcome
them instead as urban wildlife.

STORY BY ALASDAIR MCGREGOR

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ESTHER BEATON

November . December 45
P OSSUMS! WHY, THEY are as thick as flies in the summer-
time, began a brief, jocular piece in The Gilgandra Weekly
back in 1923. The papers correspondent lamented about
demolished vegetable gardens and confessed that a harassed
digger had taken the closed season law into his own hands
one night and shot five of the marauders in the act of helping
themselves to a smoked leg of mutton suspended from the
kitchen rafters.
Those 1920s marsupial marauders in the central west of
New South Wales were undoubtedly common brushtail pos-
sums. This brushtail is one of 23 species in six possum families
found across Australia.
Almost a century on, very little has changed on the frontier
of our communal relations with possums. The common brush-
tail (Trichosurus vulpecula) and its cousin the common ringtail
(Pseudocheirus peregrinus) are considered annoying pests by many
21st-century Australian urbanites. And yet flourishing popula-
tions of brushtails and ringtails in and around many of our
cities tell a remarkable story of survival when set against the
backdrop of severe population decline and near-extinction for
some of our possum species. Altered fire regimes; predation by
cats, dogs and red foxes; road trauma; climate change; and hab-
itat modification and fragmentation have all had an impact on
possum survival.
Animals as diverse as Leadbeaters possum, of Victorias
central highland forests, and the diminutive mountain pygmy-
possum found in just three tiny pockets of the Australian Alps
remain under grave threat. In the south-western corner of
Western Australia, the decline of the western ringtail possum
was first noted as far back as the early 1900s.
Fox predation and land clearing ahead of agricultural devel-
opment were to blame. And in recent decades, already restricted
habitat south of Perth has been further degraded by rapid sub-
urban encroachment, pushing this isolated species onto the
endangered list.
Historically, possums formed part of many an Aboriginal
meal and are often mentioned in early European exploration
accounts. When French explorer Cyrille Laplace visited Sydney
in 1831, he described Aboriginal women climbing for lizards
and possums into the highest tree-tops, and holding out strips
46 Australian Geographic
Neighbours of the Royal National Park, south of Sydney, rescued this
common ringtail possum (above left) after a bushre. It was nursed
back to health and returned to the wild.
A common brushtail possum hangs by its tail to grab a snack (above
right) from a feeder stocked with fruit and birdseed that Tammy
Bateman has hung near the back deck of her home in North Gosford,
NSW Central Coast, which is close to bushland.
of possum meat to lure birds into their hands. Possums were
also valued for their fur, sinew and spun fibre. Once Europeans
arrived, however, the scale of Aboriginal subsistence hunting
was quickly rendered insignificant the possum wars had begun.
T
HE VAST NUMBER OF possum skins exported historically
from Australia is impossible to quantify. But its an indi-
cation of the size of the trade that in 1906 alone about
4 million brushtail and ringtail possum pelts were marketed
in London and New York. And, in the same year that The
Gilgandra Weeklys correspondent was bemoaning the raid on
his smoked mutton, an estimated 900,000 brushtail possums
and wallabies were shot just in Tasmania.
Commercial harvesting for the export fur and meat trade
now only occurs on a small scale in Tasmania, where possums
remain most abundant. Each year the take fluctuates significantly
but in 201415, for example, commercial operators harvested
about 20,000 brushtails. Many more are legally killed in
Tasmania as a crop protection measure.
In pre-European times, the common brushtail possum was
abundant through most of continental Australia, Tasmania and
many offshore islands, but is now almost gone from much of
the arid and semi-arid zones. Its decline in the dry interior runs
parallel with the loss of other small mammals in what is termed
the critical weight range of 35g to 5.5kg. (Depending on where
theyre found, adult male brushtails may weigh from 2 to 4.5kg.)
In contrast, common brushtails are thriving as alien free-
loaders in New Zealand. They arrived in 1837 as a deliberate,
and catastrophically misguided, introduction for the fur trade.
The original industry of course failed, but 150 years later, and
with a rampant appetite for New Zealands highly palatable
forest vegetation, the possum population had reached an esti-
mated peak of 6070 million animals! Continued page 49
Just a few days out of the
pouch, a baby common
brushtail possum perches atop
its mum, who has come looking
for food at Tammy Batemans
NSW Central Coast home.

Historically, possums formed part of many an

Aboriginal meal and are often mentioned in
early European exploration accounts.

November . December 47
 Create a wildlife-
friendly backyard

A
S SUITABLE NATURAL habitat for native wildlife
decreases, more and more of our native birds,
Common ringtail possum
mammals, reptiles and frogs are moving into urban Pseudocheirus peregrinus
areas looking for homes. Unfortunately, few neighbour-
hoods naturally provide the perfect habitat for many, if any,
of these creatures. And so here we offer hints and tips
from our friends at the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue
and Education Service (WIRES) on how you can help
provide suitable environments across our built-up areas.
Wildlife-friendly gardens require as much diversity as
possible and the natural environment can be complex to
replicate in your backyard. Birds and animals use plants for
many things, including food, shelter and breeding sites.
Remember, plants dont necessarily have to provide food
directly because they may attract insects, which in turn
provide food for native mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

Common brushtail possum

Trichosurus vulpecula

4 Place a pond in a sheltered

spot to provide water for
birds and habitat for frogs.
material. For advice on the
best products to use, visit:
wildlifefriendlyfencing.com

A common brushtail
5 Use large rocks to create
habitat for lizards. 10 Dont use chemicals or
pesticides in your garden.
You might, for example, only be
possum happily
sets up home in this 6 Allow mulch to build up
because this will decrease
planning to kill snails, but if
native animals eat poisoned

garden nest box in a the need for water while
Canberra backyard. providing feeding opportunities
and nesting material for ground
birds and small mammals.
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: KEVIN STEAD; KEVIN STEAD; GETTY
snails they can be affected as
well. Instead, please use only
safe, natural, non-chemical
alternatives for pest control

1 Plant native vegetation.

Trees and other larger
plants should be comple-
3 Locate possum boxes in
safe places, preferably
high in your yard, away from 7 Grassed areas are attractive
for some bird species such
and cleaning such as white
vinegar and baking soda.

mented by ground covers,

grasses and small dense
shrubs, because dense
undergrowth provides
protection for birds and reptiles
such as blue-tongue lizards.
domestic animals, such as
dogs. For instructions on
making a box, visit:
environment.nsw.gov.au/
animals/GuidetoMaking
APossumHouse.htm
Or visit the Bunnings website
as magpies and noisy miners.
8 Talk to your neighbours
about planting their garden
in a similar way to increase
habitat in your local area and
create wildlife corridors.
11 Provide a simple birdbath in
a place that is safe from
cats. Be sure also that its not
accessible to young children.
This needs to be cleaned
regularly and should be shallow,
or have twigs inside so that the

2 Choose plants such as

lemon-scented gums that
provide food for possums as
for a video on how to assemble
a box: bunnings.com.au/
diy-advice/outdoor/ 9 If you use netting and
fencing to keep wildlife off
birds can easily climb out.

well as for flying-foxes in the pets-and-wildlife/how- vegies and other plantings, Information supplied by
form of nectar and pollen. to-build-a-possum-box please only use wildlife-safe NSW WIRES: wires.org.au

48 Australian Geographic
University of Sydney PhD student Katie Wat (top, at left) and volunteer
Sam Lee release a common brushtail possum from a modied bookcase
(see right) into a hessian bag (above), where Katie removes its GPS
collar. The bookcase is used to test for three personality traits: boldness,
exploration and activity. Most both city and country possums alike
go straight to the top level rst.
Aggressive control measures have now more than halved
their numbers, but they are still a nightmare of a pest found in
nearly all corners of the country.
Some Australian urbanites might delude themselves that
they have a personal brushtail possum problem of trans-Tasman
proportions. But it is unsurprising that these highly adaptable
animals are right at home in an environment we have unwit-
tingly fashioned to suit both us and them.
They will happily feast by night on everything from rose-
buds and magnolia flowers to unattended pet food, and by day
consider unprotected roof cavities the perfect city condos. But,
although common brushtails and ringtails are now thriving in
cities beyond the urban fringe and into their supposed strong-
holds among the open forests and woodlands of eastern Australia,
these possum species are not doing as well as they once did.
Again, habitat fragmentation and increased predation are two
of the most likely causes of their demise.
Ecologist Clare McArthur from the University of Sydneys
School of Life and Environmental Sciences heads up a research
group studying possum adaptation and behaviour changes due
to urban encroachment on Sydneys northern fringe at St Ives,
one of several suburbs abutting the 15,000ha Ku-ring-gai Chase
National Park. At the interface between the natural possum
habitat in the park and a typical, low-density leafy Sydney
suburb, Clares group is gaining some interesting results. Sur-
prisingly, she admits, at the outset the group had considerably
more trouble trapping brushtails in the bush than in the city.
We just cant find them! she says. But out at Ku-ring-gai
weve got them all along the edge.
It seems living in this environmental halfway house pays
off for some brushtails. Many seem to be risk-takers and bold
nocturnal foragers coming to houses in search of food. Their
diet is more varied than the usual mainstay of eucalypt leaves,
meaning despite threats from cars, cats and dogs, they prob-
ably enjoy a survival advantage. If you are not prepared to
take risks, Clare says, its difficult to live in cities.
But, having eaten their usual native offerings, and perhaps
raided a vegie patch or grazed on a few favourite exotic plants,
a number of the study possums still prefer to retreat to the
sanctuary of the bush by day, within the national park, where
theyll nest in natural tree hollows.
So, next time a battalion of brushtails marches across your
roof in the middle of the night, or a ringtail prunes your garden
to its liking, dont feel annoyed and frustrated. Perhaps its time
for you to pause, think laterally and consider installing a nesting
box for your resident possum, abandon the roses and plant natives
that both humans and possums can enjoy.
We should feel privileged that we have these animals in
our midst, Clare says with conviction. We find theyre disap-
pearing in the bush, and yet people say, Oh, theyre a problem
in my roof. Its not until theyre rare that someone suddenly
cares. And, to invoke Joni Mitchell and her 1970 song Big
Yellow Taxi, You dont know what youve got till its gone. AG
November . December 49
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No need to adjust your TV set! These
intense colours are real, where the
richly red ochre sands of the desert
meet the translucent aquamarine
waters of the Indian Ocean at
WAs Shark Bay.

52 Australian Geographic
Way out west
The West Australian shire of
Shark Bay includes the
continents most westerly
point and 22,000sq.km of
World Heritage Area with a
multitude of plant and animal
species found nowhere else.

STORY BY FLEUR BAINGER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW GREGORY

November . December 53
 A breath of warm wind sweeps across Shark Bay,
barely moving a grain of the bone-hued sand that
fringes the highlighter-blue ocean here.
The water is so flat that boats appear to
levitate over its surface as the breeze
peters out to the east over paprika-
coloured soil dotted with spinifex. On
a perfect day, this World Heritage Areas
saturated colours merge into each other
like a garish tie-dyed T-shirt.
In a region of astounding natural
diversity and striking ancient landscapes,
this visual punch leaves a lasting impres-
sion. Yet few people see this remote,
barely populated double peninsula pro-
truding from Western Australia.
Shark Bay is a place you have to
want to come and see, says Cheryl
Cowell, Shark Bay World Heritage
project officer with the state Depart-
ment of Biodiversity, Conservation and
Attractions (DBCA), formerly the
Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Given its 130km off the main drag,
people dont just come in here on a
whim. Cheryl is also the regions shire
president and knows that promoting this far-f lung location
thats almost halfway up WAs vast coastline and a nine-hour
drive from Perth Australias longest front driveway pre- they grow is hypersaline about twice as salty as normal sea
sents a challenge.
Waiting at the end of that lonely road is a fragile environment
thats home to: the worlds largest and most diverse seagrass
meadows; about one-eighth of the worlds dugong population;
a beach built from billions of button-sized shells; and strange,
rock-like structures created by microorganisms that represent
a living link to the evolution of all life on Earth. Its this aston-
ishing marine and terrestrial mix that earned Shark Bay WAs
first World Heritage listing back in 1991. Today, it remains a
rarity, one of only 21 places in the world to meet all four of
UNESCOs natural World Heritage criteria.
S
CRATCH THE WEATHERED surface and theres far more
here than the shark-infested sound discovered by English
explorer and navigator William Dampier, who coined the
regions slightly sinister name following an unscheduled visit in
1699. Aboriginal people, who arrived in the area tens of thousands
of years earlier, know it perhaps more appropriately as
Gathaagudu, or Two Bays.
54 Australian Geographic
Shark Bays stromatolites are seen as
signposts to the beginning of life on Earth,
similar to organisms that began releasing
oxygen 3.5 billion years ago.
One UNESCO criterion, to be
outstanding examples representing
major stages of Earths history, is ful-
filled by a cluster of dark stone-like
structures in the water beyond the
regions first telegraph station. These
ancient stromatolites, in the 1320sq.km
Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve,
are direct descendants of single-celled
organisms that existed 3.5 billion years
ago and are considered to have been
crucial to the explosion of life on Earth.
These photosynthetic cyanobacteria
converted carbon dioxide in the air to
oxygen, creating conditions suitable for
more complex life forms to evolve.
Jump forward to the present day and
Shark Bays more complex microbial stacks are the most diverse
and abundant stromatolites in the world. The water in which
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: SCOTT McCOOK; THIS PAGE: MINT IMAGES FRANS LANTING
water the result of a sandbar called the Faure Sill, which forms
across the bays entrance. Rapid evaporation of the shallow,
trapped water concentrates the salt, providing perfect conditions
for the stromatolites, which can be viewed from a raised, tri-
angular boardwalk. Surrounded by a spongy algal mat so del-
icate it still bears the scars of iron-wheeled wagons that carted
wool to ships some 90 years ago, the ancient formations grow
at a rate of just one-third of a millimetre a year.
They are, it has to be said, as underwhelming to look at as
they are intellectually captivating. If youre a geologist, theyre
awesome, but if youre not aware of what they are and their
significance in the evolution of life on Earth, it can be like,
Okay, there they are. Its a rock, Cheryl says. Ive had
people come into the office saying, Ive waited all day, and
I didnt see the stromatolites come in. I dont know what they
thought they were.
An information panel at the Shark Bay World Heritage Dis-
covery Centre in Denham, the regions sole town, spells out
their importance, minus any sugar coating: Hamelin Pool
The intensely copper-tinted sand dunes (above) on the western shore of Cape Peron, which is also referred to locally as Point Peron, are
a distinctive characteristic of Shark Bay. Fishing, diving and swimming are popular along this coastline. South Gregories (below left) is
one of four bush camping areas with basic facilities in the bays Francois Peron NP. Another of these remote campsites lies at the end
of this track that leads into Herald Bight (below right), an old pearling camp thats still littered with pearl shells.

November . December 55
 The Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station (above), which dates back more than a century, is lled with curios from a time when calls had to be
connected physically. Theres a photo on the wall here of a naked linesman who, en route to a wedding, had to stop and x a telegraph line and
pulled off his duds to keep them cleanor so the story goes. The long-retired shearing shed in Peron Heritage Precinct (below left), in Francois
Peron NP, is a heritage site of the early 1900s pastoral station that includes a self-guided trail and interpretive signage.

Patricia Cox (above right) runs Hamelin Pool Caravan Park and its historic village.
Farming memorabilia at the Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station (right).

56 Australian Geographic
 We had a group of Chinese geologistshad saved for
years and years to come and see the stromatolites.
is what planet Earth looked like long
before we were here before all mam-
mals or birds. Even before dinosaurs
there were stromatolites. These seem-
ingly lifeless blobs are actually living
monuments to life on Earth.
T
ODAY FEWER THAN 1000 people
live in the shire of Shark Bay and
Patricia Cox is one of them. This
retired nurse and chef from Ireland
presides over the Hamelin Pool Caravan
Park and historic village, which neigh-
bour the stromatolites. Shes seen plenty
of sightseers traipse out to the stroma-
tolite boardwalk during the 16 years
shes spent here. Naturally, the reactions
are varied. We had a group of Chinese
geologists who didnt speak a word of
English, she says. Their tour guide
told me some of them had saved up for
years and years to come and see the
stromatolites. When they saw them, it
was like Christmas.
Originally planning to retire here, among the acacia and arid
landscape, Patricia was most attracted to Hamelin Pools human
history. Her tearooms and several small museums are housed
within the corrugated-iron walls of a 133-year-old telegraph
station, post office and postmasters residence. My aunty was
a postmistress in Ireland: she worked the switchboard. I was
always fascinated by it, so when I came here I thought, Ooh,
this is good, Patricia recalls. The collection of buildings makes
up Shark Bays original town site, home to 38 people before
Denham was established.
Busloads of daytrippers and overnight campers roll up to
Patricias cafe daily, pushing past signs on the door to pre-empt
frequently asked questions. (Yes, we sell fly nets, for example.)
When shes not whipping up sandwiches, giving museum tours
or sending weather reports to the Bureau of Meteorology, she
can be found taking respite from the searing heat in her small
pool. In summer, days have been known to reach 52C, melting
her candles into colourful wax puddles.
Just behind the telegraph station is another oddity, an aban-
doned quarry that was once a source of house bricks with a
difference. Workers used long, toothy handsaws to slice through
stone made from tightly compressed shells that had calcified
together over time. The bricks were used to build station home-
steads and several Denham landmarks, including the Old Pearler
Restaurant and St Andrews Church.
The shells are from the tiny Shark Bay cockle. Piled up on
the 60km stretch of nearby Shell Beach in place of sand, they
DBCA officer Roger Whitelaw with a
handful of Shark Bay cockles at Shell Beach,
where the tiny shells are packed 10m deep.
helped Shark Bay meet another crite-
rion for World Heritage listing by pro-
viding an example of superlative nat-
ural phenomena. DBCA officer Roger
Whitelaw, one of 25 khaki-shirted staff
in the region, crunches over the white
expanse and scoops up a handful. The
beach can be up to a kilometre wide,
and the shells go down to 10m deep in
parts, he says. Theyve been building
up for 3000 years.
As for the stromatolites, its the
hypersalinity in Hamelin Pool that has
allowed the cockles to flourish. The
cockle doesnt have many predators that
can survive in that environment, only
a snail that drills through the shell,
Roger explains.
S
ADLY, A LACK of predators isnt true for the terrestrial wild-
life. On the Shark Bay Road back to Denham, at a point
where Peron Peninsula thins to a slender neck, Roger pulls
over to check the feral-proof fence. As he walks up to the cattle
grid where the fence meets the bitumen, a solar-powered sensor
sets off a threatening recording of a dog bark. After the fence
was put in place in 1995, an intensive campaign began to rid the
peninsula of introduced species such as goats, foxes and cats. A
number of locally extinct species were then returned to the area
in the hope they would recolonise the ex-pastoral station.
So far, theres been success with bilbies and malleefowl. There
are hopes for future re-establishments of banded hare-wallabies,
western barred bandicoots, red-tailed phascogales and others.
Roger has been part of the teams collecting marsupials from
nearby Bernier and Dorre islands, uninhabited specks that con-
tain five species of endangered mammals lost on the mainland.
We go trapping at night, climbing up sand dunes and cliffs on
foot. We stay on a boat for two weeks. Its a tricky operation,
he says. The islands are just amazinguntouched and uncon-
taminated, with a beautiful coastline and beautiful reefs.
Shark Bays flora and fauna diversity owes much to its loca-
tion at the boundaries of three different climatic zones. Its
why we get so many species at one point, says DBCAs Cheryl
Cowell. Beneath the waterline live 323 fish species, 218 differ-
ent bivalves and 80 coral species. Some 230 bird species (more
than one-quarter of Australias avifauna) dart, Continued page 60
November . December 57
 SHARK BAY

58 Australian Geographic
Shell Beach.
Zuytdorp Cliffs.
When to go
Conditions at Shark Bay are pleasant
year-round, particularly April to
October, although many
visitors prefer to avoid
summers winds and
higher temperatures.
Wildflowers bloom
from late August.
Getting there
Shark Bays main township,
Denham, is about 820km from
Perth. Monkey Mia is 26km from
there. Allow at least nine hours
to complete the trip.
Skippers Aviation operates flights
from Perth to Denham (Monkey Mia)
on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays
and Sundays: skippers.com.au
Big Lagoon.
Steep Point.
Where to stay Points of interest
Denham accommodation ranges from 1 Hamelin Pool historic village
B&Bs such as On the Deck@Shark Bay 2 The stromatolites
(onthedeckatsharkbay.com); to resort 3 Shell Beach
rooms at Heritage Resort Shark Bay 4 Peron Peninsula feral barrier
(heritageresortsharkbay.com.au); fence
and pub digs at Shark Bay Hotel 5 Little Lagoon
(sharkbayhotelwa.com.au). RAC (Peron Peninsula)
Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort 6 Peron Homestead
is the only accommodation in 7 Big Lagoon
Monkey Mia (parksandresorts.rac. 8 Turtle Bay on Dirk Hartog
com.au/monkey-mia). For Shark Bay Island (major turtle rookery)
campsites see parkstay.dpaw.wa.gov.au 9 Cape Inscription on Dirk
Theres also camping at Hamelin Pool Hartog Island
Caravan Park (hamelinpoolcaravanpark. 10 Steep Point (westernmost
com) and station stays at Hamelin Outback point of mainland Australia)
Station Stay (hamelinstationstay.com.au). 11 Zuytdorp Cliffs
More information
experiencesharkbay.com
November . December 59
 There are at least 230 bird species in Shark Bays World Heritage
surrounds. Emus are often seen crossing the roads and those at Monkey
Mia are particularly fond of helping themselves to tourists lunches.

flit and soar above, while 98 reptile and frog species exist along-
side 37 land mammals. Desert plants mingle with species found
in cooler, wetter woodland areas; 53 of Shark Bays plant species
are endemic to the region.
Even the bays salinity is diverse, with a mixture of oceanic,
hypersaline and slightly less salty metahaline water. With an
average depth of just 9m, the topography of the bays sea floor
tends to reduce mixing, and evaporation increases the saltiness.
The process is exacerbated by the flow-restricting seagrass, which
forms a fundamental part of Shark Bays environment. The
seagrass meadows are nearly as big as the Perth metropolitan
area, Cheryl says. That we have 12 different species assembled
in one place is unique. They form the geology and ecology of
Shark Bay itself. As well as feeding our 10,000-plus dugongs,
they trap a lot of the sediment and the carbon and shells. They
also act as a nursery for small fish and shellfish.

V
IEWED FROM THE air, the bays 4000sq.km of seagrass
meadows appear as huge, dark patches and long lines
against the ivory sand. One of the best ways to appreci-
ate the extent of these underwater fields is from a light plane on
a scenic tour with Shark Bay Aviation. Soaring westward from
Denham, this takes you over the salt-crystallisation ponds at
Useless Loop, which, along with a closed hamlet of employees
and their families, has been operating since the 1960s. The patch-
work of ponds reflects the sun as the Cessna traces a raised road
connecting two of the slender outgrowths of Heirisson Prong at
the end of Edel Land peninsula, the route cutting across the flat
water like a fence line splitting paddocks.
Banking to the south-west, the plane passes the 120m-high
Zuytdorp Cliffs named after a Dutch East India Company
merchant ship that ran aground there in 1712. The 150km-long,
steep limestone precipice, clawed at by a frothing ocean and
illuminated by afternoon sun, represents the dramatic western
edge of our sun-baked country. The eroded curves lead eventu-
ally to Steep Point, the mainlands westernmost point, a prized
fishing spot and key viewpoint for migrating humpback whales.

60 Australian Geographic
 The Shark Bay Salt farm at
Useless Loop on Heirisson
Prong uses evaporative
lagoons and crystalliser
ponds to harvest salt.
Operational since 1962, it
leverages the areas high
salinity, which is about
50 per cent greater than the
open sea. The salt mountains
are visible from Denham.

November . December 61
 It seems surprising there have been no recorded
shark bite fatalities and only one known attack.
WAs largest isle, Dirk Hartog Island, sits opposite. Home to
just one family and accessible only by single-vehicle barge or
boat, its profile was raised in 2016 during the 400-year com-
memorations of WAs discovery by off-course Dutch mariners
(AG 134). Their visit, although fleeting, marked the first time
a European had stepped on WA soil and resulted in a redrawing
of world maps.
As we wing over Cape Inscription, where Captain Dirk
Hartog left a pewter plate as evidence of his 1616 visit, the
crystalline waters reveal graceful manta rays and the occasional
dark lump of a loggerhead turtle. Nearby Turtle Bay is one of
this threatened reptile species most important nesting grounds,
visited by Australias largest breeding colony. Back from the
waterline, huge pink lakes cut circular scars in the land, which
is otherwise speckled like leopard skin by low, round trees.
Aside from rough, four-wheel-drive-only tracks and nine wild
camping grounds, theres little here but nature.
T
HE EDGES of Peron Peninsula, across the bay, are quite
different. Copper-hued cliffs alternate with pale sand
dunes, the former flecked with sea eagles, terns and pied
cormorants. At the peninsulas tip, a flaming-red rise overlooks
a deserted beach engraved with the scatter marks of tiny crabs.
Pearl diver turned charter boat skipper Travis Francis regu-
larly deposits visitors here. For 24 years, his family has run Shark
Bay Fishing and Eco Tours, a business they continued after
closing their pearl farm. We see whale sharks in these waters,
and get loads of whales in the bay, he says. We also get pink
snapper, red emperor, coral trout, blue bone. Theyre what the
fishermen chase. One of five brothers raised locally, Travis
admits nobody in his family eats fish but they always know
where theyre biting.
Hugging the peninsulas coast, he navigates his boat past a
raucous seabird colony and through the zig-zag entrance to Big
Lagoon, an inundated gypsum claypan inside Francois Peron
National Park. Its one of Shark Bays most arresting sights.
Local Yamatji-Malgana man Darren Capes Capewell can often
be found here, leading walks and kayak trips as part of his Wula
Gura Nyinda guiding business. The tours, he says, are about
immersing yourself and feeling the energy that connection
to place. Indigenous connections here date back at least 30,000
years: stone tools, water-carrying vessels, shell middens and fish
traps have all been found on Peron Peninsula.
Dozens of extra campsites and new view-catching raised tent
decks were added to Big Lagoons perimeter in 2016 to keep
pace with demand from 4WD enthusiasts and campers. From
the lagoon, its a short sandy drive to Peron Homestead, a 1900s
sheep station turned self-exploratory heritage precinct, where
visitors learn that the stations shearing shed was moved out of
Denham after losing too many shearers to the town pub.
62 Australian Geographic
F
ORA PLACE named after its sharks, it seems surprising there
have been no recorded shark bite fatalities and only one
known attack. An impressive 29 different species of shark
have been recorded in the bay; however, most visitors only
encounter the elusive creatures when they visit Ocean Park
Aquarium, which conducts daily shark-feeding displays and is
located just outside Denham.
Boasting a $1.2 million solar panel installation and, according
to locals, the best coffee around, the aquarium is filled with open
tanks and glass-fronted displays where injured local sea creatures
are rehabilitated. The park is manned by marine scientists, who
regularly take in rescued turtles, sea snakes and stingrays.
The animals spend time in progressively larger tanks prior to
their release back into the bay. All the animals we keep are locals,
so there are no translocation issues. We just release them from
the beach a few metres away, says aquarium manager Ed Fenny,
who started working here as a 21-year-old.
The resident sharks are caught humanely and kept for a few
months in a large pool where PADI scuba diving courses for the
adventurous are held. We use a barbless hook, tow them back
to shore by hand at walking pace, slide them onto a stretcher and
release them into our pond, Ed explains.
His pursuit is education, rather than a theme-park experience,
and he hopes his efforts to impart knowledge, particularly to
anglers, will lead to better outcomes for the regions marine life.
Only 3040 per cent of catch-and-release fish are estimated to
survive, he says. Most game fishers are pretty shocked to hear
that. If we can get that across and improve their handling tech-
niques then weve had a win.
Despite Shark Bays fish-filled waters and extraordinary wil-
derness, its main drawcard is a more recent innovation. Ever since
a fishermans wife began feeding the bays dolphins in the 1960s,
people have been drawn to the grassy holiday village at Monkey
Mia to see them. Each morning up to 26 Indo-Pacific bottlenose
dolphins bob along the shore, parading for a large audience eagerly
lined up with their toes in the shallows.
At three designated feeding times, selected volunteers get to
throw the resident cetaceans a few fish as DBCA rangers share
their story, treading a fine line between tourist attraction and
educational demonstration. People come from all over the
world, says Mary Barrett Gelu, who visited a decade ago, never
left and is now a ranger. People come thinking they can touch
or ride the dolphins. We have to let them know there are strict
guidelines in place. (See page 64 for more on the dolphins.)
Certainly, the dolphins are what draw many visitors to Shark
Bay. But, as so many of those inspired to take the turn off High-
way One for the hour-long journey to the western tip of WA go
on to find out, theres so much more to discover here. At its heart
is the raw wilderness and sublime colours that linger in the
memory, long after the return home. AG
Monkey Mias friendly dolphins (above) make regular appearances along the beachfront where rangers such as Julie Grebil educate onlookers
while allowing selected visitors, among them six-year-old Meg McKenzie, to feed them. Ed Fenny (below left) has been running Ocean Park
Aquarium, near Denham, since he was in his early 20s. Hes introduced a shark lagoon where diving courses are held. Travis Francis (below right)
has been showing anglers and inquisitive tourists Shark Bays waters for the past 24 years with Shark Bay Fishing and Eco Tours.

Blue Lagoon Pearl Farms sea lab pontoon (right), just over the water from
Monkey Mia, is one of four pearl farms located along the coastline here.

November . December 63
Indo-Pacic bottlenose dolphins have
been seen carrying sponges, as this one
does, with their jaws. But, so far, the
dolphins of WAs Shark Bay are among
the very few known to have developed an
ingenious trick for holding basket sponges
on their rostrums and using them as
sophisticated tools to aid hunting.

64 Australian Geographic
A DOLPHIN
DOMINION
Enter the extraordinary
underwater realm
of Shark Bays
dolphins.

Story by JOHN PICKRELL

November . December 65
 Shark Bay Dolphin Project leader Professor Janet
Mann (at left), of Georgetown University in the USA,
and team members Katie Gill and Eric Patterson
watch for dolphins from the research vessel Pomboo.
Janets project is one of the worlds longest-running
studies of dolphin behaviour.
I
TS A WORLD seething with sex and violence,
where proud dynasties tussle for dominance
and females must devise clever survival strate-
gies; a place of friends and rivals, plotters and
conspirators, Lotharios and loners where
complex alliances are forged and sometimes ripped
asunder, and groups of rival males stage battles for
strategic advantage. No, this is not the Seven King-
doms of Westeros as depicted in the blockbuster tel-
evision series Game of Thrones. Its the daily soap opera
played out by the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins
(Tursiops aduncus) in Western Australias Shark Bay.
We know these dolphins as individuals and have
been studying them from birth to death, some for
more than 30 years, says Professor Janet Mann, head
of the Shark Bay Dolphin Project (SBDP), one of the
worlds longest-running dolphin studies. We know
their kids, their friends, their enemies, their frenemies,
their social networks and where theyre foraging.
Janets team recognises about 600 dolphins and has
assigned each a name, such as Piccolo, Piper, Sonic,
Urchin, Cookie and Enchilada. Much of what we
know of wild dolphins has come from Shark Bay.
Researchers, for example, have learnt that females
socialise with groups of relatives mothers, daughters,
aunts and grandmothers and that these dynasties use
similar food-seeking strategies. Males, however, form
tight-knit pairs and trios that often team up to form
larger groups, rivalling anything human inner-city
gang culture offers. These include cliques known by
66 Australian Geographic
researchers as the Red Cliff Rascals, Blues Brothers,
Usual Suspects and Prima Donnas.
Such social complexity, combined with the eco-
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: HUBERT YANN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: ANDREAS KIELING, monkeymiadolphins.org
logical complexity of the wide environments in
which dolphins forage, is thought to be why they
have evolved a huge brain relative to body size, sec-
ond only to humans. Shark Bays dolphins have used
their intellect to develop a particularly special skill:
they are the only dolphins that regularly use sponges,
and perhaps shells, as tools to help them hunt.
When the wintertime research here ends and the
scientists must pack up for the year and head home,
they are, much like Game of Thrones viewers, left
with nail-biting cliffhangers as to what will transpire
in the next season. There are births and deaths,
dolphins with shark bites or diseases, ones being
ostracised from the group you wonder what will
happen over the [summer] breeding season, says Dr
Ewa Krzyszczyk, who is based in Janets research
group at Georgetown University in Washington,
DC. Will the alliance come back together and be
a force again, or will they go their separate ways?
Are we going to see a particular dolphin next year
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Tursiops aduncus
or have they died? Youre so terrified sometimes
for some of the calves that arent looking so great.
To understand why dolphins are so smart, behav-
ioural biologists realised decades ago that they
couldnt find the answers they sought in captivity
and thats what initially drew them to a tiny Shark
Bay fishing camp known as Monkey Mia.
 The sleek dorsal
ns of male dolphins
Ghoul, Purgatory and
Rodrigo shimmer in the
sunlight as they surface
synchronously.

In one of the deep-

water channels where
sponging occurs,
researchers investigate
a basket sponge as part
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: VIVIENNE FOROUGHIRAD, monkeymiadolphins.org; JOHN PICKRELL;

of the teams work to

understand the purpose
of sponging behaviour.
AMANDA COAKES, monkeymiadolphins.org; ERIC PATTERSON, monkeymiadolphins.org

A juvenile dolphin delights in bow-

riding ahead of researchers as they
motor across the bay in the smaller
SBDP research vessel, Maziwa.

Adult female Kite learnt to

sponge from her mother, Kestral:
sponging is a behaviour most often
passed from mothers to daughters,
and a hunting strategy much less
commonly employed by males.

November . December 67
 DOLPHIN BEHAVIOUR AT MONKEY MIA
Being highly intelligent and sociable animals, dolphins exhibit a lot of repeat and
predictable interactions as they go about their daily lives. Here are some to watch for.

1 EATING 2 RESTING
Monkey Mias dolphins eat mostly fish, although An unconscious dolphin in
squid, cuttlefish and rays are also on the menu. the water would drown.
Dolphins can travel at up to 40km/h while And so a dolphin sleeps by
feeding, but generally swim much more slowly. shutting down half its brain at a time.
Pelicans often follow them to steal fish during While it does this it remains at the surface of the water with
speed feeding close to the Monkey Mia beach. one eye open and its blowhole safely exposed.

A dolphin
can eat up
to 12kg
a day.

3 ALLIANCES
First-order alliances are pairs or trios of male dolphins.
Sometimes two such alliances cooperate in a
second-order alliance. An alliance will herd
a female, following her and keeping her at
their side, and sometimes making a loud
commotion before mating with her.

4 SCRATCHING 5 SNACKING
Dolphins sometimes need to Calves often catch tiny baitfish by snacking, a
scratch, which is not easy without technique where the calf swims belly-up and traps

COURTESY WA DEPARTMENT OF BIODIVERSITY, CONSERVATION AND ATTRACTIONS

arms. When a dolphin at Monkey tiny fish close to the surface. Adults can sometimes
Mia gets an itch, it puts mooring also be seen snacking just off Monkey Mia.
lines to good use by swimming
along and rubbing against
them. Visitors must not
shake these lines while
dolphins are scratching.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEONIE RICHARDS

6 GROWING UP
Calves stay Calves learn to hunt from about
close to their five months of age, but continue to
mothers for take milk from their mothers for up to
the first 34
years. four years. During this time they spend much
of their time swimming in the baby position
beneath their mothers, watching and learning.

68 Australian Geographic
 OFFSPRING
COULDNT FEED
AND WERENT
BEING TAUGHT
TO FISH.
Radical (part of a lineage of dolphins
with rap-themed names including
Coolio and Snoopdog) surfaces with
the discarded shell of a massive
trumpet snail (see page 72).
I
N AUGUST 1982 two young University of Michigan students,
Rachel Smolker and Richard Connor, journeyed to a remote
spot 700km north of Perth. They were following up on
reports of a unique opportunity to study and interact with wild
dolphins that were being regularly fed by fishermen.
Dolphins had been hand fed at Monkey Mia since at least
the 1960s, although elsewhere in Australia, relationships between
dolphins and people have their roots in Aboriginal traditions
of working cooperatively with these marine mammals to catch
fish (see page 38). By Janets 1988 arrival, as a doctoral student,
12 dolphins were regularly coming to the Monkey Mia beach
to take fish from a growing number of tourists. Janet has since
been back almost yearly, becoming the project leader and
perhaps the worlds top dolphin expert the Jane Goodall of
dolphin research.
The researchers would follow and observe Shark Bays dol-
phins from tinnies, coming to recognise them by their dorsal
fins and documenting details of their lives. Janet began by stud-
ying mothers and calves, but something else soon caught her
attention. Several years previously a fisherman had reported a
dolphin with only half a tail fluke and a weird growth on its
beak. Further investigation by Rachel had revealed the growth
was changing colour and shape and she soon realised it was, in
PHOTO CREDIT: EWA KRZYSZCZYK, monkeymiadolphins.org
fact, a sponge, and the dolphin was using it for foraging.
Then, in 1989, Janet saw Half Flukes daughter Demi carrying
a sponge, too. That got me very interested in the transmission
of the behaviour from mother to offspring and I started this quest
to figure out what they are doing with the sponges, and why
they did it, she says. Tool use is very rare in wild animals and
has mostly been observed only in primates, crows, whales and
dolphins. In 1960 Jane Goodall was the first to discover chimps
using sticks to probe for termites, which was then a revelation.
What makes tool use intriguing in dolphins is they have no
hands to manipulate objects. Streamlined physiques and their
marine environment [also] make tool use improbable, Janet adds.
In the 35 years since dolphin research began in Shark Bay,
more than 100 dolphins have been recorded with sponges, in
three parts of the bay, and Janets team has deduced it is a mostly
female behaviour passed from mothers to offspring. According
to detailed studies of about 600 dolphins, about one in 20 are
spongers that relentlessly commit to the activity, engaging in
it for much of their foraging time.
Precisely what they are doing with the sponges took Janet
many years to understand.
A
S RESEARCH ON the Shark Bay dolphins continued in
the 1990s, tourism at Monkey Mia also expanded. The
road to the campsite was paved and an information
centre was built. At times hundreds of tourists crowded the
beach and both male and female dolphins lingered in the shal-
lows begging for fish. But problems were becoming apparent:
sometimes dolphins would bite people or knock over children.
Janets data were also exposing worrying trends. Of the dol-
phins that begged at the beach, all had lost calves: eight out of
every 10 calves born between 1986 and 1994 had died. This
alarming 80 per cent mortality rate was far higher than the
44 per cent of calves that failed to survive past weaning across
the larger population. Clearly, feeding these dolphins had been
more problematic than anyone had realised.
The dolphins that came to be fed were there all day long,
which meant the offspring couldnt feed and werent being
taught to fish, Ewa remembers. When regulations were
put in place, with the help of researchers, that mortality
dropped significantly.
Janet realised the main problem was that begging females
were spending so much time resting in shallow water that their
babies couldnt access their teats to nurse. Even if young did
survive past weaning, at about the age of four years, they were
not learning how to forage for fish and did not develop the
social bonds needed for survival.
November . December 69
 THE RESERVE
AND ACCESS TO
THE DOLPHINS
ARE TIGHTLY
CONTROLLED.
Rhythm is among a group of females
that has learnt to chase sh right
up to the beach; she hydroplanes
through the surf as she snatches
them, taking great care not to beach
herself irreversibly.
In the mid-90s the researchers helped the forerunner of the
WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions
develop new rules for tourism and the management of human
interactions with the dolphins.
Today the reserve and access to the dolphins are tightly con-
trolled. We open up the beach when our licence starts at 7.45am
and then its pretty much up to the dolphins, Monkey Mia
Reserve ranger Emily Ward explains. We have no bells or
whistles to call them in, its just whenever they choose to come
We follow certain protocols given to us by the researchers.
These are subject to change depending on any new research.
Only five adult females Puck, Surprise, Piccolo, Shock and
Kiya are now allowed to be fed, in a daily maximum of three
experiences between 7.45am and noon. None is given more
than a few fish, equivalent to just 10 per cent of daily needs.
This ensures they dont neglect their babies and forces them to
forage naturally. More aggressive males are no longer fed at all,
and people are forbidden from touching dolphins or approach-
ing them in the water.
About 100,000 visitors a year now come to Monkey Mia to
see and feed the dolphins (see box, opposite). But since 1995,
when the regulations came into effect, the mortality of calves
among the beach dolphins has fallen to 13 per cent and nine
out of 10 calves now survive.
The juvenile offspring of the beach dolphins also now
must feed themselves and learn a surprising range of strategies
that the dolphins at Shark Bay employ to find fish. These
include: snacking (picking off tiny baitfish trapped against
the surface, by snapping their jaws at them); hydroplaning
(trapping mullet by temporarily stranding themselves in shal-
low water along the surf ); kerplunking (making sharp tail slaps
that scare fish out of cover in shallow seagrass beds); leaping
or porpoise foraging (hunting shoals of fast-moving fish); and,
of course, sponging.
70 Australian Geographic
T
HE KEY TO what dolphins were doing with the sponges
came when Janet realised sponging occurred in deeper
channels, where the sea floor is 810m below the surface.
Observing the behaviour was difficult because its rare to be
able to see down to such depths from the surface, but on some
exceptionally clear and calm days the researchers were able to
watch dolphins cruising along the bottom, disturbing the sea
f loor with the sponges. This made fish dart up, making the
dolphins drop their sponges and snap up the fish, before retriev-
ing their sponges and repeating the whole process.
The dolphins, it transpired, were protecting their sensitive
beaks from a rock-cluttered sea floor. The fast-moving current
scrapes away all the fine sand and youre left with rubble, Janet
explains. Because the basket sponges used by the dolphins are
filter-feeding organisms, they also prefer to live in the channels
with fast currents, so they are a readily available resource there.
One of Janets students, Eric Patterson, guessed that the fish
the dolphins hunted in the channels were bottom-dwellers that
lacked swim bladders. The swim bladder is a gas-filled internal
organ found in many fish species that helps them control their
buoyancy. Because of its structure it reflects sound waves, mak-
PHOTO CREDIT: ALESSANDRO PONZO, monkeymiadolphins.org
ing it the perfect target for dolphins using echolocation to hunt.
Conversely, fish without swim bladders arent so easy for dol-
phins to locate. The fish are essentially invisible. They are well
camouflaged and inaudible because they dont have swim blad-
ders. But the sponge allows [dolphins] to scare up these fish,
Janet says. They are using the sponge as a tool to catch some-
thing other dolphins cannot catch.
The scientists subsequently put underwater cameras into the
channels and donned diving gear to trial sponging themselves
and see what the process turned up. The answer was huge
numbers of grubfish, also known as barred sandperch. Once
these swim-bladderless fish are scared up from the bottom, they
dont move anywhere fast, making easy pickings for dolphins.
 WHERE TO ENCOUNTER WILD
DOLPHINS IN AUSTR ALIA
These three beach spots have carefully regulated dolphin encounters that ensure
the animals welfare. Head to one to see wild dolphins up close.

BUNBURY, WA MONKEY MIA, WA TANGALOOMA, QLD

The Dolphin Discovery Centre is
150km south of Perth. Here visitors
can experience dolphins up close in a
shallow water interactive zone. The
location is frequented by a number
of dolphins that typically stay
anywhere between five minutes and
one hour. Dolphins here are fed a
variety of local fish by staff, with
PHOTO CREDITS, FROM LEFT: TROY MAYNE; JOHN PICKRELL; SOURCE: TANGALOOMA ISLAND RESORT
Monkey Mia Reserve is on Peron
Peninsulas eastern shore, 23km
north-east of Denham and 700km
north of Perth. Five adult dolphins
can be fed by a lucky few human
visitors from the beach here under
national park ranger supervision.
Dolphin experiences and interpretive
Tangalooma Island Resort is on the
protected sand island of Moreton
Island, 40km north-east of Brisbane.
Guests are able to wade into the
shallows at sunset for a chance to
feed a member of the wild bottle-
nose dolphin family that visits each
evening. The program operates

talks begin 7.45am. Feedings may under strict environmental guide-

each adult animal receiving no more
than 350g, which is less than 10 per
cent of what is estimated by
researchers to be their average daily
requirements. Entry is $10 for adults
and $5 for kids/concessions.
More info: Call 08 9791 3088 or
visit dolphindiscovery.com.au
continue until noon. Another 20
dolphins also visit and may be seen
from the shore. Park permits needed.
More info: Call 08 9948 1366 or
visit parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/park/
monkey-mia Find the RAC Monkey
Mia Dolphin Resort at parksand
resorts.rac.com.au/monkey-mia
lines, ensuring that the dolphins
remain independent and continue to
naturally hunt and feed. You must
book a day trip or stay overnight at
the resort (on certain packages) to
participate in the feeding program.
More info: Call 07 3637 2000 or
visit tangalooma.com

November . December 71

A NEW TOOL
Sponging may not be the only way
that dolphins in Shark Bay are being
innovative with props for foraging.
I
n 2007 researchers began to spot them
regularly in the western gulf of the bay doing
something odd with the massive shells of
Australian trumpet snails, which are the worlds
biggest gastropods.
We had no idea what was going on, says Dr
Simon Allen, a dolphin biologist at the University
of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, who works
alongside Richard Connor (now Professor of
Biology at the University of Massachusetts) as
part of the Shark Bay Dolphin Research Alliance
project. A dolphin just appeared with a massive
trumpet shell and was shaking it about. We
wondered if it was playing or showing off to its
mates. But then later that day, we looked at the
photos and saw water falling out and then a fish,
and realised this had the potential to be another
very clever technique for obtaining food.
In the past decade, Simon and his colleagues
have since observed shelling (see below) 3035
times. It may be that the dolphins unintentionally
chase fish into shells on the sea floor and have
learnt to get the fish out by carrying the shells to
the surface and draining them of water. A more
exciting possibility is that they are intentionally
chasing fish into shells and using them like traps,
Janet says, as human hunters do. If that turns out
to be the case, it will definitively count as an
advanced form of tool use.
it a
72 Australian Geographic
Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk (at left) and Georgetown University undergraduate
student Sarah Powell set off on research vessel Maziwa to identify and
photograph Monkey Mia dolphins and survey their behaviour.
H
UMANS CAN HAVE many hundreds, even thousands, of
contacts they recognise and know by name. Dolphins
can [similarly] have hundreds of animals in their net-
worksand they dont just need to understand whats going on
when theyre with someone, they also need to get an inkling
of whats going on behind their back, Janet says. They need
to remember that this ones an ally, and this ones an ally of my
ally, but [who] Im not so friendly with.
Its the most complex social system we know in any animal
society outside of humans, adds dolphin biologist Dr Simon
Allen. It should come as no surprise then to learn that dolphins
have names for one another and can communicate ideas. They
do this through clicks and whistles. The work of one of Simons
UWA colleagues, Stephanie King, has shown dolphins have
signature whistles they develop when young and use, like
human names, to refer to themselves and others. They use [the
whistles] to announce their arrival or to call to each other,
Janet says. Research has shown that in captivity dolphins remem-
ber signature whistles of other dolphins for at least 20 years.
Simon has been working with Richard Connor for many
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JOHN PICKRELL; EWA KRZYSZCZYK, monkeymiadolphins.org
years to understand the complexity of male alliances. A first
order alliance is a pair or trio that work together to herd and
monopolise a female and stop her getting stolen by other alli-
ances. These males take turns mating with the female.
Similar alliances to dominate access to females are known
in animals such as lions. What sets the Shark Bay dolphins apart
is that these first-order alliances may at times band together in
a second-order alliance and several of these can then, in turn,
temporarily join forces to form a third-order alliance. One such
clique observed by researchers is a super-alliance of 14 males.
[Such] social politics working together as a team for strength
and unity, to get access to something you cannot share [such as
paternity] is unheard of unless youre talking about pretty
cognitively advanced species, Simon says. Nowhere else are
there alliances of alliances, unless youre looking at humans.
Dolphins exhibit behaviours familiar to us as humans in
other ways too. [Dolphin emotions can be] hard to recognise
because they dont have facial expressions, which we are so used
to as primates, Janet says. But you can see it in their body
language. Like elephants and many primates, dolphins may
even exhibit a form of grief, albeit short-lived.
 A pair of Indo-Pacic bottlenose
dolphins frolics in the turquoise waters
of Shark Bay World Heritage Area.
The stunning coastline of WAs Peron
Peninsula is in the distance.
JANET SPECULATES
HER REACTION MAY
HAVE BEEN A KIND OF
DOLPHIN GRIEF.
Janet recounts an example in 1994 when Hobbit, the four-
month-old calf of a female called Holeyfin, was killed by a tiger
shark, about 70m out from the beach where the dolphins are
fed. Alerted by Hobbits frantic whistling, her mother and other
relatives zoomed towards her, chasing off the shark. [Holeyfin]
was whistling constantly, so was very distressed, and she repeat-
edly pushed the calf up, as if to help her breathe, Janet recalls.
She sometimes also held her down to the sea f loor, which
might have also been an attempt to revive her.
For several days, although the scientists had removed the calf
from the water, Holeyfin returned and searched, whistling.
PHOTO CREDIT: MITSUAKI IWAGO/MINDEN IMAGES
She almost never whistles and was whistling so loud all the
time, we could hear her through the hull of the boat, Janet
says. Holeyfin soon returned to normal. But, Janet speculates,
her reaction may have been a kind of dolphin grief.
T
HE SBDP RESEARCH VESSEL, a little red-and-white boat
called Maziwa, zips across the surface of the turquoise
waters of Red Cliff Bay away from Monkey Mia. With
the russet cliffs of Cape Rose and Francois Peron National Park
to our left, we are heading full tilt into dolphin territory. Sitting
up front with clipboards, stopwatches and binoculars are Ewa
and undergraduate student Sarah Powell. They collect data on
which dolphins we see and what they are up to, as well as GPS
coordinates, wind speed, wave height, water temperature and
depth. They note at one-minute intervals if the dolphins are
performing behaviours such as fast swims, tail-out dives,
peduncle dives, snagging and foraging.
The first group we encounter is snagging (resting) females:
Skruff, Lick, Whoops and Shock. But soon something catches
their attention and porpoising and leaping they head rapidly
towards a large shoal of fish.
We set off in pursuit, and before too long we also have lots
of the fellas leaping out of the water around us, including Cebe,
Wabbit, Deet, Shiver and Smokey. Ewa reels off the names of
some of the more than 30 dolphins now periodically cutting
the waters surface around the boat, their beaks occasionally full
of fish. If they hear other dolphins echolocating or getting
excited about the fish, they react.
They go for it, with everyone coming in from all different
directions, Ewa says. They could have just heard somebodys
excited whistles, or they could have called out that there were
fish here. Maybe having many dolphins around helps corral
the fish.
These males are members of various gangs, including the
Red Cliff Rascals, Kroker Spaniels and Prima Donnas. Once
they are finished with plundering the large shoal of bream, they
begin to line up behind the females they are herding. Its August
and the breeding season, which extends into the summer
months, is about to get going again.
Sadly for Ewa, Janet and the others, this also means its time
to pack up again. They are just going to have to cope with the
cliffhangers and wait until next year to find out whats transpired
in the dramatic daily lives of Shark Bays dolphins. AG
November . December 73
Just like his parents before
him, John Lynn has lived his
whole life by WAs Rabbit-
Proof Fence.

74 Australian Geographic
 FACES OF
THE F E NCE
Stretching for thousands of kilometres
across Western Australia, the Rabbit-
Proof Fence is part of Australias history
that marks boundaries and defines lives.

STORY BY BRUCE NEWTON

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOMAS WIELECKI

November . December 75
 John Lynn stands on a water pipe next to
Rabbit Proof Fence Road, just north of Cunderdin
in Western Australias southern wheatbelt.
He surveys a sunset made all the more dramatic by smoke
haze from fires smouldering to the west. John, aged in his
60s, has lived here on the Rabbit-Proof Fence all his life.
His parents were born here: they met here, married here,
farmed here and died here. His grandparents came from
England as free settlers when east of the fence was wild
scrub and to the west was just being turned into farmland.
See those trees down there? John asks, pointing
with one hand and shielding his eyes with the other.
Thats where Mums parents came and settled and took
up virgin territory in 1911.
John is a deliberate man who thinks deeply and speaks
slowly. He recalls his parents telling him stories about
the patrolmen who worked along the fence in those
days. There were very strict controls, he remembers.
You couldnt go through the gate and leave it open or
you would get fined. It was illegal to bring a rabbit to
this side, dead or alive.
Just before going to press,
we heard that Allan Rogers
had passed away. He worked
tirelessly for the creation of
a permanent monument to
acknowledge the legacy of
the Rabbit-Proof Fence.
76 Australian Geographic
He remembers the fences jam tree and white gum
posts being replaced by fresh posts and steel spikes in
the 1970s and he knows that soon it will be his job to
renew the rusting, galvanised hexagonal wire with a
ring-lock fence. I dare say that wont last 100 years, he
says, laughing.
John is one of thousands of people who live along
the three fence lines that make up the Rabbit-Proof
Fence. Spanning more than 3250km in total, the fences
were built during the early 1900s in an attempt to hold
back the rabbit plague that had begun sweeping across
eastern Australia.
Hearing stories such as Johns about life on the
Rabbit-Proof Fence is the reason photographer Thomas
Wielecki and I have come to this sparse and harsh land-
scape. Weve ventured eastwards from Perth with no
more plan in our minds than to find the fence, follow it
north and record what happens.
Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence is
often no more complex than nding
the signs and driving north or south.

November . December 77
 Smoke haze adds drama to a sunset
north of Cunderdin looking across
John Lynns elds.

The 2002 movie Rabbit-Proof Fence

told the true story of three Indigenous
girls and their bid for freedom
from institutionalisation.

The first fence extends

the length of WA, dividing
the state in two.

O
F COURSE, THE Rabbit-Proof Fence is best known for
the 2002 film of the same name that followed the epic
1931 journey of three Aboriginal girls along the fence,
from confinement at the now-defunct Moore River Native

Settlement near Perth back to their homes in the Pilbara, in
northern WA. In fact, those girls followed all three fence lines.
The first fence extends the length of WA, dividing the state
in two. It begins at Jerdacuttup, on the south coast, and stretches
all the way north to Eighty Mile Beach, covering 1834km. At
the time it was completed, it was claimed to be the longest fence
in the world.
By the time the first fence was finished, rabbits had already
got past it, so fence two, which stretches 1165km, was constructed
further west. Shorter than fence one, it starts at Bremer Bay on
the south coast, and runs due north parallel to fence one, before
veering north-east near Yalgoo and eventually intersecting with
fence one near Wiluna, in central WA.
Fence three, which at just 257km long is the shortest of the
three fences, was completed in 1907. It runs eastwest from an
intersection with fence two near Yalgoo to the coast at Kalbarri.
In total, the three fences took hundreds of labourers six years
to build and cost more than 330,000 in the process (not includ-
ing surveying or maintenance). How successful the fences were
at keeping back the rabbit plague is debatable.
Rabbits were introduced to Australia by the very earliest
PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION; OPPOSITE: STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA B18849
The fences that make up the Rabbit-Proof Fence were actively
patrolled and maintained between the wars, but more recently,
biological controls such as the disease myxomatosis, introduced
in 1950, and calicivirus, introduced in 1995, have been the main
weapons aimed at reducing wild rabbit populations.
As many as 10 billion rabbits were thought to have infested
Australia by 1920. The current population fluctuates according
to conditions, but has been estimated at about 200 million.
Selected sections of the fences are still used to keep pests at bay.
Wild dogs, foxes and emus are targets rather than rabbits.
The officially maintained sections of what is now known as
the State Barrier Fence are off-limits to all but maintenance
crews. But great swathes of the original fences have also been
taken over by farmers to mark their properties, and other sections
have simply fallen into disrepair. That means a significant piece
of Australias history is slowly disappearing.

European settlers. They arrived in New South Wales with the
first f leet but only became a pest when they were later released
by a grazier in Victoria for sport. They have since run amok,
eating native bushland bare and destroying crops, competing
with native animals for food and even taking over the homes
of burrowing animals such as bettongs.
A
LLAN ROGERS WANTS the fences history honoured. A
lifetime of farming WAs wheatbelt, south of Cunderdin,
beside sections of fence two has fuelled his passion. Allan
is president of the Cunderdin Historical Society, a small group
of locals who have spent 10 years trying to gain official support
and funding for a memorial and museum. Continued page 80

78 Australian Geographic
 HOPPING WEST
Rabbits took just four decades to spread from eastern Australia to WA.

W
HEN RABBITS first
crossed into WA from
South Australia, their
progress seemed astonishingly fast.
Grazier Thomas Austin initially
released wild rabbits from England
in 1859, at Winchelsea in southern
Victoria. By 1891, 32 years later,
theyd reached Fowlers Bay on SAs
south-west coast about 1250km
away covering an average of 40km
a year. But just five years later, in
1896, they were spotted 640km
further west in Twilight Cove, south
of Cocklebiddy, in WA spreading,
on average, at 130km a year.
How did they more than triple their
previous rate in that stretch? With
help, it seems, from humankind. In his
1969 book They All Ran Wild, farm-
er-author Eric Rolls described rabbits
as generally unadventurous. Theyd
much prefer a stable life in a safe
place with a familiar community than
to be travelling through alien land-
scapes. Only catastrophes such as
floods, famine or severe overcrowding
force migration.
By the 1880s rabbits were
spreading through SA in plague
numbers and humans
were helping them,
both deliberately and unwittingly. Highway, then swung southward to
People released rabbits for sport, follow the better vegetated coastline.
food or to remind them of the old About the same time further north,
country. And they slaughtered rabbits were pouring into WA from
potential predators such as wedge- the Northern Territory and travelling
tailed eagles and dingoes. south-westwards from Lake Mackay.
In his 2017 book Those Wild Rabbits reached the west coast in
Rabbits, Bruce Munday wrote: about 1907, the year the third fence
Propelled bypopulation pressure was completed. The following year,
and assisted by paddle-steamers, when a WA Rabbit Department
drovers and tramps, by 1884 rabbits inspector visited the Kalbarri end of
were as far south as Naracoorte, west the fence, he found rabbits up and
to Eyre Peninsula and north along the down the coast on both sides of it.
Darling almost to Queensland. PETER MEREDITH
On the Nullarbors southern edge,
Eric Rolls wrote, swaggies and
bushies were the main human
helpers. In that billy as they walked
west out of South Australia was often
a nest of three-week-old rabbit
kittens completely furred and
beautiful, to be set down at a good
big rock-hole with some grass about
it In this way, men of the road
secured a future food supply.
The rabbits westward pace
from the border put paid to any
idea that WAs harsh environ-
ment would block the
invasion. They stuck
close to whats
now the Eyre Rabbits in plague
proportions presented
an opportunity for
trappers such as this one
photographed in SA in
1900. Rabbits were valued
for their meat and fur and
could be a vital source of
income during the tough
years following the 1890s
economic depression.

The Rabbit-Proof
Fence is actually
three fences. The rst
and longest is the
farthest east, number
two also runs north
south while number
three is eastwest.

November . December 79
 Charlie Smith and his wife, Joan,
feed kangaroos on their rural
property next to an example of
the Rabbit-Proof Fence hexagonal
sculpture that they developed.
Why did we take it up? he asks rhetorically as we stand
beside the red gravel Rabbit Proof Fence Road, metres from a
rickety looking fence that separates us from vast swathes of
wheat fields. This isnt Allans farm, but he does have two nearby.
Building the fence was a huge program; it took a lot of men
and a lot of very ordinary hard work in isolated places, he says.
They had to cut the wooden posts out of the bushland that
hadnt been taken up for agriculture at the time. They had to
erect the fence, put the netting on, and a single furrow plough
went along the fence to dig a trench so the netting was buried
at least six inches down, so the rabbits wouldnt dig under it.
Thats why we thought something should be done to com-
memorate it.
Since the centenary of the fences completion 10 years ago,
support for a Rabbit-Proof Fence memorial has been widespread
but, so far, attempts to find funding for it have failed. Gradually,
as they have aged and wearied, members of the Cunderdin
Historical Society have reduced their ambitions. They had ini-
tially hoped for a state-wide memorial, but would now just like
some form of recognition at Cunderdin, which was where the
headquarters for the construction of fence two were based.
There should be a memorial where the number two fence
crosses the Great Eastern Highway, Allan says, explaining that
the locations of gates were marked out in miles from this point.
There was a depot on the railway line; goods were transferred
to Cunderdin and went north and south for number two fence.
80 Australian Geographic
It was millions and millions of
hexagons that kept out millions
and millions of rabbits.
Charlie Smith supports Allan Rogers vision and has been
the one to give it form and substance. A prominent sculptor
best known for the HMAS Sydney (II) memorial in Geraldton,
Charlie was invited by the Cunderdin Historical Society in
2007 to present his concept for commemorating the fence and
the people who built it. He came up with the idea of using a
modular hexagonal structure for the sculpture. It was like the
wire in the fence, Charlie explains. It was millions and mil-
lions of hexagons that kept out millions and millions of rabbits.
Charlies ingenious idea is that the size of the memorial could
vary from town to town depending on budget, ranging from
one hexagon to 100, with each hexagon containing a sculpture
specific to the local areas Rabbit-Proof Fence experience.
But no-one seems to be able to get grants, he says, sighing.
The problem with the memorials we do is it takes a group of
people or an individual to drive them and dedicate themselves
to get the grants, to get the permissions, to get the politicians
behind it. It is a hell of a job to get it all together.
 Even as the project has floundered, it has become a labour
of love for Charlie and his wife, Joan Walsh-Smith. They have
come to learn a lot about the history of the fence and the sac-
rifices made to build and maintain it.
Both are larger-than-life characters. Charlie speaks with
a heavy Irish accent, and has a thick white beard. As he speaks,
Joan, who is also a sculptor, twitters and f lutters like one of
the many pet birds the couple have on their bush property near
Gidgegannup, 90 minutes west of the fence.
The fence became a repository of all sorts of people from
all walks of life who couldnt survive in normal society, especially
after the First World War, Charlie explains as we sit in his
library, looking out over boulders and bush. They couldnt
face living in society after the horrors of the Western Front,
he says. I am sure there would have been a lot of suicides out
there, it would have been very sad.
R
ABBIT PROOF FENCE ROAD unfurls before us, carving
a deep red undulating scar through the pale-yellow
wheat paddocks that run endlessly to the horizon in
every direction.
Plumes of dust drift into a deep blue sky, marking the progress
of squadrons of headers that march to and fro with geometric
GPS guidance. This is a food bowl of epic proportions and the
Rabbit-Proof Fence and the road alongside it run right up the
guts, as the locals would say.
Rusting wire is a common sight and nowadays the condition of the
Rabbit-Proof Fence varies enormously (above left).
Allan Rogers is determined the Rabbit-Proof Fence and the people who
built it be honoured in a lasting way (top).
Rabbit-proof fences two and three intersect in the bush north of
Yalgoo (bottom).
Thomas and I have been following fence two for several
hundred kilometres. Along the way, weve seen occasional
evidence of attempts to promote the fence and this route as a
tourist drive. In Dalwallinu Shire, about 200km north of
Cunderdin, green fingerpost signs declare this the Heritage
Rabbit-Proof Fence Trail. Bemusingly, another sign says the
road is for local traffic only.
Just east of Dalwallinu, another fingerpost tells us to take a
90-degree right-hand turn to keep following the fence. Con-
fused, Thomas and I pull over. We decide its got to be wrong.
As we consider our options, a ute roars up the hill towards us
with local Keith Carter behind the wheel.
He pulls alongside us and says the sign is pointing in the
wrong direction. That its there at all is a bonus, he adds. Im
on the local council and I dont know why they havent thought
about selling Rabbit-Proof Fence signs in Dalwallinu because
it wouldnt be two weeks pass that this sign up here gets nicked,
he says, his voice carrying out over the rumbling of his engine.
Its because of the movie, I think.
November . December 81

Damian Morrissey says the rabbits had already arrived by the time
the Rabbit-Proof Fence was built (top).
Keith Carters family owns 9000ha of land alongside the
Rabbit-Proof Fence near Dalwallinu (bottom).
We follow Keith up the road and he shows us an original
gate from the Rabbit-Proof Fence that now keeps sheep in one
of his paddocks. Looking back down the hill, all the farmland
we can see belongs to Keith and his family.
Its grown significantly in size since Keiths father first arrived
from Victoria in 1928. The family now owns nearly 9000ha.
For Keith, the fence is part of a landscape he hopes his family
will continue to enjoy for many years to come.
T
HERE IS NO DOUBT the Rabbit-Proof Fence is disap-
pearing. It has been completely renewed in some places
while, in others, it is crumbling into the salt flats where
no-one owns or cares about it.
When we cross the Great Northern Highway east of Wubin,
about 25km north of Dalwallinu, we see a sign marking the
grave of a worker who died building the fence.
Its a simple cross on the roadside. Back then, this grave would
have been in a lonely and isolated spot. Now, trucks and cars
roar past just metres away.
82 Australian Geographic
Fence facts
1834km
is the length of Australias first
Rabbit-Proof Fence, which divided
WA in two.
200 MILLION is the current rabbit
population estimate for Australia.
10 billion rabbits
populated Australia by the 1920s, 60 years
after they were released in Victoria.
ALSO KNOWN AS the State Barrier
Fence of WA, the State Vermin Fence and
the Emu Fence.
As we continue north, the farming land drops away and we
become immersed in a sea of scrubby bush. A mine site, a
deserted farm, and even a ghost town occasionally interrupt the
endless landscape.
The fence rolls on, sometimes in good condition, sometimes
sagging, sometimes swallowed up by salt flats.
We follow the fence north for another couple of hundred
kilometres. Up here, the heat is intense and the flies swarm in
plague proportions. The towns look tired, their main streets
wilted, with many shops empty.
We reach the point where the fence crosses Geraldton-Mount
Magnet Rd near Yalgoo, a small town that brands itself as the
place where the outback begins. Just north of here is where
the junction of fences two and three should be located. Its
somewhere on the Pindathuna pastoral lease, so we head to
the homestead with the intention of knocking on a door to ask
someone if they can help us find it.
We drive in off the public road and park at a house that sits
among a jumble of rusting machinery and run-down buildings.
Damian Morrissey hears us coming and emerges from inside,
walking to the edge of his verandah.
He reacts with a bit of reserve. Its understandable because
its Sunday afternoon and a couple of strangers have arrived on
his doorstep wanting to look at a fence.
Theres always been rabbits here, he says, eyeing us warily.
It was built as a rabbit fence. But the rabbits had got through
More than 100 years on, the
sturdiness of the original
Rabbit-Proof Fence is obvious.
But time wearies all things.
We have encountered many
faces friendly, weathered,
pained, and strong.
by the time it was finished. Now its used as an emu fence but
there are just as many emus on the inside as the outside. They
just breed up. Damian, who is 62, wiry, and darkly tanned by
the sun, has lived here close to the fence all his life. His family
had the freehold nearby at Noongal Station before they moved
in 1998 to Pindathuna.
Track back further and his ancestors had farmland in the
limestone country near the coast at Geraldton before they moved
up here. They must have been brain-dead or something, he
says, cackling, as he stands amid the sand and rocks under the
harsh afternoon sun.
Hes intrigued when I tell him a tracker from Noongal was
recruited by the police to try and find those three Aboriginal
girls in 1931. Id heard a story or two about them over the
years but didnt really know much about it until the movie came
out, he says.
We follow Damians directions to the junction. Its easy going
for us in our air-conditioned four-wheel-drive, but then we
remember that 85 years ago those three girls came walking this
way, following the fence to get home. For them, it would have
been a desperate journey through an unforgiving landscape.
W
EVE FOLLOWED THE path taken by those small girls
along the Rabbit-Proof Fence as far as we can. Our
time is up and we need to head home. From here,
the fence runs on through the scrub imperturbably charting its
course, still defining boundaries, still defining lives.
Back down south, as we make our way back to Perth, we
follow road signs to the remains of what was once known as
the Moore River Native Settlement the place from which
those girls escaped. Its heartbreaking. We drive up a hill to a
bushy crest to find a cemetery where there are as many as 400
graves. Many of them are unmarked. Many of them are for
children aged one to five.
Gnalla Boodja, Gnalla Koorlongka, the sign reads in the
language of the traditional land owners, the Yued people. Our
Land, Our Children is how it translates. As the traditional
Owners of this land we ask that you respect our ancestors, and
do not enter the Cemetery beyond this point.
Of course, we obey.
During our time following the Rabbit-Proof Fence, we
have encountered many faces friendly, weathered, pained,
and strong. But it is these faces, unseen, that will stay with us
more than any. AG
November . December 83
84 Australian Geographic
 Etched by the wild winds and swells of
the Southern Ocean, the spectacular
80m-high Bunda Cliffs run for about
200km between the Head of Bight
and the West Australian border, at the
southern end of the Nullarbor Plain.

Story by SUSAN DOUBLE

Ghosts of the Nullarbor

Southern Australias vast, dry and treeless
Nullarbor Plain is but a shadow of the lush and
biodiverse habitat it once was.

November . December 85
 Although too big to have fallen through the
narrow entrance (see photo, page 93) to
OELAND/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE:

Leaenas Breath Cave beneath the Nullarbor,

giant wombat-like diprotodons, seen here with
PHOTO CREDIT, PREVIOUS PAGE: INGO

ILLUSTRATION BY ARTHUR DORETY/

kangaroos in an artists impression, would have

roamed the prehistoric plain.
STOCKTREK IMAGES

86 Australian Geographic

Stand near the centre of the Nullarbor Plain, look
around and in every direction your gaze will be
almost uninterrupted.
There are few hilly mounds and barely the
silhouette of a tree to catch your eye. At a vast
200,000sq.km, this almost entirely flat plain is
PHOTO CREDIT: DICK AND PIP SMITH/
the worlds largest continuous expanse of karst
landscape. Most of it is covered in an endless
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
swathe of a drought- and salt-tolerant low shrub-
land habitat known as chenopod steppe.
Its hot, dry, f lat, featureless and, on first
glance, devoid of animal life. But there are ghosts
here that tell a complex story of a time when this
now treeless plain was a very different place.
Theres barely a tree to be seen along the
route of the Trans-Australian Railway,
which crosses the Nullarbor Plain and
includes the worlds longest straight stretch
of railway track 478km.
One million to 500,000 years ago it was cov-
ered in what probably resembled open mallee
woodland. Yes, this vast Australian landscape
that is today defined by its lack of trees in fact
the name Nullarbor comes from the Latin for
no tree was once well covered by a mosaic
of woodland and shrubland. In some places there
was even standing surface water for at least part
of the time.
The Nullarbor has only recently, in geologic
time, become the desolate place we know today.
November . December 87
 1
The Nullarbors
Pleistocene landscape
may have resembled open
mallee woodland and the
small cave entrance would
have been hard to spot in
the vegetation.

Leaenas Breath Cave

This 73m-long underground chamber
has functioned like a massive natural
pitfall trap for hundreds of thousands
of years. Animals fell in, ew in or were
brought into the cave by predators and,
unable to escape, died there.

2 3

This photo shows part of the cave oor from a rockfall at Stunning stalactites are found in the cave. The upper
the narrowest part of the cave. The tops of stalagmites sediment in the cave and its fossils have been dated to at
can be seen poking up out of the sediment that has least 400,000200,000 years old, thanks to an encrustation
accumulated around them. of stalactite material on a fossilised skull on the cave oor.

88 Australian Geographic

4 caver and fossil enthusiast Paul Devine in April 2002 as
Sediment on the cave oor is excavated in 5cm layers, called spits, in
a grid formation. This ne material, which accumulated over thousands
of years and contains a wealth of small bones, sits in a layer 1.5m deep
atop a rock oor.
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ILLUSTRATION
BY BARRY CROUCHER; GAVIN PRIDEAUX; CLAY BRYCE;
LINDSAY HATCHER; LINDSAY HATCHER
5
A solution pipe drilled naturally through the limestone by
water opens into the cave about 20m below. Here, the rst
person to document the caves existence, Paul Devine,
abseils through this entrance during a 2002 expedition.
M
UCH OF OUR KNOWLEDGE of Nullarbor pre-
history comes from fossil remains found in
underground caves, which are characteristic
of a karst landscape due to its porous underlying limestone
bedrock. Leaenas Breath Cave (LBC) is one of three
large caves beneath the Nullarbor known collectively as
the Thylacoleo Caves. These formed more than 4 million
years ago, and ongoing and occasional roof collapses have
expanded them into what we see today.
Karst caves can be palaeontological treasure-troves and
thats exactly what we have on the Nullarbor. Their cool,
dry environments and protection they offer from the
elements or disturbance by animals or humans can result
in exceptionally preserved specimens. They can be used
as roosts or dens, meaning there may be large bone assem-
blages representing the leftovers of meals. And, as for
some of the Nullarbor caves, they may also become traps.
An underground caves presence may only be betrayed
by a small hole drilled through the limestone by water.
Animals may walk, f ly or fall in, and, through injury,
disorientation or an inability to climb, be unable to make
Karst caves can be palaeontological
treasure-troves and thats exactly
what we have on the Nullarbor.
their way out again. LBC presents just such a pitfall trap.
Its funnel-shaped entrance was first documented by
he headed across the Nullarbor landscape to join a group
of cavers. With the sun setting, he quickly tied off a rope
to his four-wheel-drive, and abseiled down through the
small opening to the cave floor some 20m below. What
Devine found was to rewrite the Pleistocene history (1.8
million11,700 years ago) of the Nullarbor.
A large silt floor was littered with bones. Some, along
with mummified remains, were recent victims of the
deadly trap, but others Devine recognised as belonging
to creatures long gone from the Nullarbor of today.
Ducking under a rock overhang, he crawled up a low
passage and was confronted by a near-complete skeleton
of the marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex, stretched out
where it had died a lonely death from thirst or injury
several hundred thousand years earlier. Sadly, Devine,
who was a pivotal member of subsequent LBC expedi-
tions, died in 2012. But his legacy is being built upon
by a team of researchers led by palaeontologist Gavin
Prideaux from Flinders University in Adelaide.
November . December 89
 This view from the rock
pile shows palaeontologists Remains of 69 vertebrate species have so far been
excavating below.
Everything brought in and
out must pass through the
found in LBC and the other Thylacoleo Caves, including
narrow solution pipe above.
several entirely new to science.
T
HE FOSSILS IN LBC point to a very different land-
scape with a much more diverse flora and fauna
than that existing on the Nullarbor today. Remains
of 69 vertebrate species have so far been found in this and
the other Thylacoleo Caves, including several entirely new
to science. This number is, however, certainly a fraction
of what lived on the prehistoric Nullarbor.
It is only a snapshot of those species unlucky enough
to have fallen into the cave, or to have been brought
there by birds of prey. Diprotodons giant extinct mar-
supials related to modern wombats and koalas would
almost certainly have existed on the Nullarbor at that
time, along with other megafauna too big to fall through
such a small opening.
If you stood on the spot above the entrance to LBC
500,000 years ago, you would have found yourself in an
open woodland. The presence of many herbivore species
is indicative of similar habitats in other parts of modern
Australia. And some of these herbivores would truly have
been giants.
The great short-faced kangaroo, Procoptodon goliah,
the largest kangaroo yet known, which had an estimated
body weight of 200kg and stood 2m tall, would have
towered above you as it balanced on its hind legs and
sturdy tail, as if on a tripod. Its long forelimbs could
reach up and grasp branches 3m from the ground.
90 Australian Geographic
PHOTO CREDIT, THIS PAGE: GAVIN PRIDEAUX, PHOTO CREDITS, OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
No less weighty was a huge wombat, Phascolonus gigas.
One can only imagine what their burrows would have
looked like! The most common out of the 23 kangaroo
species found so far among the fossils from here is yet to
be formally described. We know that it was slightly
smaller than an average present-day female grey kanga-
roo, but it sported strange bony lumps above its eyes,
making it unlike any other living or extinct kangaroo.
Let your gaze wander upward and you would be sur-
CREATIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ILLUSTRATION: MAURICIO ANTON; CLAY BRYCE
prised to see tree kangaroos clambering about in the
branches. The discovery of two new species of tree kan-
garoo (relatives of those now living in the tropical rain-
forests of northern Australia and New Guinea) indicates
more than any other find that even as late as the middle
Pleistocene (781,000126,000 years ago) there were
indeed trees growing on what is now a treeless plain.
Along with the herbivores came their predators.
Thylacines, devils and, perhaps the most enigmatic of
all, Thylacoleo carnifex, the so-called marsupial lion, after
which the Nullarbor cave complex is named. This crea-
ture is a member of the otherwise herbivorous marsupial
group that includes possums, koalas and wombats, and
so it lacked the canines of typical carnivores.
Instead, to successfully inhabit its niche as a meat-eater,
its incisors had morphed into daggers, and its pre-molars
had evolved into huge blades to shear off chunks of
Marsupial lion
A cast of a skull (below) of the marsupial lion,
Thylacoleo carnifex, shows its massive jaws and teeth.
This distant relative of modern-day koalas and wombats
is thought to have been a fearsome predator (right), with
studies showing it had one of the strongest bite forces
of any known mammalian carnivore, living or extinct. It
was likely to have been an ambush predator capable of
climbing trees, perhaps much like a leopard today.

This complete skeleton of a Thylacoleo was found in another

of the Nullarbor complex of caves that bears its name. It lay
undisturbed for about 400,000 years.

November . December 91
 Kangaroo scale
Procoptodon goliah (right), the largest known species of kangaroo,
weighed in at about 200kg and would have towered over the largest
species today, the red kangaroo (below). It could reach branches up
to 3m from the ground. Studies of fossil remains have shown that it
probably did not hop like present-
day kangaroos.

Procoptodon goliah.

2M

Red kangaroo.

Among the trees of this unfamiliar landscape

you would also have seen many species you
may know well, for not all are extinct.

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: MITCH REARDON/AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC; SHUTTERSTOCK; OLIVER RENNERT/
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRPAHIC; PETER SCHOUTEN/AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC; MARC ANDERSON/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
flesh. Weighing in at 80kg, this would have been a truly
fearsome beast. Its opposable thumbs, tipped with enor-
mous sheathed claws, suggest it was also able to climb
trees, and was likely to have been an ambush predator.
Birds were numerous and varied, including giant
megapodes (the group the modern malleefowl and brush
turkey belong to) and coucals (large, ground-based cuck-
oos) as well as a host of parrots, ducks, waders, owls and
raptor species that still inhabit Australia today. The fact Spadefoot toad fossils have been found in the Nullarbors caves.
that parrots nest in tree hollows is further evidence that The species may still be present on the plain today, as yet unseen,
because it can remain buried for many years awaiting rain.
the prehistoric Nullarbor was far from treeless.
Among the trees of this unfamiliar landscape you
would also have seen many species you may know well,
for not all are extinct, and still survive and prosper today. sive range of flora, which must have been considerably
Many have now retreated from the plain or cling on in more varied than what can be seen on the plain today.
remnant vegetation around its fringes. But I have left until last the most surprising creatures
Extant species of possums, bandicoots, kangaroos and found in the caves, that most accurately represent the
wallabies, wombats, bats, lizards and snakes, quolls, dev- enormous environmental changes that have occurred in
ils, bettongs, small carnivores such as antechinuses and the region. After many months of sorting through an
mulgaras, rodents such as the delightful and impossibly immense pile of small animal bones, palaeontologists
cute hopping mice, and birds, were all thriving on the uncovered the remains of three frog species, the first
Nullarbor 500,000 years ago. frogs, living or fossil, to have ever been documented on
This diverse range of creatures with differing habitat the Nullarbor. That frogs could live on the plain seems
and dietary requirements also points to an equally expan- inconceivable. One species, the common spadefoot toad

92 Australian Geographic

(Neobatrachus sudelli), remains widespread, and may still
turn out to occur there today. It is perfectly adapted to
an arid environment, and was found in both early and
mid-Pleistocene sediments.
Two species discovered on the prehistoric Nullarbor
a green tree frog and a toadlet would have inhabited
seasonally moist conditions, and needed transient pools
to breed. These animals were found in the lower levels
of the excavation from the early Pleistocene, about
1 million years and up to 2.5 million years ago. One of
these two species (Litoria lundeliusi) was new to science.
T
HE NULLARBOR TODAY is certainly an impov-
erished landscape. Long gone is the diverse
community of trees, shrubs and grasses. Sometime
in the late Pleistocene something happened that changed
the vegetation forever, and along with that change came
the loss of the rich diversity of animals that depended
PHOTO CREDIT: CLAY BRYCE
upon it. The Nullarbors Pleistocene f lora and fauna
evolved to cope with the climate cycles that followed
and the slow march to ever-increasing aridity.
Most palaeontologists would agree that it was not
climate alone that brought about their demise. Some
suspect that the hunting of the larger mammals by
Cavers Eve Taylor and Dan
Searle prepare to abseil down
through the tiny entrance
into LBC during an expedition
shortly after its discovery.
humans after they arrived in the area about 50,000 years
ago, and perhaps also their use of fire in the landscape,
was inf luential. Although not all of the now extinct
species survived into the late Pleistocene, some certainly
did, and evidence from other sites shows a period of
overlap with human arrival.
The most recent biological survey was undertaken in
1984 and lists the flora and fauna known to be extant on
the Nullarbor at European colonisation 200 years ago.
By that time all the large herbivores, apart from the red
kangaroo, had already long gone, along with their fear-
some carnivorous predators.
Much of the fossil material that has been recovered
from the Nullarbor so far has yet to be identified, and
there are other caves that remain to be explored. Its likely
that many more ghosts may haunt the passages and cham-
bers beneath the endless landscape of the Nullarbor,
wandering forever among the trees of an ecosystem never
to be seen again. AG
SUSAN DOUBLE AND AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
would like to thank Professor Gavin Prideaux for his expert input
into this article and Sam Arman and Grant Gully for their
assistance with the images.
November . December 93
 On the
Romani Road
Since the arrival of the First Fleet,
Romani Gypsies have travelled
across Australia in close-knit
communities, performing in
sideshows, telling fortunes and
picking up seasonal work.
Although most are now settled
in cities and towns, their
1000-year-old culture is thriving.

Story by MANDY SAYER

94 Australian Geographic
This early 20th-century
Gypsy caravan, originally
from England, was gifted
to Sydneys Powerhouse
Museum in 2008. Soon after
its arrival, museum staff
consulted with elders from
the local Gypsy community
to perform a ceremony to
bless the vehicle and release
the spirit of the previous
Romani owner.

November . December 95

Y They have a rich culture,
OU BETTER BE careful what you write or
my relatives will put a curse on me, Nick
Morgan warns as we approach a pub near
his home in Waterford West, a suburb
of Logan City, south of Brisbane in
Queensland. He glances across and probably senses my
doubt. I believe in the Gypsy curse, he adds, solemnly.
Dont you worry its real.
Nick, 65, is a slim man with a thick moustache. He
has agreed to have lunch and tell me about his family,
who are descended from some of Australias earliest Greek
Gypsies. In the harsh afternoon light, he resembles his
paternal grandmother, former Queen of the Gypsies
Mary Sterio. She famously travelled the roads of Australia
for 50 years with her extended family, appearing in side-
shows and fairs as a fortune-teller during the early 1900s.
Fortune-telling is easy, Nick says as we find our-
selves a seat in a quiet corner of the bar. His secret? You
just tell them what you think they want to hear. And
you can pick up things just by looking at a person. He
casts his eyes around the tavern, at the men playing pool,
the drinkers and the diners in the bistro area. I often
tell fortunes for drinks here in the pub, he boasts, and
I begin to laugh.
96 Australian Geographic
Among Australias rst
Greek Gypsy refugees was
Queen Mary Sterio (far left),
seen here in the Brisbane suburb
of Annerley in 1907, with two
of her children. This photograph
(left) of her son Sperio (standing)
and husband Christo was taken
in the 1920s.
Queen Mary (second from
right) poses with a group of
Romani women in Campsie,
NSW, in the 1930s. Her
daughter Burgecka is to her left.
PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: COLLECTION: MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS AND SCIENCES, DONATED THROUGH THE
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND; MICK MORGAN AND MARTY STERIO
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT CULTURAL GIFTS PROGRAM BY JACK THOMPSON, 2011; PHOTO: GEOFF FRIEND;
yet also have a long history
of persecution.
I have been seeking out people such as Nick for the
past few years. He is one of what I estimate to be about
100,000 Romani Gypsies who currently call Australia
home, although the exact number remains unconfirmed.
Known for their large families, nomadic lifestyles, lavish
marriage and funeral rituals and lively community gath-
erings, they are a unique ethnic minority. They have a
rich culture, yet also have a long history of persecution,
and when introduced to people outside their culture
often hide their Romani heritage and pretend to be
Spanish, Mexican, or Greek, to avoid becoming victims
of projected stereotypes.
Because of this, their stories of life in Australia remain
relatively untold. I am fortunate to have been offered a
 Basil Smith, who identies as an
English Romanichal Gypsy, and
his wife, Janet, travelled around
Australia in a handcrafted caravan
for 20 years performing Punch and
Judy puppet shows.
rare glimpse into their world; theyve trusted me to
research and write about their culture, knowing that Im
aware of their past and that I want to better understand
and document their complex way of life.
R
OMANI GYPSIES HAVE lived in Australia since
the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, having
been transported from England as convicts. One
of the first, James Squire, formed a friendship with Indig-
enous leader Bennelong and was the colonys first com-
mercial brewer. His tavern, the Malting Shovel, was a
popular watering hole in the early 1800s on the banks
of the Parramatta River, halfway between the settlements
of Sydney and Parramatta. Squires grandson James Farnell
became the first Australian-born premier of NSW.
Romani Gypsies have been present at just about every
significant historical episode in Australia: as panners
during the gold rush of the 1850s; as entertainers in
PHOTO CREDIT: MANDY SAYER
travelling sideshows during World War I; as conscientious
objectors throughout World War II; and as workers at
the Wollongong steelworks and the Snowy Mountains
Scheme in the early and mid-20th century. Despite their
contributions, Gypsies have been excluded from most
official published histories of this country.
This is not entirely the fault of Australian scholars.
For more than a thousand years, the Roma have lived
apart from normal society, often in secret, to avoid dis-
crimination and persecution.
They are believed to have made a mass exodus from
their homeland in North India as early as 1500 years ago,
and to have subsequently made their way to Europe.
However, historical records on their origin and dispersal
are lacking, and the exact dates and causes of their dias-
pora out of India are not known.
In Europe, their dark skin and hair, colourful clothes,
unusual language and Hindu-based religion caused fear
and suspicion. During the 15th and 16th centuries,
decrees were made in most European countries for their
incarceration or slaughter.
By this time, it was not only illegal to be a Gypsy but
also to communicate or trade goods with one. Hence,
the nomads were sometimes forced to steal food to keep
their families alive.
They were dubbed Egyptians by outsiders who
assumed they were from Egypt. This was soon shortened
to Gypsy a term considered pejorative by some, who
prefer the terms Rom (singular), Roma (plural), and
Romani (adjectival).
November . December 97
 Catherine Johns, seen
here on her rural property in
SA in 2006, is also descended
from the Romanichal Gypsies
of England and Wales.
Nick Nikolic (at left) is a Rom
from former Yugoslavia, while his
friend Hank is a Rom born in the
Netherlands. Both immigrated
to Australia in the 1970s.

These extended families

journeyed the roads of
Australia for 90 years.

A
FTER THE TRANSPORTATION of English Gypsies
as convicts during the late 18th century, a second
wave of Gypsies arrived in Australia in 1898, as
refugees from the first Greco-Turkish war. These Greek
Gypsies were descended from slaves of Moldavia and
Wallachia: about half of Europes Gypsies were enslaved
in these two historical regions of Romania between the
13th and 19th centuries.
After arriving in Adelaide, this initial group of 25,
headed by King Johan Sterio, was forced to resort to
fortune-telling and begging to survive. They travelled
to Melbourne and Sydney by foot, horse-and-cart and
sometimes train, in search of work. The group included
a young Mary Sterio and her husband Christo Nick
Morgans paternal grandparents.
A few years later, the Johan family emigrated from
Greece on cattle boats and, not long after that, the Johan
all the available cash just enough to get them to the
next town.
These extended families journeyed the roads of
Australia for 90 years, performing as entertainers in side-
shows, as boxers in Jimmy Sharmans troop, and as fortune-
tellers. They only retired from permanent travelling in
1982, after the death of their then Queen Ruby Sterio.
I was at that funeral, Nick recalls. We all stopped
travelling [after that] because of the elders. They were
all getting too old and sick They needed to be close
to hospitals and specialists.
Today, most Romani families have abandoned their
traditional nomadic lifestyle and now tend to travel long
distances in caravans for pleasure rather than work. How-
ever, some still drive from state to state, sleeping in tents
at public caravan parks as they pick up casual work.

D
and Sterio families began to travel and work together, 20th century, many of
PHOTO CREDIT: MANDY SAYER

URING THE EARLY

and eventually intermarried. Nicks mother, Hannah,
was a descendant of the Johan clan.
While on the road in the early 1900s, when some
groups were truly broke and couldnt feed their kids, the
women would perform bujo, a form of stealing disguised
as a Gypsy blessing. They would never, however, remove
Australias Romani families lived on the road,
but they didnt all travel in caravans. Most drove
cars and slept between feather-filled quilts in canvas tents
erected in the bush.
In 1934 The Kadina and Wallaroo Times reported on
scores of cars crossing the Nullarbor Plain as families

98 Australian Geographic
 ROMANTICISED GYPSY
STEREOTYPES PERVADED
the 19th-century European
cultural imagination.
Exemplifying a kind of
free-spirited defiance,
beautiful gypsy heroines
appear in the novels of
Dickens, Victor Hugo and
Walter Scott and, notably,
as the tragic lead in Bizets
opera Carmen.
made their way from Perth to Melbourne, where they
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ALAMY; WOOLLAHRA COUNCIL; MARGATE HERITAGE CENTRE
hoped to find work as show people and fortune-tellers
during the citys centennial celebrations. The newspapers
journalist noted that the Gypsy families had shipped their
vehicles from the USA, where theyd been travelling and
working earlier: There were about 37 persons, includ-
ing children, packed into five luxurious limousines and
coupes. So limited was the space, that one tiny little chap
was noticed packed into a water bucket.
The Great Depression had a deep impact on Romani
Gypsy life in Australia. Suddenly, there was no money
to be made from fortune-telling, carnival games or
seasonal farm work. And so the Roma adapted yet again
to the changing economic and political climate.
In Tasmania during the early 1930s, for example, a
Romani woman nicknamed Peggy Brown carved home-
made pegs from willow trees, bound at one end with a
strip of metal, which she sold to rural women. She trav-
elled all over south-eastern Tasmania in an old two-
wheeled cart pulled by a horse from as far south as
Cygnet to as far north as Oatlands, a distance of about
100km. According to locals Ive met in the area, she had
a hammock where her dogs slept strung between the
axles of her wagon. We were frightened that if we didnt
In 1902 Australias Gypsies
from Greece camped for several
months on Bondi Beach,
selling handmade goods
and telling fortunes.
Romani Gypsy Peggy Brown
travelled alone during the 1930s
and 40s around Tasmania in a
horsedrawn cart, selling wooden
pegs to rural women.
buy something off her, shed turn us into a green frog,
remembers Don Norton, a lifelong local of the area. Or
a rat! he adds, laughing.
Another family, the Fosters, left Sydney during the
Depression and travelled from farm to farm across the
state, putting on shows in sheds to entertain workers for
small cash donations enough to feed the family and get
them to their next destination. In winter, however, when
there were no sheep to shear, the Fosters joined all the
other unemployed showies who would wait out the cold
weather in a camping area in western NSW between
Bourke and Brewarrina.
There, on the banks of the Darling River, they con-
structed a tent city where they didnt have to pay rent,
rates, or utilities, or spend money on food. The men
provided for their families by hunting feral pigs and rab-
bits and catching fish, while the women foraged and
cooked and baked bread in camp ovens.
T
HE THIRD WAVE of Gypsies to arrive in Australia
came from all parts of Europe. Following World
War II, Australia was experiencing labour mar-
ket shortages and initiated a program of high-scale immi-
gration. The days of our isolation are over, said then
November . December 99
 Proud Romani Gypsy
Maria Ills came to Australia in
the early 1990s after spending
three years in European refugee
camps following political
upheaval in Hungary.
federal minister Arthur Calwell in November 1946, when
he announced the new policy. Initially, Calwell had
hoped to attract 10 Britons for every continental migrant.
However, Australia was so desperate to increase its pop-
ulation that his plans were quickly jettisoned. The distant,
southern land rapidly became a desirable destination for
European refugees and immigrants seeking a safer and
better life.
For the next 17 years, the government would pay, or
partly pay, the fares of a million post-war refugees of
Greek, Dutch, German, Italian, Yugoslav and Polish
extraction. This, of course, included Gypsies, although
most would never have dared pronounce their ethnicity.
Upon arrival in Australia, one Romani Gypsy family
the Abduramanoskis, from Macedonia refused to
hide their Romani heritage and, from the late 1960s
went on to create the largest and most established Gypsy
community in the country. Over the decades, through
both immigration and procreation, the family has grown
from its original four members to well over 400.
The early years were tough ones for the displaced
family, as matriarch Zera recently confirmed to me. At
her family home in Perth, she explained the sense of
deep loss and confusion she felt when she and her
100 Australian Geographic
Zera and Estref
Abduramanoski, who
immigrated to Australia from
Macedonia in the late 1960s,
now live in Perth.
Much folklore surrounds
Gypsy caravans, and the
knowledge and practice of this
is still cultivated by Australias
Romani people. This showmans
caravan, built by Basil Smith, is
in Margate, TAS.
husband, Estref, arrived in Australia. I kept asking myself,
Where am I going? she said. No sleeping. No eating.
I cried all the time.
She was 18 years old and already had a two-year-old
daughter. Still, she and her relatives went on to organise
Romani soccer teams, dance troupes, a weekly radio
program and language lessons for their members in both
their own language (Romanes) and English.
T
HE MOST RECENT intake of Gypsy immigrants
to Australia, in the late 1980s, has been a result
of the Roma fleeing post-communist European
countries, such as East Germany, Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary. These were
countries where many had been forced to settle in high-
rise slums and to work in dead-end jobs. Again, most
did not claim their ethnic identity upon entering Australia
PHOTO CREDITS: MANDY SAYER
and still only reveal it to fellow Roma.
One example of this fourth wave of immigrants is
Hungarian Gypsy Maria Ills, 73, who lives in a state
housing department flat in Port Melbourne. She and her
family spent three years in three different European ref-
ugee camps before they were approved to enter Australia
in the early 1990s.
 Queen Mary Sterios only surviving
grandson, Nick Morgan, this year
visited the home in Woolloomooloo,
Sydney, where his Gypsy ancestors
lived during WWII.
Sitting in her tidy kitchen, I asked Maria if shed
noticed much racism in Australia. She smiled and shook
her head.I dont think so. Here everyone a different
race, she said. I like Australia very much. I always thank
God we come to Australia.
Just about every Romani Gypsy Ive met has con-
firmed that Australia is a haven for their people. After
all, unlike in Europe, Australia has never passed laws that
discriminate against them specifically. In general, Gyp-
sies here have largely been left to live in peace and obscu-
rity for more than two centuries.
W
HEN WE FINISH our lunch, Nick Morgan and
I leave the pub together. After a five-minute
drive we pull up in front of a neat, single-sto-
rey brick home. A vintage silver-and-yellow caravan sits
beneath a carport. I ask Nick if he still travels. He grins.
One year we had my daughter, her husband, her five
PHOTO CREDIT: MANDY SAYER
kids and me, all sleeping in that tiny caravan, he says.
We had a ball.
He leads me through the front door of the house, into
the living room, and through to the kitchen. Like all the
Romani homes I have visited, it is immaculately clean
and neat. We place our drinks in the fridge and retire to
the large backyard with a tinnie each, where a tall, majes-
tic gum tree rises into the sky.
A cute black-haired toddler appears in the doorway,
grinning. Thats my grandson KD, Nick says.
I wave to KD and he waves back. Suddenly, Nick has
a guitar in his arms and breaks into a song. As I gaze up
through the branches of the gum tree at the fading light,
I realise Im getting pleasantly drunk. Pale stars appear
above me like luminous footprints across the sky.
The grinning toddler starts swaying back and forth
to the music. I stand and swing him up into my arms.
As Nick continues strumming and singing, I dance
around the yard with KD, a sixth-generation Australian
Gypsy, who throws his head back and begins to laugh. AG
Further Reading
Author Mandy Sayer, who wrote this article
for AG, provides more detailed and intriguing
insights into the lives of Australias ethnically
complex Romani community in her book
Australian Gypsies: Their Secret History,
published this year by NewSouth Publishing.
November . December 101
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ALASKA ANTARCTICA THE ARCTIC
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 THREE PEAKS IN THREE WEEKS
114 The mysterious and largely unknown
world of Australias tropical cloud forests. travel visit listen view read download

124
AND THE WINNERS ARE
Meet the extraordinary people
honoured in this years AG Society Awards.

A summertime display of endemic

Tasmanian alpine heath Richea
Walkabout
scoparia carpets the slopes below
Solomons Throne in the Walls of
Jerusalem NP.

108

Walk the walls

Come and explore your wild side in
Tassies Walls of Jerusalem NP.
PHOTO CREDIT: GRANT DIXON/GETTY

November . December 105

 travel visit listen view read download

Visit Visit

Songlines: Tracking Tjungunutja

the Seven Sisters
15 September 201725 February 2018
National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ACT
1 July 201718 February 2018, Museum and Art Gallery
of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT
I
N 1971, AT the NT settlement of Papunya, a group of
Aboriginal men painted depictions of their ceremonial

C
ONCERNED THAT their young people were forget-
ting their past among the distractions of the modern
age, Anangu elders began this long-running project
to record the Seven Sisters songlines, for their own
communities and for all Australians to enjoy. Detailing
lives onto scraps of discarded building materials. These
paintings the beginnings of the Western Desert art
movement are now some of Australias most treasured
cultural, historical and artistic items. This exhibition reveals
a collection shrouded in mystery, controversy and intrigue

epic mythological creation stories that encode law and
morals, songlines also map practical information, such as
the location of bushfoods and waterholes, thats critical for
survival. This exhibition is on a vast scale and uses paintings,
photographs and multimedia, including the worlds highest
resolution digital dome, to allow visitors to walk the
songlines through three states and across three deserts. For
more information, visit: nma.gov.au/exhibitions/songlines
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SARAH KENDERDINE, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES; UTA UTA TJANGALA,
MEDICINE STORY, 1971 (MAGNT, WAL 85), ESTATE OF THE ARTIST, LICENSED BY ABORIGINAL ARTISTS AGENCY, COURTESY
for more than 40 years. Including more than 130 paintings,
Tjungunutja provides extraordinary insight into the genesis
of this contemporary Aboriginal art movement. For more
information, visit: magnt.net.au/tjungunutja
Download

SUSTAINABLE
SEAFOOD GUIDE
Listen Free

E
ATING FISH is good
for you, but is it good
PAPUNYA TULA ARTISTS; APPLE STORE; SHUTTERSTOCK

Pocket-sized science for the ocean? This

Australian Marine Conserva-

P
RESENTED BY science journalist tion Society app was developed
and broadcaster Robyn in response to public concerns
Williams, ABC radios The about overfishing. By ranking
Science Show gives unique insights your options in a traffic-light
into the latest scientific research and rating system (green, amber and
debate, from the physics of cricket to red), it helps you make ocean-
Antarctic heat maps. Downloads friendly choices about seafood.
available at: abc.net.au/radionational/ Includes Greenpeaces Canned
programs/scienceshow Tuna Guide.

106 Australian Geographic


Read
The Wonder of Birds
Jim Robbins, Black Inc, $34.99
NEW YORK TIMES science
journalist Jim Robbins believes
birds are our most crucial
connection to nature, the
mechanics of flight, collective
behaviour and even how our
own brain works. Birds have
always been important in myth
and legend and Robbins
includes plenty of Australian
examples in this sweeping
survey of avian history and
its potentially perilous future.
Those Wild Rabbits
Bruce Munday, Wakefield Press, $39.95
IN DECEMBER 1859, Thomas
Austin introduced 24 wild rabbits
to Barwon Park, near Geelong. By
1920 it is thought there were as
many as 10 billion rabbits across
Australia. Those Wild Rabbits
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: COURTESY BENALLA FESTIVAL; COURTESY WOODFORD FOLK FESTIVAL
reveals the immense damage
inflicted by rabbits on Australias
environment, agriculture and social
cohesion and examines our mostly
futile attempts to control them.
Voyage of the Southern Sun: An Amazing Solo
Journey Around the World
Michael Smith, Black Inc, $34.99
THIS IS THE incredible true story of
how the 2016 Australian Geographic
Adventurer of the Year recipient Michael
Smith became the first person to
circumnavigate the globe in an amphibi-
ous plane. With limited flying experience,
no support team and only basic
instruments in his tiny single-engine
flying boat, Southern Sun, Smith risked
his life to make modern aviation history,
retracing the 1938 Qantas, Imperial and
Pan Am flying boat routes between
Sydney, Southampton and New York.
Reviews Walkabout
Visit
Benalla Festival
412 November, Benalla, VIC
S
ET ON THE shores of
beautiful Benalla Lake,
historic local botanical
gardens and venues around
the rural city of Benalla, the
Benalla Festival is a celebra-
tion of community and country
living, with events being low- or
no-cost. This years theme is Good
Vibrations, and focuses on the abundance
of local musicians and dancers to create a fun
program overflowing with street entertainment,
theatre, art, exhibitions, fireworks and more.
For more information, visit: benallafestival.com
Woodford
Folk Festival
27 December 2017
1 January 2018
Woodford, QLD
S
EE THE NEW YEAR in at the Woodford Folk
Festival, an annual six-day event thats Australias
biggest gathering of artists and musicians.You
can really get a feel for how richly diverse the
countrys cultural scene is, with more than 2000
performers putting on concerts, dances, comedy, jams,
debates, street theatre, films, a childrens festival and a
spectacular fire event on New Years Day. For more
information, visit: woodfordfolkfestival.com
Enter
Competition
WE ARE GIVING away 10 copies of
Australias Most Dangerous. Packed full
of fascinating and useful facts, this handy
reference will help you appreciate and
avoid our dangerous animals. Each chapter
describes aspects of the featured animals
habits and where and in what circum-
stances you are likely to encounter them.
In the unlikely event you have an
unpleasant meeting with one of these
creatures, the comprehensive first aid
section will be invaluable.
Enter at: australiangeographic.com.au/issue141
November . December 107
 WALLS of
JERUSALEM
National Park
One of the worlds most famed bushwalking locales
offers an experience of biblical proportions that starts
with a three hour drive from Launceston.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY

BY JUSTIN WALKER

Take a break at the top of

Solomons Throne and check
out the incredible views
across the south-west
section of the Walls
of Jerusalem NP.

108 Australian Geographic

 Lake Meston Hut sits on the western shore of the lake
bearing the same name. A track from here leads to the
summit of Mt Ragoona.

T
ASMANIAS WALLS of Jerusalem National
Park is among the worlds most overqual-
ified World Heritage sites. Its one of the
main properties protected within the Tas-
mania Wilderness World Heritage Area, which
encompasses 15,800sq.km about 20 per cent of the
state and includes the Cradle MountainLake
St Clair, FranklinGordon Wild Rivers, Southwest
and Hartz Mountain national parks, as well as the
Adamsfield and Central Plateau conservation areas.
Natural highlights of the 518sq.km Walls of Jeru-
salem NP include glacial-carved valleys, ancient pen-
cil pine forests, alpine lakes and dolerite peaks, all of
which offer stunning landscape photography oppor-
tunities. The park is most famed as a bushwalking
destination, offering walks that range from day-long
and overnight to a six-day (or longer) circuit that
explores the park from north to south and back again.
This variety means the park offers something suited
to all skill and fitness levels the perfect location for
taking that next booted step in a new walking career,
while offering challenges for experienced walkers. The
walking season runs from about September to May.
The Walls northern access area is roughly three
hours drive south-west of Launceston, passing through
Deloraine (a chance to grab last-minute supplies) and
then Mole Creek, before reaching the turn-off from
Mersey Forest Road to Fish River car park. Then, after
signing the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service walker
registration book, the real adventure begins.

November . December 109

This walk in the valley
below Wild Dog Creek
campsite takes you past
some pretty alpine tarns.
THE LONG WAY ROUND
To appreciate the wonder of the Walls, a
six-day circuit of the park is a must, albeit
only for experienced walkers. Ideally,
youll have completed other full-pack, multi-day treks
and be comfortable carrying food and a days water
(there are ample chances to refill), plus all your gear
(see Packing It In, opposite). Youll need to think
in terms of time rather than distance, due to the
terrain encountered along this circuit and its side-trips.
The parks tracks are easy to follow and mostly
signposted. But you should still be adept at basic nav-
igation and carry topographic paper maps of the park,
and a compass and emergency beacon. GPS devices
are fantastic but can fail or run out of power, so should
not be your sole navigation aid. If you take one, remem-
ber spare batteries. All this might sound daunting, but
experienced walkers will always pack this equipment.
With proper preparation and the essential gear you can
focus on why youre there: to enjoy one of Australias
premier multi-day bushwalking experiences.
The Walls circuit is a far-from-subtle introduction
to the parks landscapes. The initial ascent begins
straight from the Fish River car park; following the
rock-strewn track upwards immerses you immediately
in dense forest, with towering eucalypts and lush tree
ferns lining the track. Youll ascend 500m to the parks
boundary line, just above the first of the areas historic
huts. Trappers Hut was, as the name suggests, initially
used by trappers, and later bushwalkers (although, as
for all huts in the park, you are now only allowed to
stay in it in an emergency). Even allowing for the
ascents steepness, the first section is cracking good
fun, and hints at what lies ahead during the next six
days as you explore this wild place.
110 Australian Geographic
This scrambling ascent to Solomons
Throne is a must-do 15-minute side-
trip accessed via a track off Walls of
Jerusalem Track, at Damascus Gate.
ABOVE IT ALL
Once you reach the park boundary youll come to the
junction of the Walls of Jerusalem and Junction Lake
tracks. This point is where you start and finish the
circuit itself. You can opt to go south on Junction Lake
Track and complete the circuit anticlockwise, but we
recommend turning south-east onto the Walls of
Jerusalem Track first. This is because you want your
introduction to the parks many natural highlights to
happen on the first day.
You will now be at an elevation of about 900m
and soon move out of the dense timber onto the
Central Plateau and the first of the circuits many
highlights Solomons Jewels. This is a f lat area dot-
ted with small alpine lakes bordered by native pine
trees and the second (after the park title itself ) of
what will become regular encounters with the parks
unique naming convention.
The parks name is thanks to 19th-century surveyor
James Scott, and in the 1920s Launceston solicitor Reg
Hall continued the biblical theme. Landmarks have
been assigned such titles as Zion Gate, King Davids
Peak, Herods Gate, Wailing Wall, Pool (and Vale) of
Bethesda, Lake Salome and The Temple all epic
names but seemingly appropriate because this is a truly
epic landscape.
The traverse of Solomons Jewels is straightforward
and followed by a short ascent to Wild Dog Creek
campsite, perched at the base of King Davids Peak,
which at 1499m is Tasmanias 10th highest. The camp-
site has raised tent platforms to protect fragile vege-
tation below, and theres a self-composting toilet about
50m further up.
There is also water here, but boil it before drinking.
Its a three- to four-hour journey from Fish River car
 WALLS OF
JERUSALEM
NATIONAL
PARK
AREA: 518sq.km

Getting there
Walls of Jerusalem NP is most
easily accessed via the northern
entry point of Fish River car park,
about three hours drive south-west
of Launceston. There are daily
flights to Launceston from most
capital cities.

Guided trek options

For those who would prefer a
guided full-pack trek, Tasmanian
Expeditions (a subsidiary of World
Expeditions) offers a variety of
walks, ranging from the full circuit
to a winter walking experience. See
tasmanianexpeditions.com.au
rage these

PAC K I N G I T I N
A multi-day walk requires essential gear to
ensure your adventure is safe and enjoyable.
BACKPACK: 6580L SLEEPING BAG: TREK POLES: highly FOOD: dehydrated
capacity three-season rating recommended, because rations are lightweight
CLOTHING: take layers SLEEPING MAT: they aid balance with a and nourishing
(base, mid, outer), plus three-season rating heavy backpack, plus WATER: a water bladder
a Gore-Tex jacket BOOTS: worn-in hiking; take some of the load (e.g. CamelBak),
and pants and a leather recommended off the legs plus a bottle and
down jacket GAITERS: to protect PACK LINER: keeps water purifiers
TENT: lightweight lower legs from scratches all gear inside your FIRST-AID KIT: know
three-season rating and leeches pack dry how to use it

November . December 111

 Tiger Lake.
A WEEKEND TRIP into the
TWICE park is doable with an early
THE start. Drop your main pack
at Wild Dog Creek camp-
FUN site, load a day pack with
snacks, water, a fleece and
an outer shell and head
back down the hill towards the Solitary Man.
In the mid-1980s, a Vietnam vet built himself
an A-frame corrugated iron hut with a rock base
overlooking Tiger Lake, north of the campsite.
This Solitary Man remained there for about 18
months before returning to society.
To reach the hut, drop down from the
campsite to the creek and follow it north-east
towards its confluence with Fish River. Then turn
north-west and follow a track through the pine
forest toward George Howes Lake, and then on
to Tiger Lake and Solitary Man Hut.
On day two, leave the Wild Dog Creek
campsite at dawn and head to Damascus Gate.
Scramble to the top of Solomons Throne and
then try the West Wall Traverse, following the
cliff edge north towards King Davids Peak and
its amazing 360-degree views. If theres time,
climb The Temple nearby.
Solitary Man Hut.
112 Australian Geographic
Its worth making the most of an
early morning alpine start to cross
through Herods Gate, about 10
minutes walk from the Wild Dog
Creek campsite.
THE VIEWS ESPECIALLY
OF THE MYRIAD LAKES
TO THE EAST ARE
OUTSTANDING.
park and the pristine Pool of Bethesda. Its a further
1.5-hour traverse before ascending Damascus Gate
and reaching the trailhead of two side-trips an ascent
of Solomons Throne, at the junction of the West Wall
and the Wailing Wall, and The Temple, to the east.
We recommend Solomons Throne. Scrambling up
a scree field then climbing through a square-edged
notch cut out of the West Wall soon sees you at the
summit of Solomons Throne, with 360-degree views
across the park. Take in the Great Pine Tier and Bernes
Valley to the south-east, Mount Jerusalem to the east,
Chinamans Plains to the south and Lake Adelaide to
the south-west. Return to the Damascus Gate junction
and continue south-east to your next camp at Dixons
Kingdom Hut. This is reached after an hour of walk-
ing along an undulating track that takes you through
an emerald-green wonderland of lush grass and native
pine trees before entering a clearing beside the hut.
Dixons Kingdom Hut is where the track to 1459m
Mount Jerusalem is accessed. This steady ascent is about
an hour (one-way), and takes you over plenty of the
rocks and boulders synonymous with the park, past
alpine tarns and over false summits before you reach
the cairn marking the true summit. The views espe-
cially of the myriad lakes to the east are outstanding.
THE END GAME
The circuit loops south then east, then south again
during the next two days. The walk south-west
through Jaffa Vale from Dixons Kingdom Hut is bril-
liant, with the chance to spot wallabies and birdlife
 The setting sun lights up pretty Stretcher Lake on
the last evening of the circuit a fantastic sign-off
after six days in this spectacular pristine landscape.
hiding in buttongrass moorlands, before you turn east
and follow Lake Balls shoreline, passing the hut with
the same name. You join Junction Lake Track at the
head of Lake Adelaide and can camp here or turn
south to follow Lake Adelaides eastern shore to a
campsite halfway down. This is recommended because
it brings you closer to the next days objective: camp-
ing at Lake Meston and ascending 1350m Mt Ragoona.
Turn it on.Mosquitoes GONE!
To reach Lake Meston and camp at the head of the
lake from here is a two-hour walk across Adelaide
Plain, one of the worlds best examples of a glacial
valley. Accessing the Mt Ragoona ascent is via a side-
track near Lake Meston Hut, midway along the lakes
western side. The three-hour return trip from the hut
is awesome fun, negotiating scrubby, then rocky ter-
rain to Mt Ragoona plateau. This is dotted with boul-
ders and alpine tarns for the last hour to the summit
and views of Cradle Mountain and the rugged ram-
parts of the Western Arthur Range.
From Lake Meston campsite its a full day to final
camp at Stretcher Lake. Backtrack north along
Junction Lake Track, past Lake Adelaide and then
through more valleys to Stretcher Lake, which is
accessed via a 15-minute side-track. A short walk
around the lake before sitting back to enjoy the sunset
makes a brilliant last night.
Its a three-hour walk from the last nights camp to
the car park. Rejoin Junction Lake Track, follow it to
Trappers Hut and descend to Fish River car park. Time
it right and youll be enjoying lunch and a celebratory
beverage at the Mole Creek Hotel. Not a bad way to
finish six days in Walls of Jerusalem NP. AG
Thermacell Repellers create a 21m2 zone of protection
against mosquitoes - no messy lotions or sprays.
www.thermacellrepellents.com.au
 Three
AG Society-supported
expedition peaks
in three
weeks

114 Australian Geographic

 Members of the scientic
survey team hike through
alpine grasslands near the
summit of Thornton Peak.

m
74

22 e
m
16 rer
13

ak e F
ak

24

Pe tl
Pe

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12
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to

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ew
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Th

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Climate change in Australias tropical cloud forests.

Story and photography by DEAN MILLER and MARK ZIEMBICKI

November . December 115

 The survey team takes a break among the
boulders and mist high on top of Thornton
Peak. (LR) Ashley Smith, Dr Paul Thuesen,
Dr Malcolm Brown, Dr Dean Miller, Nadiah
Roslan and Ben Flynn.

T
ORCH BEAMS SCYTHE through the gloom, paint-
ing the underside of the rainforest canopy above
us with bright white light. Insects buzz, click
and hum, frogs croak and creak and tiny bats
emit high-pitched squeaks as they flutter errat-
ically past.Were deep in a dense tropical jungle
but the night air is cool and moisture drips from thick moss on
the trees and rocks.
No-one speaks. Were all weary, having spent several nights PHOTO CREDITS, PREVIOUS PAGE: DEAN MILLER; THIS PAGE: DEAN MILLER
trudging more than 50km along forest transects searching in vain
for our quarry, the rare white form of the lemuroid ringtail pos-
sum. Then, finally, a torch beam comes to rest on a big, fluffy
white ball, perched on a branch high in the canopy. Bright-pink
nose, large, dark eyes, the possum gazes down at us, apparently
wondering what all the fuss is about.
Were elated, but the sighting is bittersweet. Climate change
has brought this icon of the Wet Tropics to the brink of extinction,
and as we return its gaze we cant help wondering how much
longer this beautiful creature will persist in these forests.

W
ERE HIGH ON MT LEWIS an oasis of cool in tropical
north Queensland, and one of the few places in which
the white lemuroid possum can be found as part
of an expedition to climb three of Australias highest tropical

116 Australian Geographic

 A male golden
bowerbird decorates
its elaborate bower
with ne, small owers
on Mt Lewis.

The beautiful
nursery frog, a
tiny ground-living
species in the family
Microhylidae, is only
found in rainforests
above 1100m on
Thornton Peak. It
has one of the most
restricted ranges of
any Australian frog.

This rare white form of the

lemuroid ringtail possum is found
only above 1000m at a few sites
in the Wet Tropics. This one was
spotted on top of Mt Lewis.
SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Hemibelideus lemuroides; Prionodura newtoniana; Cophixalus concinnus

Climate change has brought tiny frogs whose offspring hatch fully formed from eggs, eschew-
ing the tadpole stage, to a lizard said to be so heat-sensitive it will
this icon of the Wet Tropics die if held in your hand for too long.
These mountain tops are also home to some of Australias cloud
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MARK ZIEMBICKI; MARK ZIEMBICKI; STEVE WILLIAMS

to the brink of extinction.
mountains in three weeks. With support from the Australian
Geographic Society, our team of researchers and adventurers is
hoping to gain insights into how climate change is affecting the
unique plants and animals inhabiting the mysterious cloud forests
that drape the summits of these three peaks.
The rainforests of the Wet Tropics are among the worlds most
ancient ecosystems. Theyre the largest remaining remnants in
Australasia of the great rainforests that covered the supercontinent
of Gondwana 10050 million years ago. Although they make up
a relatively small proportion of Australias total land area, they have
the continents highest levels of biodiversity and endemism.
Like isolated islands in this vast ocean of rainforest, the moun-
taintops of Mt Bartle Frere South Peak (1622m),Thornton Peak
(1374m) and Mt Lewis (1224m) sit high above the surrounding
lowlands. And, just like many true islands, the summits of these
peaks are home to numerous species found nowhere else, from
forests (see box, page 119), gardens in the sky with all the beauty
and diversity of their lowland counterparts without the often-
oppressive heat.Tendrils of mist float among trees draped in living
cloaks of epiphytes. Moss and lichen grow on every available surface
and ferns sprout from unlikely spots on ground and trees alike.
Sadly, cloud forests are among Earths most endangered eco-
systems. Tropical species are inherently vulnerable to environ-
mental change because they tend to be rare and occupy small
ranges. And, because tropical environments are usually relatively
stable, the species that inhabit them can often only survive within
a narrow range of climatic conditions. The mountain-top spe-
cialists are especially vulnerable because theyre adapted to the
cooler, wetter conditions found on summits.As the climate warms,
these conditions disappear, so, if species cant move or adapt in
time, their demise is inevitable.
Long-term monitoring data have already pointed to significant
changes in the distributions and abundance of many bird and
mammal species in the Wet Tropics, with upland endemics having
undergone the most significant declines. The lemuroid possum
is a case in point. Research by Professor Stephen Williams of

November . December 117

Expedition leader Dean Miller
takes in the view across a
valley near the top
of Thornton Peak.

Biologists Scott
Harte, Nadiah Roslan
and James Donaldson
(LR) inspect a camera
trap used to survey
wildlife on Mt Lewis.

Spectacular red and

blue Mt Lewis spiny
craysh inhabit the
cool, clear mountain
streams of the three
peaks. They can reach
up to 30cm in length
and live for more than
10 years.

James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville during the past 10

years has shown the possum is becoming increasingly rare. The The eerie, mysterious
main reason for its decline is the increase in the intensity and
length of heatwaves in the Wet Tropics. In the summer of 2005, atmosphere hints at the
maximum temperatures were above the possums physiological
tolerance for 27 days in a row.With nowhere for the possums to biological riches hidden here.
go, many succumbed to the heat, causing the population to crash.

T
HE FIRST OF OUR three peaks in three weeks challenge
is Thornton Peak, about 90km north-west of Cairns. Ris-
ing sharply from surrounding lowland rainforest, its a
beacon dominating the tourist drive from Cairns to the Daintree
rainforest, its jagged apex often hidden by cloud and mist.
Reaching our campsite just below the summit involved 12
hours of bashing through dense jungle, scrambling ever upwards
along a steep, barely visible trail. Then, suddenly, we burst from
the dark forest onto a jagged ridge. Just a few hours before, 1000m
mountain summit weve come to explore. Our surroundings seem
enchanted and other-worldly.The eerie, mysterious atmosphere
hints at the biological riches hidden here in this unique environ-
ment.We have four nights to explore the area and hopefully track
down some of the species found only on this peak.
Around us, the forest is alive with the sounds of crickets, frogs,
and a trickling permanent creek that runs past our camp.Among
the cacophony, tropical ecologist Nadiah Roslan makes out the
call of the critically endangered beautiful nursery frog one of
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Euastacus fleckeri
PHOTO CREDITS: MARK ZIEMBICKI

below, we were sweating in the hot, humid sauna of the lowland
rainforest that surrounds the mountains base. Now, as we stand
exposed on a series of large granite boulders, blasts of cold, mist-
laden air sweep over the ridge, chilling us to the bone.
Our team of seven scientists and adventurers is hungry and
exhausted but in good spirits, having made camp before nightfall.
In the fading light, between breaks in the clouds, we glimpse the
our primary targets. Found only on this peak above 1100m, it has
one of the most restricted ranges of any frog in Australia; the total
area of suitable habitat is estimated to be little more than 700ha
a third the size of the City of Sydney local government area.
Species such as this are most at risk from climate change because
theyre the least able to adapt or move elsewhere. Theyre also
more sensitive to climate change. Steve explains: Amphibians,

118 Australian Geographic


reptiles and invertebrates are particularly vulnerable because they
are already close to their limits of temperature tolerance.
The Thornton Peak skink is another example. Recorded from
only a few localities atop this mountain, the species can only
handle a very narrow range of conditions and it, too, is on the
brink of disappearing.
O
UR NEXT DESTINATION is Mt Lewis, 50km south of
Thornton Peak. As well as hosting the white lemuroid
ringtail, its upper reaches are home to the bright blue and
red Mt Lewis spiny crayfish, one of six freshwater crayfish species
found in the Wet Tropics. Living in cold, fast-flowing streams, these
crayfish are only found above 800m. Each mountain range has its
own species, although all are believed to have come from a com-
mon ancestor that expanded its range into Queensland more than
5 million years ago, when temperatures were cooler and rainforests
more extensive. With natural climate change came a contraction
of forest habitat, resulting in different mountaintop populations
PHOTO CREDITS: DEAN MILLER
separating and evolving into different species.
Our third and final peak is Queenslands highest. Mt Bartle Frere
is among the states most popular hikes, but when youre loaded
with camping and survey gear it isnt for the faint-hearted.To make
matters worse, in contrast to conditions on our other ascents, the
day is hot, dry and still. As we climb, it becomes clear it has been
Forests at the top of
Thornton Peak (see
bottom) look more at home
in a Tolkien-style fantasy
than in the tropics of
northern QLD, and of all
the peaks surveyed,
Thornton seemed the
most other-worldly.
Mosses adorning trees
(left) extract moisture from
the air, driving the cloud
forest system.
What is a cloud forest?
CLOUD FORESTS are high-altitude rainfor-
ests that harvest water from moist sur-
rounding air. When winds push warm, humid
air from lowlands into the mountainside, its
forced upwards and meets a cooler air layer,
causing the moisture to condense into thick
clouds. These shroud the mountain, their
moisture collecting on leaves then dropping
to the ground. Cool, misty conditions and
consistent wind mean these forests are
often stunted and smothered in dripping
wet mosses, ferns and epiphytes. They can
support very diverse ecosystems with high
endemism levels. Being geographically
isolated and facing unique conditions, such
as steep elevations and near-constant cloud
cover, forest inhabitants often evolve into
new species found nowhere else.
Cloud forests are also important because
they act like giant sponges, slowly releasing
water collected through the year to
contribute much more water to catchments
than lowland rainforests. This slow release
also helps maintain stream flows through-
out dry seasons, critically important for a
range of habitats and species, from the
mountaintops all the way down to the sea.
November . December 119

A sunset view south from Mt Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in QLD.
During our expedition here the peak was warm and dry and provided
insight into how these peaks would look if temperatures continue to
rise and the cloud forests decline.
like this for some time.The dripping mosses and ferns that clung
to trees and rocks on the other peaks are dry and brown here and
leaf litter crunches loudly beneath our feet. Such conditions are a
brief glitch for a mountain with one of Australias highest rainfalls,
but a timely insight into what may lie ahead for these cloud forest
communities as dry periods become more frequent.
After an eight-hour slog, we reach the summit and are rewarded
with clear skies and stunning views.As we explore the forest near
our camp, a brilliant golden shape suddenly flashes before us. Like
a scene from a Harry Potter film, a strikingly coloured male golden
bowerbird appears, as if from nowhere, watches us curiously for
a moment, then flits off through the dappled light of the forest.
As a high-altitude forest specialist, this bowerbird is another
species thats undergone a recent decline in distribution and num-
bers. We follow it as best we can, fumbling through the under-
growth, and eventually stumble across a large, elaborate and rather
incongruous structure. Before us stands the males majestic bower,
an elaborate construction of two towers well over a metre tall,
made from a tangle of twigs and adorned with grey-green lichens,
flowers and fruit. Males build and tend these constructions with
great care, using them to attract and woo females.
T
HE TROPICAL ZONES importance on the global stage is
increasing. By 2050 most of the worlds people, including
almost two-thirds of its children, will live in the tropics.
Tropical nations are also developing rapidly. These tumultuous
changes, overlaid by the impacts of climate change, suggest that
what happens in the tropics in coming decades will have signif-
icant global implications.
While polar bears and melting ice caps are often used to high-
light the impact of climate change on the natural world, its clear
that some of the most significant effects are being felt in the
tropics. Because this region hosts most of the worlds cultural and
biological diversity, theres also much more to lose here. Perhaps,
then, the white lemuroid ringtail possum or golden bowerbird
would make better flagship species for highlighting the impact
of climate change theyre certainly closer to extinction. AG
WATCH a stunning video of this AG Society-supported expedition
to Queenslands cloud forests at australiangeographic.com.au/issue141
120 Australian Geographic
Seeking refuge
IT ISNT ONLY the animals of Queenslands
cloud forests feeling the heat. Recent research
by Professor Darren Crayn and colleagues from
the Australian Tropical Herbarium and JCU has
produced alarming predictions for the plants of
these forests. The team found that nearly half
the endemic tropical mountaintop plants they
studied are unlikely to survive in their current
locations past 2080. This work makes it clear
that on Queenslands mountaintops, were
looking down the barrel at the wholesale
alteration of entire ecosystems.
While significant changes have already
occurred and the outlook for many plant and
animal species appears grim, actions can still be
taken to lessen the impact of climate change.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, most of the
Wet Tropics endemics are at risk of extinction.
But with a reasonable level of mitigation, through
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this
extinction risk can be significantly lowered.
It will also be necessary to help species
adapt to inevitable change. One option is to
establish new protected areas. Research
conducted at JCU has identified a number of
key refuge areas that will remain cooler than
average under climate change. Combining this
information with predicted future species
distributions meant scientists could identify
areas of conservation importance that should
be prioritised for protection. This research has
already contributed to the establishment
of Baldy Mountain Forest Reserve, one of
Queenslands newest protected areas.
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DEAN MILLER; MARK ZIEMBICKI; MARK ZIEMBICKI
This sundew is one of the cloud forest
SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Drosera prolifera; Dendrobium sp.
species threatened by climate change.
Dean and Mark would like to thank, in addition to
all those mentioned in the article: the Centre for
Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change at
James Cook University; Mark and Libby Shergold;
Stephen Williams; and Queensland Parks and
Wildlife Service.
 This breathtaking design is one of the Royal Australian Mints most iconic and
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this celebrated coin is proudly and typically Australian.
In its ninth year, this exquisite and iconic Australian coin will continue to captivate
discerning collectors as a must have edition to their collection.
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Horizontal Falls

IN PARTNERSHIP 10
MS Caledonian Sky

DARWIN
Jar
Island
Vansittart Bay Koolama Bay
King
NT
Naturalist Island George Falls
Prince Frederick Harbour Bigge Island
Careening Bay
Montgomery Bay Mitchell Falls
Adele Island
Buccaneer Doubtful Bay
Archipelago Raft Point
Horizontal Falls
Talbot Bay

WA
BROOME

11-DAY
KIMBERLEY Todd Tai

COAST CRUISE
Travel with us and raise funds
for the Australian Geographic
Societys sponsorship program.

I
N 2018 The Australian Geographic Society will
partner with APT to present an exciting
voyage along the Kimberleys fascinating
coastline. It will be hosted by long-time AG
Society advisory board member Todd Tai and

KIMBERLEY raise funds for the AGS sponsorship program

for adventure and conservation.

BY SEA
The trip details are: aboard the elegant
Kimberley Coast MS Caledonian Sky
Cruise Small Ship Expert 10-member
Expedition: max. 110 APT expedition team
guests, aboard MS and leader
In 2018 the Australian Geographic Society will Caledonian Sky Daily excursions on
Special departure Zodiac vessels
partner with APT to present an exciting voyage with Australian All meals and
along the Kimberleys fascinating coastline Geographic Society exclusive all-day
from Broome to Darwin. host Todd Tai beverages package
Broome to Darwin Transfers, port
6 September 2018 charges, sightseeing
(GKCS11) and park fees
JOIN THE AUSTRALIAN MS Caledonian Sky (max. 110 From $13,395*pp
GEOGRAPHIC guests) which, being a small ship twin share
SOCIETY AND APT equipped with Zodiacs, will ensure Companion flies
FOR A BREATHTAKING guests reach places that those on free*
ADVENTURE TO THE bigger ships cant. And your tour
KIMBERLEY. will be hosted by AGS board mem- Inclusions
ber Todd Tai, whos led some of All-inclusive
Enjoy 10 nights cruising the the Societys most remote and sightseeing at up to
stunning Kimberley coastline, exciting adventures during the past 18 destinations
where some of the worlds biggest 20 years.Youll explore the many 10-night cruise MS Caledonian Sky
tidal movements, wet season natural features of the landscape at
deluges and aeons of weathering close quarters, meet traditional FOR MORE INFORMATION,
have fashioned innumerable bays, owners, see world-renowned rock visit kimberleywilderness.com.au/cruising
estuaries, river channels, creeks, art, spot wildlife and be fully
archipelagos and islands. immersed in the grandeur of this call 1300 184 577 or see your local travel agent
Youll be aboard the elegant ancient, monumental landscape.
*Terms & conditions apply
 November . December 2017

Your Society
Australian Geographic Society news & initiatives

The 2017 Australian Your subscription is

essential to the work
Geographic Gala Awards of the Australian
Geographic Society
ITS ALWAYS AN EXCITING time when we get to salute
EVERY SUBSCRIBER to this journal
the people who inspire us most at the Australian Geographic automatically becomes a member of
Society Awards. This glittering annual dinner also enables the not-for-profit AG Society. Your
the brightest and best in Australian adventure and conserva- subscription helps us fund the work of
tion, past and present, to mix and mingle in an atmosphere Australias scientists, conservationists,
adventurers and explorers. The Society
of conviviality. also raises money through six annual
This year we welcomed Tim Jarvis AM as keynote speaker. fundraisers in AG retail stores and is
Tim is arguably Australias foremost modern polar explorer and has used his supported via your direct donations.
high profile, professional reputation and skills as a top adventurer to bring
attention to the effects of human-induced climate change. His recent 25zero
campaign saw him climb a series of the worlds equatorial glaciers to draw To subscribe call
attention to the dramatic recession in 1300 555 176
ice cover now affecting these powerful
indicators of rising global temperatures. Who are the Australian
Tim is a fine and articulate example of Geographic Society?
the closely linked worlds of adventure
and environmental action.
Patron: Dick Smith AC
This year for the first time we Chair: Jo Runciman
honoured the winner of the Australian Secretary: Adrian Goss
Geographic Nature Photographer of Directors: Kerry Morrow,
the Year competition when underwater Andrew Stedwell, Jo Runciman
photographer and writer Justin Gilligan Advisory Council: Jo Runciman
was presented with a new medallion (chair), Chrissie Goldrick, Adrian Goss,
John Leece OAM, Tim Jarvis AM,
that will form part of the awards from
Anna Rose, Todd Tai, Tim Flannery
now on. Turn the page to find out the
Society administrator: Rebecca Cotton
winners across all the other categories.
We acknowledge the support of Tim Jarvis receiving a
medal from Michael THE SOCIETY runs two sponsorship
our sponsors, APT, Bremont and World Cusack in 2013. rounds per year in April and November
Expeditions and in particular we thank during which its specialised adventure,
APT for provision of the fabulous first science and community committees
prize in our grand raff le a trip to the consider applications and disperse grants.
beautiful Kimberley. These grants are directly funded through
Jo Runciman, AGS chair
the Australian Geographic business.
The Society also awards the Nancy
Bird Walton sponsorship for young female
Main event Category adventurers and hosts annual awards for
sponsor sponsors
excellence and achievement in conserva-
Australian tion and adventure. It runs six wildlife
PHOTO CREDIT: BEN HANSEN

Geographic fundraisers per year through AG retail

Society stores and the AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
Gala journals multiple platforms. Each year the
Awards Society gives in excess of $300,000 to
2017 Australian conservation and adventure.

November . December 123

 Australian
Geographic
Society
Gala
Awards
2017
And the
winners are...
Meet the recipients of the 2017 Australian
Geographic Society awards for adventure and
conservation. Along with these worthy
winners, we also honoured Michael and Susan
Cusack on the 30th anniversary of their Year
in the Wilderness, when the couple spent
a tough year living off their wits in what was
then the wildest and most remote region
in Australia, the Kimberley.
Congratulations to all.
Text by Caitlin Maxwell
124 Australian Geographic
Lifetime of Adventure
Jon Muir OAM
Sponsored by
JON IS legendary in the global
adventure community,
Australias largest salt lakes.
In 2001 Jon became the first
renowned for the trailblazing
philosophy he applies to all
aspects of life, tackling everyday
person to walk across Australia
unassisted, a 128-day, 2500km
expedition from Port Augusta to
obstacles with the same gusto
he brings to expeditions. From
making the first successful
Burketown. In 2007 he trekked
1800km unassisted from SAs
Spencer Gulf to Australias
ascent of Everest without
Sherpas in 1988 to his 2002
unsupported trek to the North
Pole, Jon is one of Australias
Geographic Centre. Jon starred
in the 2004 multi-award-
winning documentary Alone
Across Australia, and has
most experienced adventurers. personally received many
His world records include the prestigious accolades, including
first solo traverse on foot of the Order of Australia in 1989.
Spirit of Adventure
Lisa Blair
Sponsored by
ON 25 JULY 2017, Lisa became the first
woman to sail solo and unassisted around
Antarctica. She embarked on her epic
184-day ocean odyssey as the 2017
recipient of the $10,000 Australian
Geographic Society Nancy Bird Walton
Sponsorship, which supports ground-
breaking projects led by women. The
gutsy 32-year-old survived huge waves,
icy conditions and a broken mast in
her quest to circumnavigate the
globe below 45 degrees south. She
spent two months in South Africa
repairing her 15m yacht, Climate
Action Now, before successfully
completing her attempt.

Australian Geographic Society Gala Awards 2017
Conservationist of the Year
Natalie Isaacs
Read more about NATALIE IS THE fearless founder of 1 Million
these winners in Women (1MW), a global movement that so
far involves more than 330,000 women and
this issue... girls taking action to fight climate change by
altering the way they live. Natalie believes
that because women make most house-
hold-buying decisions, they are well placed
Adventurer of the Year to make more sustainable choices to reduce
Sandy Robson their families carbon footprints.
By sharing her own story of transforma-
tion from apathetic cosmetics manufacturer
to strong and focused climate-change activist,
Natalie is an inspiration to women the world
over. The 1MW movement empowers women
through support and education to make
positive contributions to the environment
through simple lifestyle changes such as
reducing energy use and food waste.
Young Adventurer of the Year
Sam Mitchell
Sponsored by
PAGE 16
Young Conservationist
of the Year
WE THANK ALL OF THE AWARDEES FOR THE PROVISION OF THE IMAGES USED ON THESE PAGES.
Madison Stewart
SAM GREW UP in the small country
Victoria town of Orbost but at just 22 has
already achieved big things. In June 2016
he became the first person to successfully
traverse Australias most challenging 4WD
track, the 1850km Canning Stock Route, in
WA, on an electric fat bike. The resourceful
engineering student towed a trailer he
whipped up from an old trampoline on
which hed mounted solar panels and a
battery. In this, he carried all the gear for
PAGE 20 the lengthy expedition. Sams a sustainabil-
ity champion and dedicated adventure
seeker who, at just 16, built a solar-pow-
In Your Society in AG 140 we inadvert-
ered tricycle from recycled junk and later
ently published the wrong image of
researcher Jasmin Laws. The researcher used this invention to cycle 18,000km
pictured was Alexandra Ross. around Australia in just eight months.
In association with
Natalies core belief is that women,
through their collective power, can make a
real impact on climate change. Successful
1MW campaigns have so far included
#leaveitontheshelf to reduce plastic
purchases from supermarkets and 1M
Declaring the Reef in Danger, a petition
to save the Great Barrier Reef.
Lifetime of Conservation
Curt and Micheline-
Nicole Jenner
PIONEERS IN MARINE biology, Curt and
Micheline-Nicole head the Centre for Whale
Research in WA where they study all aspects
of whales, from population biology to their
migratory pathways and behaviour. Exciting
discoveries made by the Jenners during their
lifelong adventure aboard their hand-built
research vessel, WhaleSong, include
identifying Perth Canyon as one of only two
known high-density feeding locations for
endangered pygmy blue whales in Australian
waters and finding a humpback breeding
haven in Camden Sound off the Kimberley
coast. The couple has spent a lifetime
committed to improving our understanding
of whales through painstaking scientific
research (see AG 52 and AG 133).
November . December 125
Travel with us
The AG Societys expedition program and those of its selected travel partners
provide informative, inspiring and unique experiences for readers. Your
participation in these adventures supports the Societys mission to foster
the spirit of discovery and adventure and contributes funds to our work.

AG SOCIETY HOSTED EXPEDITIONS

WHO: Darren Jews
SWIM WITH THE Whales Underwater
HUMPBACKS OF TONGA DATES: 26 September
4 October 2018
CANON MASTER Darren Jew and his team
COST: From $5450pp
are your hosts for an unforgettable AG Society
BOOKINGS:
adventure, lled with intimate in-water
Call 07 5667 9413,
encounters with magnicent humpback whales
email reservations@
in the Kingdom of Tongas pristine Vavau group
whalesunderwater.com or
of islands. This nine-day tour includes local
visit whalesunderwater.com
activities and optional photography sessions
with Darren and co-host Jasmine Carey. This
is the marine wildlife adventure of a lifetime!

WHO: Australian Opal Centre

LIGHTNING RIDGE FOSSIL DIG DATES: 2025 August 2018
THE AGS OFFERS you a chance to hunt COST: $2200pp. Includes all
for fossils on the opal elds. Join us in this activities and many lunches
endeavour and pitch in with the eldwork. and dinners.
Guided by experts, you will go to special BOOKINGS:
locations, seeking new specimens for the
Call 0427 904 587, email
collections of the Australian Opal Centre.
dig@australianopalcentre.com
Your discoveries will further establish these
museum collections as a world-class scientic or visit australianopal
and cultural resource. The week will also centre.com
feature a series of lectures on opals and gems,
mining history, opalised fossils, dinosaur
hunting and new dinosaurs.

WHO: Devil Ark

AG DEVIL ARK EXPEDITION DATES: 2426 November
COME AND join Tim Faulkner for a unique 2017 (2 nights)
hands-on experience with this Tasmanian devil COST: $1750pp*
and eastern quoll captive breeding program BOOKINGS: Call
in the beautiful Barrington Tops of NSW. 02 4340 8610, email
Youll get to see devils up close as you assist info@devilark.org.au or
with feeding and monitoring individuals. In visit devilark.org.au
addition to working with the animals, therell
be opportunities to explore the regions natural *Funds raised from this
treasures and spot local wildlife at night. weekend will benefit both
Dont miss your chance to get involved in this Devil Ark and the Australian
important conservation effort. Geographic Society.

WHO: APT
11-DAY KIMBERLEY DATES: 616 September
COAST CRUISE 2018
COST: From $13,395*pp twin
IN 2018 THE AG Society is partnering with
share, companion flies free*
APT to present an exciting voyage along the
Kimberley coastline from Broome to Darwin. (*terms and conditions apply)
Expedition cruising offers the easiest way to BOOKINGS: Visit
explore the Kimberley. Guests on this 11-day kimberleywilderness.com.au/
cruise will get ashore, explore natural wonders, cruising
meet traditional owners, see rock art, spot
wildlife and be fully immersed in the grandeur
of this ancient place. Hosted by long-time AG
Society councillor Todd Tai.

126 Australian Geographic

 Your Society
November . December 2017

AG RECOMMENDED TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

WHO: Aurora Expeditions
RETRACE SHACKLETONS FOOTSTEPS DATES: Package dates:
JOIN AURORA Expeditions on an adventure to retrace 526 March 2018
Shackletons footsteps through Antarctica and South COST: Package price from
Georgia. Step ashore amid penguins and seals, and $23,600pp twin share ex AGS PHOTOGRAPHY
cruise past vast icebergs with a team of naturalists
PACKAGE Sydney inc. FREE return TOURS
OFFER: FLY
FREE TO SOUTH
flights. Conditions apply
and historians. We hope to visit fossil-rich islands
AMERICA! BOOKINGS: Email info@ Chris Bray Photography:
and explorer huts before retracing Shackletons auroraexpeditions.com.au or Ultimate small-group travel
heroic journey to save his men rst to Elephant visit auroraexpeditions.com. to the most extraordinary
Island then to the wildlife oasis of South Georgia. au/ausgeo wildlife, landscape and
cultural experiences
WALK THE CINQUE TERRE & PORTOFINO WHO: Exodus Travels on Earth.
DATES: 14 September
Sixty miles east of Genoa lies a corner of the Liguria
201713 September 2018
region with a remarkably well preserved landscape (ongoing)
steeped in tradition. Cinque Terre means ve lands; COST: 7 days from $1045
villages that are nestled high on cliffs or along deep BOOKINGS: Call 1300 131
inaccessible coves. Each village offers its own olive oils, 564, email australiasales@
anchovies and Sciacchetr liqueur (known as the Elixir exodustravels.com.au or visit
exodustravels.com/au
Iceland
of the Gods). By day, youll walk in this self-guided tour to
discover the beautiful peninsulas of Portono and Sestri
Levante using well-marked walking trails. By night, enjoy
sunsets over the Mediterranean.

WHO: Outback Spirit

12-DAY ARNHEM LAND DATES: 30 April30
WILDERNESS ADVENTURE EARLY BIRDS
September 2018 Namibia, Botswana
SAVE UP TO
ENJOY AN EXTRAORDINARY adventure $3000 PER COST: From $10,695pp
COUPLE!* twin share
through the heart of Arnhem Land and discover
the worlds oldest surviving culture. Enjoy six nights BOOKINGS: Call 1800 688
in Outback Spirits stunning wilderness camps and 222 or visit outbackspirittours.
com.au for details *Conditions
lodges, including the iconic Seven Spirit Bay on the Cobourg
apply. Must book by
Peninsula. Experience authentic cultural activities, view
29/12/17. Discount varies
ancient rock art, cruise pristine swamps and learn about depending on month of travel. Galpagos, Amazon
this mystical wilderness rsthand from traditional owners.

EXPLORE THE LAST FRONTIER WHO: Coral Expeditions

DATES: 4 x 7-night
OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA
departures through
CORAL EXPEDITIONS offers four landmark tours down February 2018
the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea (PNG), guided by COST: From $4990pp
respected anthropologist Dr Bruce Pohlmann. Each twin share Patagonia
seven-night expedition on board Coral Expeditions I BOOKINGS: Call
1800 079 545 or visit
includes visits to remote villages, cultures and tribes, FIND MORE
coralexpeditions.com/au/
some of which have had little contact with modernity.
destinations/papua-new-
INFORMATION AND BOOK
Experience a sing sing welcome in Bien, traditional guinea/sepik-river-scouting-
chrisbrayphotography.com
face-painting in Tambanum and carvings and sacred expeditions
or email: contact@
utes at Kanganaman. chrisbrayphotography.com

AG READER DISCOUNTS
10% DISCOUN
T 10% DISCOUN
AUSTRALIAN REPTILE PARK
The Australian Reptile Park is a hands-on
zoo located in a natural bush setting on the
Central Coast of NSW. Simply show this page
at the ticket office to receive your discount.
Offer expires 31 December 2017. Find out
more about the Parks shows and exhibits
at its website: reptilepark.com.au
T 10% DISCOUN
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN
MUSEUM, ADELAIDE
AG MEMBERS get a 10 per cent discount
on entry to all paid exhibitions. Offer ends
31 December 2017. Simply identify yourself as
an AG reader at the ticket office. Visit the
museums website for exhibition news and
information: samuseum.sa.gov.au
T
AUSTRALIA ZOO
AS WILD AS LIFE GETS!
AUSTRALIA ZOO, one hour north of
Brisbane, is the home of The Crocodile
Hunter, Steve Irwin. Use code AUSGEO10
to get 10 per cent off the entry price when
booking online at: australiazoo.com.au
Offer expires 31 December 2017.

November . December 127

Explore Southwest Tasmanias Bookings for Feb-May 2018 now available
pristine World Heritage www.tasmanianboatcharters.com.au
wilderness on an all-inclusive, hello@tasmanianboatcharters.com.au
guided expedition cruise. 0477 100 119

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 SUBSCRIBE TO
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at australiangeographic.com.au,
or call 1300 555 176, or ask at
Australian Geographic Stores.

A pair of scuba divers enjoys

a close encounter with the
Great Barrier Reef.

Join us next issue

Great Barrier Reef
Dont miss our special report on Australias PLUS:
Out late greatest natural treasure. We bring you the Carnarvon Gorge walk
December facts about its status and share practical Dombrovskis steps
ways YOU can help secure its future. through the Western Arthurs
Historic Arnhem Land
PHOTO CREDIT: LOUISE MURRAY/ROBERT HARDING

Also, take a dive beneath the waves with expedition

top underwater photographer Darren Jew to Backyard bandicoots
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 PARTING SHOT
Australia
looks to space
The recent announcement that Australia is getting its own space agency
is great news, writes FRED WATSON. Heres why.
T
HERES NOTHING like a big
international symposium to
bring good ideas out of the
woodwork. And so it was at the end of
September, when Adelaide hosted the
68th annual International Astronautical
Congress, and Simon Birmingham, the
federal education minister and a South
Australian senator, announced Australia
will get its own space agency.
This is excellent news that has been
a long time coming far longer than
the two and a half months since
Minister for Industry, Innovation and
Science Arthur Sinodinos kicked off a
review of Australias off-planet endeav-
ours with the aim of establishing a
cohesive approach to space policy.
An expert panel chaired by former
CSIRO CEO Dr Megan Clark was
set up to deliberate on such issues as
global engagement, the elimination of
unnecessary duplication and support of
space-related start-ups. In the wake of
the new announcement, the panel will
concentrate on the details of the new
agency, including its name.
The big question, however, is what
does Australia have to do with space?
Many Australians think because we
dont fly astronauts to the International
Space Station (ISS) or robotic space-
craft to the planets, we arent engaged
with space.
That is far from true. Most of our
day-to-day life depends on space
activities: we use satellites for commu-
nication, navigation, remote sensing,
resource management, agriculture
and pretty much everything in between.
Commerce depends on these
satellites, and so does much of our
leisure time. But, mostly, we dont give
130 Australian Geographic
a second thought to their contribu-
tions. Moreover, Australia now plays
a major role in the science and
technology of space.
Youre probably familiar, for
example, with the Australian National
Universitys Mount Stromlo Observa-
tory in Canberra.Yes, its main stock-
in-trade is the study of the Universe
rather than local stuff, but did you
know that the observatory has a
world-class facility for the assembly
and testing of space-based instruments
and small satellites? It was established
in the wake of the devastating 2003
Canberra bushfires and supports the
development of the next generation
of instruments for astronomy and
space science.
Right next door is the Space
Environment Research Centre
(SERC), which plays a potentially
crucial role in the protection of our
access to space-based services. This
concerns the risk faced by every
operational spacecraft of collision with
human-made debris that orbits our
planet. There are an estimated 170
million bits of space junk, only a tiny
fraction of which is tracked. While the
vast majority of this rubbish is no more
than a few centimetres across, each piece
is travelling at up to 8 kilometres per
second, giving it devastating destructive
potential against any operational
spacecraft, including the ISS.
FRED WATSON
is an astronomer at the
Australian Astronomical
Observatory and
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHICs
space columnist.
Canberras SERC works with the
worlds leading space debris facilities
to chart these renegade bits of trash
and will eventually be able to tweak
them into safer orbits, with the
ultimate aim of eliminating the
space junk problem altogether.
There isnt room in this column
to go into details about all the work
of several world-class space-related
research groups operating within
Australian universities. But the bottom
line is that space is big in Australia.
Exactly how big? Financially, the
investment is worth $34 billion per
annum, with perhaps 11,000 people
earning their livelihood directly from
space-related activities.
But and this is the reason for the
recent announcement it could be
even bigger; potentially much bigger.
Globally, endeavours in space earn
about US$420 billion per annum,
representing a huge marketplace
of which Australia could have a far
greater share. Our neighbours across
the Tasman have already recognised
the potential and acted on it. They
initiated their own space agency
in 2016 and already fly innovative
launch vehicles from New Zealands
North Island.
As Senator Birmingham put it,
This is very much a private sector
driven undertaking in so many spaces
and that is why we want to make sure
Australia is at the forefront of seizing
ILLUSTRATION: BEN SANDERS
those opportunities and creating jobs
and investment here. Rapid growth
is now the governments watchword,
with the opposition also pledging to
double the size of Australias space
industry within five years.
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