Wildlife Australia
Spring 2008
Territories

How important is a place where you spend only 10 percent of your time, a sedentary animal generally less than a metre in diameter, a patch of arid land, or the bushland surrounding your capital city? Welcome to WAM’s issue on Territories.

This preening bird is one of a lucky few. Find out more about Macquarie Island albatrosses in Nick Murray’s article, ‘Ten percent’, and continue your discovery of Macquarie Island wildlife, threats and conservation with Inger Vandyke in ‘Reclaiming Macquarie’

 

 

 

Contents...

Ten percent: albatrosses and the importance of Macquarie Island

Story and photography by Nicholas J . Murray

Loyal partner, superb fisher, ocean wanderer, conservative breeder, endangered species. Only an estimated 680,000 pairs of black-browed albatross survive world-wide. No more than 45 pairs are known to breed on Macquarie Island.

Albatrosses are huge. The wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), largest of all seabirds, can weigh up to 12kg – more than twice the weight of an Australian pelican. Measuring up to 3.5m from tip to tip, their wingspan is the length of a small car. These enormous birds are the greatest travellers on earth.

 

Reclaiming Macquarie

By Inger Vandyke

Sir Douglas Mawson once described Macquarie Island as ‘one of the wonder spots of the world’ for its prolific wildlife. Arriving there in November 2007, I couldn’t have agreed more. Two days before the official start of summer, a light dusting of snow blanketed the upper slopes of the northsouth mountain ridge.

For a brief couple of hours, depleted stands of poa tussock and Macquarie Island cabbage (Stilbocarpa polaris) were cloaked in beauty. Then, as the sun gradually warmed the island, the snow melted to reveal the devastation wrought by a dramatic overpopulation of feral pests.

 

Discoveries in the land of parrots

Interview with David Parer and Elizabeth Parer-Cook

Journey into compelling landscapes, cutting edge research, high definition technology -- and a profusion of parrots.

From tropical rainforests to arid deserts and windswept coastal heaths, parrots and cockatoos occupy a wide range of habitats across Australia’s diverse landscape. Australian wildlife filmmakers David Parer and Elizabeth Parer-Cook’s latest documentary explores Australia from the perspective of these conspicuous and engaging birds.

 

Finding home: clownfishes and sea anemones

By Katrin Holmsten

Clownfishes like the protection, but what’s in it for sea anemones, and how are the relationships established?

If a map of Australia were drawn by our wildlife, it would show millions of territories – including many defended by one of our ‘Hollywood star’ species. Finding ‘Nemo’ in the reef is not always easy. Chances are, the fish will find you first and launch a bold attack to scare you away from the sea anemone that forms its territory.

 

New territory for rare wombats

By Tim Moore

All the endangered northern hairy-nosed wombats in the world live in one location. Funding and landholder generosity may change this.

There are fewer northern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus krefftii) than there are Sumatran tigers, giant pandas or mountain gorillas. Only about 115 live in one small, isolated colony. The colony occupies an area the size of Brisbane’s central business district within the remote Epping Forest National Park, near Clermont in central Queensland. In May 2008 a reintroduction project was announced that will signficantly help in conserving Queensland’s threatened species...

 

Blazing beauty: ACT after the bushfires

By Helen Fitzgerald

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the most densely populated of all Australia’s states and territories, might not spring to mind when your thoughts turn towards our natural environments.

So why would a wildlife artist live in the ACT? Despite a densely populated urban area, the gardens of Australia’s ‘bush capital’ are full of surprises thanks to the variety of surrounding protected habitats, now recovering from the devastation of the 2003 bushfires.

 

 

Wildlife Australia CyberJungle

• Actiniaria.com

• Save the Albatross

• World Parrot Trust

Also in this edition:

Editorial, City Animal, Trekabout Photography, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Spring Skies, Young and Wild, Scratchings and Rustlings, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.

Subscribe to Wildlife Australia today - your subscription helps many worthwhile wildlife projects and contributes to a successful education campaign that has been an effective voice for Australian wildlife since 1963.