Making the Flight: The Recent Arrival of Wedge-Tailed Eagles

The Tasmanian Wedge-Tailed Eagle was long assumed to have diverged from Australia’s mainland species after being isolated on Tasmania when water levels rose over 15,000 feet at the end of the Ice Age. However, recent evidence points toward a much more recent split—perhaps in the last few hundred years. Scientists have extensively tested the DNA of mainland birds and the Tasmanian subspecies, and have found that the genetic variation is actually quite acute, pointing toward a relatively short isolation period. This means that the bird was not trapped on the island at the end of the Ice Age at all—all it did was simply fly across the Bass Straight.

So what about the distinct visual differences among mainland and Tasmanian eagles? We can blame the island for that. It is likely that only a small, specific group of birds flew to Tasmania, where their phenotypically distinct characteristics were selected for and perpetuated.

The discovery will help scientists come up with a better plan to fight the loss of the endangered bird, whose role as a top predator is vastly important now that the thylacine is extinct, and the Tasmanian devils are shrinking in population.

An immature wedge-tailed eagle on Tasmania

Source: ‪http://bit.ly/1AmgzIi 

Tasmanian Blue Gums

The Tasmanian Blue Gum is Tasmania's state flower. Its scientific name is Eucalyptus glololus Labill. These flowers are larger than those of other Eucalyptus trees, and are present in the axils of the leaves. As Jory had presented, the flower is a lot of white stamens arranged in several rows near the outside. There's a thick nectar-secreting disk that extends near the top of the ovary. This flower blooms in early summer. The Tasmanian Blue Gum is found throughout the state of Tasmania, including the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens.

Currently, the tallest Eucalyptus in Tasmania is 298ft tall. The Blue Gum can also be used widely for a variety of things, including essential oils that are extracted from the flower and can be used for perfumes or therapeutically. People are use it for tea and bees use it as a good source of nectar for their honey. The history of the flower dates back to 1799 when Jacques de Labillardière, a french botanist, who got it from the south-east coast of Tasmania. It's name comes from the features which it exhibits, glob-like and spherical. 

Sources:
Source 1
Source 2

Macquarie Island - a UNESCO World Heritage site

Macquarie Island is pretty far from Tasmania - lying 1,500km southeast of Tasmania it might be surprising that this island belongs to Australia. In the Southern Ocean, it is roughly halfway between New Zealand and Antartica. It lies at a latitude known as the "Furious Fifties" because of the strong winds, which have had a large impact on shaping the landscape. This island experiences Subantarctic climate and has unique and well-preserved ecosystems. The island is uninhabited by people and was most likely discovered by Australian Frederick Hasselborough in 1810, although there is potential evidence that Polynesians had visited it before.

Macquarie Island is a unique geological site - is the only place on Earth where rocks created in the mantel are actively exposed above sea level. This makes it a unique and valuable site to study geological processes and oceanic crust formation. On top of that, the island is a site of beautiful, untouched, dramatic wilderness. It hosts the entire population of Royal Penguins, a species endemic to Macquarie island, along with other species of penguin and large populations of Fur Seals. The island has been identified as an "Important Bird Area" by BirdLife International as it supports around 3.5million breeding seabirds during the breeding season.

The island's natural flora and fauna has suffered since the discovery by humans - in particular, the seal and penguin species were exploited and decimated for their blubber and furs, while alien species were also introduced. Many native species suffered steep declines or extinction, and efforts have recently been made to protect this unique ecological wonder. Macquarie Island is managed by the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS), and most of the waters out to 200km are under the Macquarie Island Commonwealth Marine Reserve. Furthermore, it is under the protections of being a World Heritage Site, which is crucial to its protection under Australian environmental laws.



-Isabella

Shipwrecks on the Island

So I was trolling about Wikipedia when I found this article:
Shipwrecks of Tasmania

Apparently, shipwrecks are so common in Tasmania that there is an article dedicated to it. Why is this?
Well, Tasmania is well located in the Southern Hemisphere - it's near the 42nd parallel. This is a special part of the ocean - there is a very strong wind in the area called the "Roaring Forties". Sailors would use this wind (and still do) to get across the ocean very fast.
However, while fast winds can be a boon in some cases, they can be a death sentence in others. Tasmania is an island in this area. The thing about sea vessels - they don't do well with islands. In strong enough winds, boats will get thrown into parts of the Tasmanian island area and be destroyed by storms caused by the Roaring Forties.

Otago, on the coast of Otago, Tasmania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago,_Tasmania

So who knows? Maybe we'll see some shipwrecks.




Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipwrecks_of_Tasmania

Tasmania's Out of Control Forests

Many are under the impression that Tasmania's sustainable logging industry is "one of the best managed in the world." However, the truth is quite the opposite. Forests are being destroyed in Tasmania despite widespread outcry and concern.

Many forests in Tasmania are being clearfelled. This process starts with the complete felling - cutting down all of the trees - of a forest with various implements such as chain saws and skidders. Next, the entire area is torched with fire started by helicopters dropping napalm into the now empty forests. The fires burn so ferociously that they produce mushroom clouds, visible from great lengths, showing the complete removal of life.

These plots of land are usually turned into large tree plantations with a whole host of negative environmental impacts. They are sustained with harmful and heavy pesticides and fertilizers, contaminating local water sources. Next, to protect the baby seedlings, carrots that are soaked in 1080 poison are dispersed to kill off native grazing animals that could potentially pose a threat to the seedings, this leads to the deaths of not only possums, wallabies, and kangaroos, but also the deaths of several officially protected species such as wombats, bettongs, and potoroos.

Many Tasmanians seem to be overwhelmingly opposed to old-growth logging, but Gunns Ltd, the beneficiary of the logging worth over one billion dollars, seems to be calling all of the shots in the Tasmanian Government with regards to conservation and logging. The corruption has become so bad that many Tasmanians joke that it is no longer a "government" but a "gunnerment". At this point, many believe that there is very little that Tasmanians can do to stop the mayhem - perhaps the only way to promote change is to push for a major investigation from a body more powerful than the Tasmanian state's.

Source: http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/may/1348543148/richard-flanagan/out-control

Overland Track

I am not sure if we will be checking this out when we are in Tasmania, but it looks like a fascinating trek. The overland track is a 65 km long 6 day trek that ends up at Lake Sinclair, Australia's deepest lake. It goes through the some of the world heritage sites in Tasmania and is a highly historic track, as the video attached below shows. There is another track being prepared currently in Tasmania, that looks absolutely gorgeous. It is referred to as the the three capes track project. The 82 km track will feature dolerite cliffs and gorgeous ocean views. Unfortunately, it is set to open in November, so we will miss it by a few months. Hope you enjoy the video and pictures attached to this blog post!

Rehan Adamjee

Source:
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=21484

Environmental issues in the news media

As a student in Communication, I’m interested in how environmental issues are shaped and delivered for debate in the news media. As we’ve seen in this class, much of our information about environmental issues comes from the news media, such as the sources for our Twitter and blog posts. The news media function as a public forum for information, analysis, and debate.

Those who work in the media shape the discussion by negotiating who gets access to their platform and audience. Those who are on the outside, in this case the players in the environmental movement, strategize ways to gain access and penetrate the political, professional, and economic barriers of the news media.

The weapon of choice for the environmentalists is symbols. They exist in the form of powerful images, strong rhetoric, and symbolic acts. In Libby Lester’s book (2010), “Media and Environment: Conflict, Politics and the News” she explains how this has been manifested in Tasmania. Lester is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Tasmania. This blog post will focus on powerful images.

Powerful images

The Wilderness Society is an environmental advocacy organization founded in 1976 in Tasmania. In March 1983, they took out what were then rare full-page advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers. The advertisement protested the Franklin Dam project which was proposed on the Gordon River. In the advertisement, the group used a photograph of “Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River” by Peter Dombrovski. It was accompanied by the caption "Could you vote for a party that would destroy this?"

Source:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gallery-e6frg6n6-1225857048454?page=8

The above image on the advertisement was a pivotal moment in the environmental campaign to stop the dam project.  It established imagery as playing a key role in affecting the environmental discussion and revealed to the Wilderness Society how they could harness the power of particular images to penetrate the media establishment.

In addition to images, the environmental movement has tapped onto symbolic acts (see Jory's fascinating post about the woman who spent 14 months in a tree) and strong rhetoric to gain power to the news media.

There has been initial resistance from the Tasmanian news media to these movement-sponsored symbols, but the power of these symbols combined with the professional practices of journalism eventually overcame the reluctance in the news media (Lester 2007). According to Lester who has 15 years working as a journalist, the island has a relatively conservative news media with strong historical ties to industry and government. It was quite a feat for the environmental movement to affect the conversation in the media.

References

• Lester, Libby (2007) Giving Ground: Media and Environmental Conflict in Tasmania. Hobart: Quintus
• Lester, Libby (2010) Media & Environment. Cambridge: Polity Press