From the category archives:

Wild Tasmania

Health fear as Tassie burns

Mercury photograph

Forestry Tasmania’s controversial annual autumn burn-off started yesterday prompting the Asthma Foundation to warn people with respiratory problems to stay inside away from the smoke.

Curiously, the burns started on the same day Premier Paul Lennon announced international consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff would be engaged to audit the Government’s greenhouse emissions.

The first burn of the season was near Railton, in the state’s North-West.

A further six burns are planned for the Florentine Valley in the state’s south over the weekend.

Burnoff details can be found here.

Forestry Tasmania’s Fire Management branch manager Tony Blanks said the burns were expected to run throughout the autumn.

Welcome to clean, green Tasmania.

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Tassie surfer lines up for major prize

Hobart’s Michael Brennan, is in the running for one of the world’s top big wave surfing awards.

The 19 year-old was the only Australian nominated for the ‘ride of the year’ award which recognises the most amazing performance by a big wave surfer captured on video.

Brennan was chosen for his death defying ride on a monster wave at Shipstern Bluff on the Tasman Peninsula in January.

He is vying with four other surfers from around the world for the $56,000 prize.

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Crash set off giant Tarkine blaze

A fire that has blackened 17,000ha on the West Coast was started from a car accident on the Western Explorer Highway, a controversial road damned for its scarring of the Tarkine, home to Australia’s largest temperate rainforest.

Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt said conservation groups had warned that the road would prove a source of destructive activity and an ignition point.

‘The Greens are now warning that no further roading into remote Tarkine wilderness should be allowed, although the Government is actively pushing such an agenda via Forestry Tasmania,’ Ms Putt said.

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Shipstern’s ‘best overall performance’

Alex Wade of Surf Nation reports:

Alex ‘Alfy’ Cater won the Oakley Surfing Life Biggest Wave Award. He took home $20,000 and a Sea-Doo personal watercraft.

Marti Paradisis bagged the ‘best overall performance’ award — this shot of him at Shipstern Bluff on the Tasman Peninsula shows why.

(Via Surf Nation)

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Diminishing food supplies threaten king penguins

AFP photograph

Climate change may threaten the survival of king penguins — one of the most iconic creatures of the Antarctic, researchers warn.

A long-term study of the penguins, known for their distinctive yellow feather ‘ear muffs’, reveals just a slight ocean warming had a significant effect on their breeding success.

International researchers behind the project say that under current predictions for global warming, the penguins face the risk of being wiped out.

King penguins — the second largest penguin after the emperor penguin — live in the sub-Antarctic islands, including Macquarie Island, south-east of Tasmania. There are about 2 million breeding pairs worldwide.

Their diet consists mainly of small fish and squid, and because of their one-year breeding cycle they are considered sensitive to any seasonal change in food supply.

Over nine years, researchers studied the birds on an island in the Crozet Archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, marking 456 penguins with electronic tags.

They found that high sea-surface temperatures reduced the amount of marine prey available to the king penguins, forcing them to travel further in search of food.

According to their calculations, a sea-surface warming of 0.26 degrees would lead to a 9% decline in the adult penguin population.

Current models by the UN’s panel of climate scientists predict an average increase of 0.2 degrees a decade for the next two decades.

(Via The Age)

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Tassie surfers keep it up at Shipstern Bluff

A handful of Tasmanian surfers are giving the big-name pro surfers something to think about with their ongoing assaults on Shipstern Bluff.

Photos and footage from their amazing efforts are some of the most compelling in the Oakley Surfing Life Big Wave Awards — Australasia’s most sought-after big surf challenge.

‘They’re just charging,’ says photographer Stuart Gibson, winner of the prestigious Nestle Award, who’s been busy documenting his mates’ efforts at Shipstern.

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Downside of pulp mill could be $3billion loss

Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley will cost the island’s economy up to $3 billion if something goes wrong, according to a new economic analysis.

The results of the analysis, commissioned by the The Wilderness Society, are in stark contrast to a similar study done for Gunns.

The National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) analysis found the most likely outcome of the mill would be a cost of $300 million to the Tasmanian economy until 2030.

Institute head Dr Peter Brain estimated the mill would boost the economy by $1.3 billion in a best-case scenario and in the worst case, $3 billion.

An Allens Consulting Group analysis — commissioned by Gunns — predicted the most likely impact of the mill would be a gain of $3.3 billion.

Dr Brain took into account factors including the cost of lost tourism and the risk of chemical spillage, Gunns changing ownership, a blow-out in capital costs, deaths and sicknesses from environmental damage and the closure of two other paper mills in northern Tasmania.

Allens Consulting had underestimated the opportunity cost of logs consumed in the pulp mill, which could be exported as high-value timber, and the cost of agricultural land clearing, Dr Brain said.

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Cancer agents found in Tassie devils

Tim Dub photograph

Scientists have been shocked to find high levels of potentially carcinogenic flame retardant chemicals in Tasmanian devils, a discovery certain to fuel a global campaign to ban their use, according to Matthew Denholm, writing today in The Australian.

The Australian has obtained, under Freedom of Information, preliminary results of tests ordered by the Tasmanian Government on chemicals found in fat tissue from 16 devils.

They show surprisingly high concentrations of toxic chemicals used in flame retardants commonly found in computers, white goods, carpets and foam in bedding and furniture.

Scientists yesterday said more research was needed to establish if the chemicals helped trigger devil facial tumour disease, a rare communicable cancer that threatens to drive the carnivore to extinction.

The International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Network said the findings also raised concerns for human health.

IPEN co-ordinator Mariann Lloyd-Smith said the findings added weight to “a global push to ban flame retardants, some of which have been linked to reproductive disorders and cancers in animals and humans.”

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Macquarie Island on brink of catastrophe

John Elder of The Age reports that:

The feral destruction of the Macquarie Island’s native vegetation is akin to Ayers Rock being taken over by 100,000 clowns with jackhammers or the Great Barrier Reef being used as torpedo practice …

… it’s like one of those movies where a team of rough and tough heroes are called upon to save the world. In this case, the survival of one of Australia’s ecological treasures depends on finding a dozen disciplined hunting dogs — and finding them fast.

Since rabbit numbers exploded on the World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island over the past couple of years, massive landslips – caused by overgrazing and tunnelling by the 100,000 bunnies – have sent entire hillsides falling into the Southern Ocean, killing king penguins and wiping out crucial albatross nests. At the same time, a living carpet of rats and mice have been feasting on the eggs in penguin and seabird colonies.

Macquarie is a sub-Antarctic island about 1500 kilometres south of Tasmania and a critical breeding ground for seabirds, including four endangered species of albatross, and delicate plant systems. It also serves as a unique geological snapshot of the world’s evolution, a record of life.

There’s more about Macquarie Island here …

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