Potoroo at Wildlife expo, Beaudesert 2010

What wildlife activities would you like to be involved in? Scenic Rim Wildlife (Scenic Rim branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland) is running a survey to find out out the kinds of activities folk would most like to participate in over the next few months. If you live in or near the Scenic Rim (Southeast Queensland) or visit from time to time, please let us know by completing our strictly confidential 2-minute survey

Whether or not there will be one in the future is simply not known at this stage.

At least in this age of electronic communication there is ample opportunity to exchange ideas and information without fossil-fuel-burning journeys (although there is still something satisfying about face-to face meetings, round-table discussions and brainstorming sessions).

There has been an interesting example recently in England, with  a gardener showing that garden snails appear to have a formerly undetected  ‘homing instinct.’

School childrfen are now being encouraged to join in the study to confirm this – and see the BBC article ‘Snails have a homing instinct.’

Some of the details are still being worked out, but it will include the following:

Tuesday: August 31st.

Icebreaker, 6.00- 8.00pm, Currumbin Sanctuary

Wednesday September 1st:

• Introductory talks by Johnathon Fisher (manager,Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuarty) and Pip Chalk (chair, WIldlife Tourism Australia)
• Keynote addresses: (1) Shane O’Reilly (Long association with O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat, which is one of Australia’s longest-running and best-known eco-resorts, now working for  Tourism Queensland (main state tourism body), and former director of Gold Coast Touirsm) “Leech tourism” and (2) Steve Parish (Australia’s best-known wildlife photographer, and prolific publisher) “Heart and Soul”.
• Workshop – ‘Walking the Walk‘ (how wildlife tourism operations large and small can best contribute to wildlife conservation)
• Contributed papers (see below)
• Behind the Scenes tour of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary (numbers limited)

Thursday  September 2nd

• Early morning behind the Scenes tour of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary (for those who missed out on Wednesday)
• Breakfast with the Birds, Currumbin Sanctuary
• Keynote addresses: (1) Clem Tisdell - economic benefits of wildlife tourism; (2) Darryl Jones – Darryl Jones
  ‘The extinction of experience and the experience of extinction: Why direct interactions matter”.
• Workshop: ‘Developing a useful interactive website for Wildlife Tourism’
• Contributed papers (see below)
• Afternoon whale-watching tour ($40 for delegates)
• Conference dinner

Friday September 3rd

• Keynote adresses: (1) Nick Mooney (conservationist, ‘Australian of the year’) title TBA, and (2) David Newsome (author of book ‘Wildlife Tourism’) “‘Tourism and wildlife icons: lessons learnt and views on visitor satisfaction’”
• Workshop: ‘Managing Visitor Diversity’ (wildlife interpretation for all nationalities, socio-economic groups etc., exchange of ideas, sharing of experiences)
• Contributed papers (see below)

Contributed papers:

“‘That’s totally disgusting’: Managing negative emotions within the context of captive wildlife exhibits“ – Nancy Cushing, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle and Kevin Markwell, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Southern Cross University

“Eric Worrell: a pioneer of Australian wildlife tourism – Kevin Markwell, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Southern Cross University and Nancy Cushing, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

Wildlife tourism potential for the Global Tiger Initiative – Steve Noakes (Griffith University), Richard Damania (World Bank)

Facilitating profound experiences with wildlife – Liam Smith, Betty Weiler and Sam Ham

The Poetics of Wild – Dr Jayne Fenton Keane

A need for promoting care and concern for wildlife: A call for flagship species and anthropomorphism – Amy M. Smith, Liam Smith, Betty Weiler, Tourism Research Unit, Monash University

Kimberley Whale Watching Tourism: Opportunities and Threats – Prof. Jack Carlsen and Dr Michael Hughes, Curtin Sustainable Tourism Centre,Curtin University, Western Australia

Isabelle Wolf –

Ronda Green –

Pip Chalk –

Barry Davies -

others …

Download preliminary program

There is actually quite a lot that Brisbane has to offer, both around the city centre (museum, botanic gardens, Southbank and Roma Street Parklands, ethnic cafes, the only mangrove boardwalk in an Australian capital city, ferries along the river…) and throughout the Greater Brisbane region, with its wonderful bushland reserves (Araucaria Ecotours operate wildlife and bushwalking day tours here).

A new tour group helps you to explore Brisbane by foot and bicycle.  Shaun Gilchrist is an enthusiastic and friendly guy who grew up here and now works for Brisbane Urban Adventures.  So if you’d like to consider an extra day or two exploring Brisbane in an environmentally friendly way while you’re here, visit the site and get in touch with Shaun.  His tours and ours could be a good complement to each other and you could develop your own package around them.

One of the positive benefits of wildlife tourism towards tourism conservation has long been identified as the potential for donations towards conservation, from  tourism operators, their guests and perhaps local businesses and governments that directly or indirectly benefit from the tourism dollar.

But to give we need to also receive -  at least   enough to keep giving without going broke.    And tourism operations that make non-financial contributions (e.g. habitat restoration, quality interpretation, conservation-breeding) have to make enough to survive.  It also helps if the local community benefits, and  continues to support their efforts.

Can all this happen, either at an individual operator level or a regional level?

One of Australia’s best-published economics researchers (amongst the top three in the country according to Wikipedia) – Clem Tisdell -  has conducted many studies on the economics of wildlife tourism in Australia and elsewhere, including amongst many other topics rainforests and glow worm caves in Southeast Queensland,  Antarctic voyages and an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka. Apart from individual studies he has provided a number of very useful and wide-ranging review papers.

We will have a chance to hear Professor Tisdell’s latest information and advice at the Wild Benefits conference to be held at the Gold Coast 1st to 3rd September 2010, and it will be a great opportunity to ask him questions (and listen to his answers to the questions of others, both immediately after his presentation and at other times during the conference).

This is the third national wildlife tourism conference to be held in Australia. There are day registrations and student registrations available, ad the earlybird discount registration is open until the end of July.

This is the first koala we’ve seen at home for almost two years, so we were very pleased when he moved in, and even more pleased that he’s decided to stick around a while

Breeding season starts soon, so we hope a female might join him briefly.  I say briefly because koalas are solitary creatures, coming together for breeding but then going their separate ways again.

We hope this and other  photos showing the pattern of markings on his rump will help us recognize him as an individual if he moves on and then returns some day.

platypus

Darren went down to our creek to see how a family from America were doing in their attempts to see the platypus. They had been advised to sit quietly with no sudden movements or noises, so he was a bit alarmed to see both kids walking along right at the edge of the water. When they saw him they shouted ‘There’s no platypus here!’

Well, no, there wasn’t that day. There were a pair living there but probably if they had started to emerge for their night of foraging they were by now tucked up back in their burrows waiting for a little peace and quiet before re-emerging.

In Tasmania platypus are often seen throughout the day, and occasionally the same is true further north, but  they are primarily nocturnal.  Typically they will leave their burrows an hour or so before dusk, continue feeding throughout the night and return to the burrow  an hour or so after dawn.

Thus the best time to see them is usually during the first hour after sunrise or the last hour before sunset.

They are found in unpolluted streams along the east coast from Tasmania to far north Queensland, and have been introduced to Kangaroo Island, South Australia. The best foraging spots seem to be slow-moving areas where the water is between one and three metres deep. Don’t bother looking for them high in the mountains above tall waterfalls though – they would find it hard to travel up to these.

Their eyes and ears may not be brilliant (and they don’t use either for foraging), but unless they have become well habituated to human presence, they will notice anyone sitting or standing near the bank, and most likely return to the safety of the burrow.  Sudden sharp movements or loud noises will almost guarantee they will disappear until it is too dark to see them. Quiet human presence in the water – in a canoe or floating for instance – doesn’t seem to worry them quite so much, perhaps because most of their predators come from the land.

They tend to be more predictable during breeding season in the last half of the year, so if you are advised late in the year that they have been seen recently in a particular part of the creek, there is a good chance they will continue to use this spot for a while,.

So, to see a platypus, find out which local streams are likely, wear something warm, perhaps take a book or something to nibble if you have trouble sitting still, then do just that – sit still and quietly from sunrise onwards or from late afternoon, glancing at the water evry minute or so if you don’t feel like watching it constantly.

No grunts or bellows announce its arrival.  It is not there and then suddenly, very quietly, it is there. Sometimes you will see a small row of bubbles just before it surfaces, then can watch as it floats on the surface chewing whatever it has just caught, or perhaps scratching its ear or swimming along a little way. Then it hunches its back and dives down again for maybe a minute or two before re-emerging.

Maybe you won’t see one on your first few attempts, but there are worse ways fo passing the time than sitting by a quiet stream listening to bird calls.

Or maybe, suddenly, very quietly, there he is in front of you.

channel-billed cuckoo

Perfect weather, a wonderful display of live locally-native animals, interesting displays and presentations  and a crowd of cheerful people of all ages made our Wildlife Expo a great success.  Visitors got to meet bettongs, potoroos, gliders, fruitbats,  owls, cuckoos, flap-footed lizards, turtles, pythons and other creatures and learn about wildlife conservation,  care of orphaned and injured animals, wildlife feeding, nesting boxes, wildlife-attracting plants, nature photography, wildlife art, tertiary courses involving wildlife, birding, reptiles shows and more.

The photo shows Martin Fingland of Gecko’s Wildlife, with one of his tame local species.

The Expo was run by the Scenic Rim branch of the WIldlife Preservation Society of Queensland.

For details of this great day, visit Scenic Rim Wildlife, and stay tuned for the next expo (either 2011 or 2012)