Happy Sustainable Seafood Day!

Posted on March 17, 2013 by jenniferscoullar

Most people know that today is St Patrick’s Day (a shout out to all my Irish friends, by the way) But many people might not know that last Friday 15th March was Sustainable Seafood Day. Started by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), this day is about celebrating and rewarding certified sustainable seafood fisheries, retailers and champions. It’s about empowering seafood lovers and showing them how their choices can make a positive difference in the world’s oceans.

Our ocean habitats face massive and multiple threats: warming temperatures, mining, pollution and over-fishing to name a few. How can you help? The idea of Sustainable Seafood Day is simple. Only buy seafood bearing the blue MSC ecolabel.

There are seven Australian MSC certified sustainable fisheries. These include; the Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF), Mackerel Icefish, HIMI Toothfish, Macquarie Island Toothfish, Spencer Gulf King prawns, Lakes and Coorong fisheries and the Western Rock Lobster; which was the first MSC certified sustainable fishery in the world and is the first to be re-certified for a third time.

There are now more than 200 canned and frozen seafood products bearing the blue MSC ecolabel available at leading retailers across the country. To view the list of these products visit the MSC’s online Sustainable Seafood Product Finder. The other important thing is to check out the Sustainable Seafood Guide, print version or online, courtesy of the Australian Marine Conservation Society. You can even get an IPhone app now, featuring Greenpeace’s Canned Tuna Ranking. So much to learn. Orange Roughy for example (also known as Deep Sea Perch), live for 150 years. They are slow-growing and late to mature, resulting in a very low resilience. How can we justify trawling for fish that don’t even start breeding until they are 25-40 years old?

And for those who despair as to whether or not our small contribution makes a difference, let me assure you – it does. Every little bit counts. We must celebrate even small advances towards a better future for our planet. Let me share the story about the boy picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the sea to save them. A man says to him, “This beach goes on for miles, and there are thousands of starfish. Your efforts are futile. You can’t make a difference!” The boy looks at the starfish in his hand and throws it into the water. “To this one,” he says, “it makes all the difference.” We fix the world one day at a time, one person at a time, one action at a time. Let’s work together for a future full of fish!

A New Owl Identified

Posted on February 17, 2013 by jenniferscoullar

Southern Boobook

I am a great owl lover. These elusive birds have held a special fascination for humans throughout the centuries. Countless lore, myths and superstitions are associated with owls, and it’s easy to see why. They appear mysteriously from the darkness. Legend endows them with supernatural knowledge, and their large eyes and bespectacled appearance enhances this belief. A group of owls is known as a parliament, a wisdom or a study. The Greeks for example, considered owls as a symbol of good fortune and associated them with Athene, the goddess of wisdom. However the Romans thought they were evil. They believed owls were omens of disaster. Their hoot was considered to be the call of death. Even today, the standard metaphor for danger in film is their eerie call, or the glimpse of an owl near the scene of the crime.

Powerful Owl

Several types of owl live here at Pilyara. I am often lulled to sleep by the rhythmic call of the little Southern Boobook. We have even spotted the rare and magnificent Powerful Owl. Everything to do with owls gives me a thrill. So imagine my delight to hear that a brand new species has been identified to the north of Australia, on the small island of Lombok, Indonesia.

Rinjani Scops Owl

This photo, taken by independent researcher Philippe Verbelen, shows a pair of Rinjani Scops owls. They were discovered by accident when scientists looking for another bird, noticed their distinct whistling song. The small owls, with brown and white feathers and big golden eyes, had been confused with a similar-looking species for more than a century. Their new English name comes from Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest volcano that looms over Lombok.

We live in a time when the extinction rate is gathering frightening speed. The identification of this gorgeous little owl comes as a welcome contrast to so much tragic news. Long may the Rinjani Scops Owl prosper!

Kermit, the Superb Parrot

Posted on February 13, 2013 by jenniferscoullar

I finished my edits for Currawong Creek (June release) this week, and was too busy for my usual Sunday post. So here it is, better late than never!

We have a wide variety of beautiful parrots here at Pilyara: Rainbow Lorikeets, Eastern Rosellas, Crimson Rosellas, King Parrots, Galahs, Little Corellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos, Gang-Gang Cockatoos and even the occasional Long-Billed Corella. These are the usual suspects. So I was very surprised at the arrival of a green parrot which I’d never seen here before.

I identified her as a Superb Parrot hen. After a bit of research, I discovered this parrot lives in New South Wales and northern Victoria, on the inland slopes of the Great Divide and along adjacent river systems. In other words, she does not belong in the southern Victorian ranges. The parrot (who we promptly dubbed Kermit), was quite tame and on closer inspection, a band could be seen on her leg. Kermit was an escapee from captivity. I wish she could tell me her story!

After much ringing around, I got onto a lady from the Bayles Fauna Park. She convinced me that I should catch Kermit and take her to the park, as a domesticated bird would not last long in the wild. I managed this without too much trouble, and Kermit now lives in a spacious aviary with others of her kind.

While researching what to do about our unusual visitor, I came across a remarkable organisation called the Parrot Rescue Centre.

It is dedicated to improving the lives of suffering, abused and unwanted pet parrots by providing an appropriate environment for their individual needs. Its main aim is to educate people about the correct diet, housing, enrichment and training of these highly intelligent and long-lived birds. It also runs a rescue and adoption program, as well as a lost and found service. It is fascinating to browse their website, and see the gorgeous birds available for rehoming, such as this lorikeet. Why don’t you go and like their Facebook page, or even give them a donation? They are an inspiration!

Australia Day Book Giveaway Blog Hop!

Posted on January 25, 2013 by jenniferscoullar

THE ORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS

Welcome to this Australia Day book giveaway blog hop. It’s the brainchild of Shelleyrae and Confessions from Romaholics. The aim is to connect aussie authors and readers. My post today is about the original Australians. I’m not talking about our indigenous people, who share a proud history with this continent dating back at least 50,000 years. No, I’m talking about the flora and fauna that evolved along with our land over millions of years.

In Australia we have an exceptionally high number of unique species, yet we also have the highest extinction rate in the world. 126 species of plants and animals have vanished in just 200 years. Another 182 species are classified as endangered, and 201 more are threatened. Many are locally extinct, only surviving precariously on offshore islands or in captivity.

Thankfully we have moved beyond the worst cruelties of the past. For example, in the early twentieth century, live Brush-tailed Bettongs were sold for ninepence a dozen to be chased and torn apart by greyhounds. Today’s flora and fauna face more modern threats. Habitat loss and feral animals, such as cats, foxes and cane toads, are contributing to a second wave of extinctions.

We all have a part to play in protecting our precious native plants and animals. Why not celebrate our national day by doing something to help these original Australians?

Grow native plants. They provide wildlife with food and shelter.
Keep your cat inside, at least at night. Most marsupials are nocturnal and birds are at their most vulnerable at night.
De-sex your cats and dogs.
Put in a birdbath.
Avoid using pesticides in the house and garden. Most are toxic to reptiles and insect eaters.
Look out for native animals when driving.
Install nest boxes in trees for hollow-dwellers.
If fishing, do not leave fish hooks, line, sinkers, plastic bags or any other litter behind.
Join as a volunteer or member of a wildlife or conservation group.
Donate to groups like Bush Heritage Australia and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

I’m giving away two signed books – one copy of Brumby’s Run and one copy of Wasp Season. Just comment on this post, naming an extinct or endangered Australian plant or animal. Entries close at midnight on January 28th. Winners announced Sunday Feb 3rd. Giveaway for Australian residents only.

Click these links back to Book’d Out and Confessions from Romaholics to visit other participants in the Blog Hop and Book Giveaway. A peaceful and happy Australia Day to everybody!

A Christmas Koala

Posted on January 7, 2013 by jenniferscoullar

koala 010 This Christmas we had a delightful visitor at Pilyara – a very friendly and curious Koala in a pear tree (instead of a partridge!). After kindly posing for the camera, he soon moved on to a more appropriate gum tree. In the early days of settlement, Koalas were locally common in the surrounding Messmate and Mountain Ash forests. But in the early 1900s these iconic marsupials were heavily hunted for their fur, which was exported to Europe. Timber-cutting also became rampant. Consequently, Koala numbers crashed.

In the 1920’s, a man named Frederick Lewis was the Chief Inspector of Fisheries and Game in Victoria. An early conservationist, Lewis began a large-scale program to remove vulnerable Koalas to ‘safe havens’, where they could breed up and be eventually restored to their former range. Since then, thousands of Koalas have been relocated to over 250 release sites across Victoria, in one of the most sustained and extensive wildlife reintroduction programs ever undertaken. The nearby Bunyip Forest is one of those release sites.

Our adorable visitor is a result of Frederick Lewis’ vision. His orange ear tag shows he was translocated from Snake Island in Western Port Bay. It’s very heartening to see Koalas reclaiming their former range after a century-long absence. A neighbour even found an adventurous young Koala hanging out on their back door! Let’s hope these pioneering Koalas will be the first of many, to call Pilyara home once again.

Bush Heritage Australia

Posted on December 16, 2012 by jenniferscoullar

With Christmas fast approaching, I have a present suggestion. Why not a WILD gift from Bush Heritage Australia, an organisation committed to protecting Australia’s plants and animals and their habitats? One of the best ways to conserve land is to own it. Bush Heritage acquires land and water of outstanding ecological importance for Australia’s biodiversity and ecology. They also build partnerships with farmers to support conservation on privately owned land. Starting out with just two reserves in 1991, Bush Heritage now owns and manages more than a million hectares, in over 30 reserves around Australia.

The WILD Gift concept is very cool, and makes a real difference to conservation in Australia. Each gift represents an area of Bush Heritage’s work on reserves right across the country. For ten dollars you can provide a warm, safe nesting box for endangered red-tailed phascogales. Forty dollars can help monitor the health of a threatened species, like the small but feisty Mulgara. My personal favourite is their Slice of the Outback gift. Twenty-five dollars can buy one hectare of native habitat, providing a safe haven for countless plants and animals. Every hectare makes a difference!

Brolga on Naree Station

For each gift purchased, you’ll receive a beautiful gift card which you can send to a friend or relative, letting them know about the thoughtful contribution you’ve made on their behalf, and about the conservation successes they’re helping to achieve – plus you can add your own personal message. If you choose an electronic card, you have the further choice of opting that it be sent direct to the recipient on your behalf. As a giver, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re part of Bush Heritage’s big plans to rescue Australian wildlife and landscapes. All WILD gifts are tax deductible.

Our New Wombat

Posted on November 6, 2012 by jenniferscoullar

We have a new resident here at Pilyara – a hard-working wombat, who is digging a grand new burrow beneath a stump along the drive, just metres from the house.

Bare Nosed Wombats (Vombatus ursinus) are endearing animals that abound here at Pilyara. They emerge at dusk to graze the paddocks, retiring during the day to the safety and comfort of their tunnels. I love wombats. Large and lumbering, they are the world’s biggest herbiverous burrowing mammals. With short legs and tail, rotund bodies and a cuddly appearance, they resemble little bears, but their closest relatives are actually koalas. Wombats are marsupials, but have hollow, rodent-like teeth, that grow in response to wear, and can gnaw through the toughest roots. Like living mini-bulldozers, they can be a problem for farmers when they meet obstacles such as fences. In winter, females produce a single baby which spends its first few months within her rear-facing pouch.

Wombats face multiple threats. Loss of habitat, dogs, traffic, unsympathetic land owners, and disease. It always saddens me to see a wombat out and about in broad daylight. Mostly these animals are suffering from sarcoptic mange, a nasty condition that causes hair loss, pain, scabby skin, starvation, blindness and ultimately death.

Wombats are also killed by cars, and their corpses are a common sight on local roadsides. Dedicated carers, like Reg and Jenny Mattingly of the Maryknoll Wildlife Shelter, rescue and rear dozens of orphaned baby wombats each year. They also provide burrow flaps to treat mangy wombats with a dose of Cydectin as they enter or leave their dens. Which brings me to our new, resident wombat. It’s nice to know that if he or she contracts mange, we know where the burrow is!

Orchids at Pilyara

Posted on October 8, 2012 by jenniferscoullar

Eastern Bronze Caledenia

One of the joys of living surrounded by bushland is the never ending variety of life that passes by, season by season. In spring, the wildflowers and birds provide spectacular flashes of colour. Here at Pilyara the soil lacks some of the richness found elsewhere, and this is the situation favoured by many ground orchids, or rather they have adapted well to such soils. Under the canopy of Messmate, small colonies of orchids can be found. Several species have begun to flower, and more will follow in the weeks to come.

Tall Sun Orchid

Many Australian orchids depend on mimicry to attract pollinators, using pheromones similar to those given off by female wasps. These orchids generally have unspectacular flowers, although in an attempt to appear wasplike their forms can be remarkable.Those that attempt to attract pollinators using colour and perfume are more spectacular. The most showy varieties at Pilyara are the sun-orchids, so called because their flowers only open on warm sunny days.

Large Bird Orchid

The profusion of orchids found at Pilyara is not rare, or even uncommon. I’m still waiting to find something really unusual hiding away. But as more and more bushland disappears, the rare vanishes, the uncommon becomes rare, and the ordinary takes its place as vulnerable. What a responsibility we have as stewards of this earth!

(Photos courtesy of my brother, Rod Scoullar)

Bunya Mountains National Park

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jenniferscoullar

I’m on my way home from a research trip to the Bunya Mountains in southern Queensland, that state’s second oldest national park. My new novel, Firewater, is set in and around this marvellous place. The park boasts the largest stand of Bunya pines in the world, primeval trees whose fossils date back to the Mesozoic era. Bunya cones are large as footballs and can weigh ten kilograms. Few animals today are capable of spreading their gigantic seeds, making it hard for the trees to extend their range. Given the cones’ mammoth size, it is likely that extinct large animals were dispersers for the Bunya – perhaps dinosaurs and later, megafauna.

The park seems captured in a time warp. For thousands of years, indigenous people gathered here in summer to feast on Bunya nuts. For the traditional custodians of the park, these ancient pines are an age-old symbol of nourishment, of healing, and of coming together in harmony. I got goosebumps when wandering the rainforest trails. The pines’ domed heads reach forty metres to the sky, and massive, elephant-like buttresses hold fast to the earth. Each tree is a reminder of the mysterious past, and of how few truly wild places still exist.

The park abounds with wildlife, waterfalls and mountain-top grasslands known as ‘balds’. I had the great privilege of watching a Satin bowerbird decorate his twig entwined bower. Brush turkeys went about their jobs as rainforest gardeners. Red-necked pademelons (Thylogale thetis) were numerous and absurdly tame. I even spotted a mum with rare twin joeys. The park is a veritable garden of Eden … and Bunya nuts are great to cook with.

It has been a sensational trip. Coincidentally, I caught fellow rural author Nicole Alexander at the Dalby RSL on my way through. She was talking about her latest novel, Absolution Creek. I made great progress with my own writing. My new novel Firewater, is almost finished. Two chapters to go! I look forward to typing The End on the manuscript very soon. If I ever lack inspiration, I’ll just think back to my time in the Bunyas and the moment will surely pass.

Bring Back Wattle Day

Posted on September 1, 2012 by jenniferscoullar

Today is Wattle Day, the first of September. Wattles have long had special meanings for Australians. I remember bringing wattle sprigs to school on this day, to celebrate the coming spring. In 1988 the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) was officially gazetted as Australia’s national floral emblem, and in 1992, the first day of September was officially declared ‘National Wattle Day’, a day first celebrated way back in 1910.

Golden Wattle, Australia’s floral emblem, is in full bloom here at Pilyara, lending the bush a sun-kissed appearance on even the darkest day. Although winter still stands in firm command of the southern Victorian ranges, wattle blossom promises warmer days to come. The Golden Wattle grows as a shrub or small tree, and has foliage that is long, arched and bright green. It flowers from July to September, with fragrant golden orbs of blossom. Its gum is eaten by sugar gliders during winter. Its leaves are food for caterpillars of the Common Imperial Blue Butterfly, and its flowers attract native bees.

There are more than 900 species of Acacia in Australia, making it our largest floral genus. I know of nine other wattles indigenous to this area, besides the Golden: the Silver Wattle (Acacia dealbata), the Black Wattle (Acacia mearnsii), the Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon), the Myrtle Wattle (Acacia myrtifolia), the Spike Wattle (Acacia oxycedrus), the Hedge Wattle (Acacia paradoxa), the Hop Wattle (Acacia stricta), the Sweet Wattle (Acacia suaveolens) and Prickly Moses (Acacia verticillata), whose sharp foliage forms star-shaped rings around its stems, with spikes that can rip through clothing.

The common names of many of Australian Acacia’s are especially evocative: Brigalow, Coojong, Cootamundra, Dagger Wattle, Dead-finish Wattle, Kurara, Gundabluey, Myall, Mulga, Old Man Wodjil, Stinking Gidgee, Yarran and Wait-a-While. I love these names! And I love knowing that spring is just around the corner. I wish you all a happy Wattle Day for September 1st and will raise a glass of bubbly! Does anybody else celebrate Wattle Day?

Jennifer Scoullar – Bestselling Author of Australian Fiction

'A love affair with the wild …'

Category Archives: Nature