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What's New
Dave Walden of eriss drove over to Kununurra in Western Australia's Kimberley region to take part in a cane toad forum. Kimberley residents are very concerned about the onslaught of cane toads and the forum was a preliminary to further work and Government lobbying for funding and other forms of assistance. Dave presented the findings of the Parks Australia North/eriss cane toad risk assessment for Kakadu National Park (Supervising Scientist Report 164). The findings of the risk assessment were also incorporated into the submission to have the cane toad listed as a Key Threatening Process under the EPBC Act.
Dr David Jones
Dr David Jones has joined Supervising Scientist Division as the new Director of the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist (eriss).
More information about Dr David Jones
Freshwater jellyfish were recently collected from an outdoor pond in Jabiru township. Macroinvertebrate specialist Alistair Cameron of eriss said it was the first time he had ever seen one in 20 years of sampling freshwater bodies.
An introduced water snail, Melanoides tuberculata, has been found in Jabiru Lake. It is thought that it has been in the lake since the 1980s and may have been released there from someone's aquarium as the snails were originally imported as a hardy tropical aquarium species and were commonly sold by pet shops.
As a community in the unique environment of Kakadu National Park, it is important that we are aware of environmental problems that may arise by bringing things into the park that don't belong there or by relocating fauna to areas that they were not known from.
The Hon Greg Hunt MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, has assumed responsibility for the Supervising Scientist Division. He already has responsibility for the Bureau of Meteorology, land-based national parks and indigenous issues. He has also just assumed responsibility for the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.
Mr Hunt is the Member for Flinders, which includes Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, Phillip Island, French Island and part of South Gippsland. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2001.
More information about The Hon Greg Hunt MP on the Parliament of Australia web site
Professor George Ganf
Professor George Ganf is working from eriss under a special studies program (otherwise known as study or sabbatical leave in the academic world) until the end of July. George is from the University of Adelaide's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and is here conducting a study program which is a successful tropical rivers mini-call put out by Land and Water Australia, in conjunction with Dr Naomi Rea of Charles Darwin University. The project is titled "Assessing the potential for cyanobacterial blooms in clear-water tropical rivers".
The project is fieldwork-based and will examine blue-green algae in a number of Top End rivers. It is not certain, but George may be working on the Roper and Daly Rivers, as well as ephemeral rivers flowing into Bynoe Harbour, such as the Finniss and the Charlotte. George has brought with him a piece of equipment called a PHYTO-PAM that distinguishes between blue-green algae, green algae and diatoms in the field according to pigment composition and fluorescence characteristics.
For more information, e-mail: george.ganf@adelaide.edu.au
World Wetlands Day 2005 is on Wednesday 2nd February. The theme is 'Cultural and biological diversity of wetlands'.
In the Northern Territory, WWD 2005 is being celebrated on Wednesday 2 February with a display and public presentations at Casuarina Library, Bradshaw Terrace, Casuarina, from 5pm to 7pm, and on Sunday 6 February with tree planting and wetland activities at McMinns Lagoon Recreation Reserve starting at 9.30am.
The Supervising Scientist Division of Department of the Environment and Heritage is organising the event at Casuarina Library with participants National Centre for Tropical Wetland Research, Greening Australia (NT) and FrogWatch (NT).
Wednesday's program includes presentations on "Wetlands of the Darwin Region", "Waterbirds of the Top End: Values and Threats", "The Cane Toad Control Strategy - how you can help" and "Monitoring of Kakadu's Wetlands". The displays will include water bugs, cane toad traps, a bird's eye view from space of our wetlands, and real live frogs. All are welcome.
Contact Renee Bartolo at Supervising Scientist for more details:
e-mail: renee.bartolo@deh.gov.au or ph: 08 8920 1125.
For more information on tree planting at McMinn's Lagoon, visit the Northern Territory - Calendar of Events or contact
Samantha Fox, McMinns Lagoon Reserve Association, (08) 8999 4456, samantha.fox@nt.gov.au
For more information on World Wetland Day in general, visit the Department's web page on World Wetlands Day