Alien Invasion

Examining the rapid takeover of Australia by the cane toad and its invasive brethren.

A cane toad poses next to a vanquished foe — a species of goanna with a mouthful of poison.

Cane toads were introduced onto the continent of Australia for one simple reason in 1935 --- to control the cane beetle population. It was easy to see why farmers clamored for a natural solution to the cane beetle predicament as cane beetles were destructive pests to sugarcane crops. Adult cane beetles ate the leaves of the crops while cane beetle larvae ate the roots, potentially killing the entire plant. At the time cane toads seemed like a logical, and less destructive, alternative to harmful chemical pesticides. But those who decided on the introduction of the large, toxic toads failed to take into account two glaring problems which thwart their ability to effectively serve as pest control agents against cane beetles --- The stocky toads do not climb (making it difficult to feed on the arboreal cane beetles) and cane toads are nocturnal, while cane beetles are diurnal. Now Australia is stuck with more than 200 million introduced toads and cane beetles.

Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are native from South America up to the southern U.S. In their native ranges, the toads populations are kept in check by an assortment of predators capable of tolerating the toad’s poison that is produced in two large large parotoid glands behind the toad’s ears. This poison is spread throughout their bodies and can be secreted from the parotoid glands as a milky, white substance. The deadly cocktail of toxins produced by the cane toad targets the functioning of the heart. When these toads were introduced to Australia, this new poison knocked every Australian predator, from venomous snakes to large goanna lizards and even beloved pet dogs and cats, back on their heels.

In addition to being a hopping toxin-producing machine, cane toads possess several other tools that make them a particularly destructive invasive species. The toads are voracious eaters, and will eat anything they can get their wide mouths around (except cane beetles, of course) and have outcompeted several insectivores, such as native skinks, in addition to depleting populations of native insects. They breed quickly and in almost any source of water. Even their tadpoles and eggs are poisonous to most animals.

Around 3,000 cane toads were released in northern Queensland in 1935 and they have spread like wildfire throughout the eastern and northern coasts of Australia. Moreover, their range is continuing to expand as they order their populations forth. Cane toads have even been found on the far-flung southwest corner of the continent. And they are not content with just Australia, either. They have been found in New Guinea and up into the Philippines. With their destructive traits, cane toads may circumvent the globe and arrive back in South America in a matter of decades.

The spread of the durable and leathery toad is not an isolated incident for Australia. The continent has been ripe for the spread of invasive species since Europeans arrived in the late 1700s. Australia’s isolation from most of the world, since its break from Antarctica about 35 million years ago, has produced a variety of incredible endemic species and allowed marsupials to dominate while being outcompeted by placental mammals (more advanced group of mammals including humans) everywhere else on earth. But this isolation has left the continent susceptible to outside invaders completely alien to native wildlife.

The most destructive invasive species have been nondescript species such as feral cats and foxes. Over the two centuries these European animals have been on Australian soil, at least 34 mammal species have gone extinct, giving Australia the dubious distinction as the world’s leader in mammal extinction. Most of these species are smaller-sized marsupials, like the lesser bilby or the beautiful toolache wallaby (who only survived 85 years of European colonization), that are the perfect size for cats and foxes to prey upon. Cane toads are extremely destructive and difficult to eliminate, but feral cats are a whole different story. The cuddly felines are one of the only animals known to kill for sport, creating depressingly steep kill totals of Australia’s small mammalian fauna.

Although these invaders may seem too staggering in numbers and destruction, there are several measures being undertaken by the Australian government to attempt to rid the continent of these dangerous aliens. Large-scale cat culls are underway throughout Western Australia, including an initiative to drop crate-fulls of poisoned sausages to the two to six million cats that live there.*

Intensive fox eradication programs have been undertaken on many islands, whose contained settings offer the only real chance of eliminating the elusive predators. On Phillip Island, off of Victoria, foxes have been successfully removed from the island in recent years. The bridge between the mainland and the island, the only way on and off the island for anything that does not want to get wet, is under constant surveillance to make sure no fox is able to sneak back on the island. Their eradication on Phillip Island has led to the reintroduction of the Eastern barred bandicoot, which has gone extinct in the wild because of foxes. In 2017, 44 captive bred bandicoots were released on the Summerland Peninsula, itself a symbol for effective conservation implementation. Hopefully the bandicoots can recoup their population on the island away from the threat of foxes.

The management of cane toads will take a concerted team effort by people all over Australia. In southern Australia, quarantine checks for the deadly amphibian, as well as education programs, have helped to curb its spread into the region. If a suspected cane toad is seen, the best outcome would be to capture the toad and report it to the nearest Parks office, as 2/3 of suspected cane toads end up being native frog species. Oftentimes these native frog species are harmless and themselves cane toad victims due to diseases the South American toad spreads.

Cane toads, foxes and cats, along with many invasive species of plants, are incredibly well-equipped and destructive invaders. It will take decades to wipe them out and save Australia’s unique wildlife, and even that may not be enough as these animals become more engrained in the Australian ecosystem. But progress is possible and needs to start right now in order to help Australia lose the title of being the global extinction capital and chart a new path towards saving the vulnerable local wildlife under siege by these ruthless invaders.

*Because cats, beloved pets to some and brooding houseguests to others, are the target of this mass culling, many public figures decried the decision. More than 160,000 people signed online petitions to prevent the killings of the cats, even as they wipe out species after species. Educated public outcry can be beneficial, but there clearly was a lack of understanding about the cats’ destructive capabilities. Thankfully, the Australian government persevered and proceeded with the plan, which killed 211,560 cats during the first year of the program and aims to shrink the population by 2 million cats by 2020.

Sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/c/cane-toad/

https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/frogs/cane-toad/

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-australia-mammal-extinction-worsen-scientists.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/magazine/australia-cat-killing.html

https://www.penguins.org.au/conservation/research/eastern-barred-bandicoots/

Marvelous Monotremes

The marvelously odd platypus

Eggs, venom and four-headed penises: Inside the wild world of Australia’s Monotremes

Some of the earliest ancestors of mammals were reptiles that lived some 260 million years ago. These tiny reptilian rodent-like creatures, known as cynodonts, would eventually give rise to actual mammals, the first of which occurred around 160 million years ago. These minuscule shrew-like mammals scurried around a world dominated by the prehistoric rockstars known as the dinosaurs. These early mammals evolved into the advanced mammals we see today: the marsupials and the placentals (which includes us). Those primitive reptiles, known as synapsids today, also led to the third and strangest modern group of mammals, the monotremes.

Though they are still around Australia today, monotremes are primitive and reptile-like, lacking many features we equate with being a mammal. They have no teats, but instead secrete milk through pores along the belly of the female. They also lay eggs and have a cloaca, or single opening for their intestinal, urinary, and genital tracts for excretion purposes (the term monotreme, in fact, means “one hole”). These are traits they retained from their reptilian ancestors.

But monotremes do possess several distinct mammalian features, including a segmented jaw. They are warm-blooded and lactate, albeit in the way you would think a lizard would lactate. Although their primitive features make monotremes seem ancestral to the more advanced mammals of today, they just radiated into a different group fairly early on in mammalian history. After millions of years doing their own thing, they simply did not adapt the way other mammals have, thus retaining their archaic features.

Today there are five species of monotremes that all share the prerequisite strangeness of laying eggs, secreting milk through their stomach and having a cloaca. But they each add their own wacky features on top of those that distinguish them as the strange black sheep of the mammal family.

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A perplexed echidna tries to understand why mammals laying eggs is so strange.

Probably the most famous monotreme is the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), an iconic Australian species. It was so strange that early specimens brought back to Europe from the mysterious land Down Under were thought to be hoaxes. This is both due to its composite body plan, combining aspects of a beaver and a mole with the bill of a duck, and the unbelievable assertion that these creatures laid eggs. Their otherworldliness led someone to shoot a vulnerable platypus while it laid its eggs just to prove it.

But there are benefits to the strange amalgamation of parts that make up a platypus. Their duck-like bill is used to sift through the sand on the river bed in search of crayfish. It is studded with touch and electro-receptors that can detect the movement of prey (check out our Instagram page for a video of a platypus using its bill). Its webbed feet and beaver-like tail help propel it through the water. Its otter-like fur helps it stay warm and quickly dry while out of the water. They are so adapted to an aquatic lifestyle that flaps of skin even cover their eyes and ears to keep water out as they let their bills do the prey-detecting.

Perhaps the most outlandish things about platypuses is that males sport a venomous spur on their hind foot capable of delivering a painful sting to any predator or other aggressive platypus. Echidnas, the other group of monotremes, also have a similar venom gland in their hind feet, but it has become vestigial, which means it no longer produces venom. The existence in both animals does point out an evolutionary common ancestor, linking both groups of monotremes.

The four remaining species of monotremes are all echidnas. There is one species in Australia, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), and three, longer-beaked species in New Guinea. They look like a large hedgehog (weighing as much as 20 some pounds) with a long snout (not actually a beak), that encases a long, sticky tongue to lap up termites and ants. They need to eat small prey because they no longer have teeth. They sport large claws to dig through the ground and break apart logs in search of insects and are covered in spines to deter predation. Unlike porcupines, their spines are hollow and barbless.

A short-beaked echidna

Like the platypus, echidnas have electro-receptors in their nose that help them feel vibrations. Male echidnas find a use for the spurs on their hind feet even though they no longer secrete venom. Instead, a milky substance oozes out during the breeding season as a means of scent communication to help the lady echidnas track him down.

When breeding does ensue, it is wildly strange. To start things off, the echidna has one of the oddest and most terrifying penises on the planet. It has four heads! Only two of them are working at a time, but it makes for an ungainly sight. The belief as to why their penises have three extra heads is that it helps create more sperm, which comes in handy when competing with other males.

During the winter months, they hibernate. Horrifyingly, sometimes males will come into a female’s burrow and mate with her while she hibernates and she will awaken pregnant. However the female becomes impregnated, she usually lays one egg at a time which she incubates in her stomach pouch, similar to Australia’s marsupials. After about a week, the egg hatches and the baby echidna (called a puggle) stays in the mother’s pouch for eight more weeks.

Although there is only one species that lives in Australia, it is the most widespread native mammal in the continent. It lives, preferably alone, in a variety of habitats from alpine meadows to dense forests to even desert. They could possibly live for up to 45 years in the wild, although there is no definitive proof about how long the lifespans actually is. Two of the species in New Guinea, including the Sir David’s long-beaked echidna (named after famed British naturalist David Attenborough), are classified as critically endangered. Habitat loss is likely the main culprit as the Western long-beaked echidna has possibly seen its population decline by close to 80%.

The platypus is listed as near threatened by the IUCN, but its population is trending downward. Their biggest threat is the alteration of their river habitat by development and damming.

Australia’s marvelous monotremes, which are two of the strangest creatures on the planet, are an incredible look into an alternate route of mammal evolution. While placentals and marsupials diverged one way, monotremes went another way and remained very reptile-like mammal. Although they are not our ancestors, it truly is like looking at a living fossil when a platypus darts through the water or an echidna lumbers around the forest floor.

A short-beaked echidna, one of Australia’s two species of monotremes, out for a stroll at the Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary.

All artwork and photography by Jack Tamisiea.

Sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/p/platypus/

https://www.livescience.com/57267-echidna-facts.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/monotreme

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-ancient-reptile-that-gave-rise-to-mammals/?redirect=1

https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/species-identification/ask-an-expert/what-is-a-monotreme/

Exploring Daintree

The Daintree Rainforest

Exploring the world's most ancient rainforest, inhabited by the world’s most dangerous bird, immense crocodiles and some of Australia's most primitive marsupials.

When people think of Australia, the terrain they immediately picture is arid and barren, orange dirt stretching out as far as the eye can see, occasionally broken up by a lone eucalyptus tree bleached completely white by the unrelenting sun. Yes, people think of the outback, which makes sense as over 70 percent of Australia is arid or semi-arid. The interior desert, an area of unforgiving sun, little water, and poor soil, has been imprinted on the collective imagination of those outside Australia as what the land down under really is.

But the coasts of Australia are bursting with life, especially in North Queensland, home to some of the world’s oldest rainforests, which are, in fact, over 120 million years older than the Amazon. The Wet Tropics of Queensland is a UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing some 894,420 acres of tropical rainforests, home to some of the most bizarre and dangerous creatures in Australia, which is saying a lot thanks to Australia’s penchant for strange and deadly creatures. UNESCO deems it as an area of outstanding universal value in part because of the biodiversity it protects, but also because it offers a unique glimpse into what earth was like millions of years ago as the world we know today was forming. Read on as we venture into the prehistoric Daintree Rainforest National Park.

A tour boat travels along the Daintree River.

 

A Living Relic

180 million years ago, Australia, along with the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. At that time Gondwana was starting to fracture apart into the continents we know today: Australia and Antartica in one big chunk drifting toward the south; India drifting north; South America and Africa drifting together west. Continental drift, as this natural phenomenon is known, happens because of volcanism and plate tectonics, or the movement of huge plates over the earth’s mantle. At deep ocean ridges, fresh magma bubbles up and hardens, pushing that plate further away from the ridge. The continents that rest on these plates are essentially along for the ride, as Australia and Antartica found themselves when Gondwana split.

While all of this was happening in the Jurassic Period, the world was a much warmer place, covered in lush tropical jungles and home to dinosaurs. Even Antarctica was warm and supported a variety of dinosaurs and rainforests of its own. In fact, it shared many species with Australia because the two continents were fused together the longest of any of the former Gondwana continents.

They did not completely split until 45 million years ago. Australia drifted north while Antartica stayed south, eventually freezing as the climate cooled and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current formed around Antarctica, ensuring that cold water always flowed around the frozen continent. All of the rainforests were lost on Antarctica. Australia’s rainforests did not fare much better.

As Australia drifted north, its climate became drier and the rainforests began to retract. Rainforests that had once covered most of the eastern coast of Australia were reduced to the current minuscule cover by the beginning of the ice ages during the Pleistocene Period. As the continent became warmer and drier, the grasslands, eucalyptus forest and arid deserts that comprise most of Australia today began to dominate. Today only 3 percent of Australia’s forests can be classified as rainforests, a tiny amount when considering that much of Australia is not forested. However, continental drift actually helps support Daintree and other rainforests along Australia’s east coast. Australia has been drifting over a volcanic hotspot for the last 30 million years which has led to volcanos dotting much of the coast from Cairns all the way down to Victoria. Daintree and the other rainforests of the Wet Tropics can thank these ancient (mostly dormant) volcanoes for producing the nutrient-rich soil they depend on.

The early rainforests of Australia were spectacular. After the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic Era, mammals began to fill the empty ecological vacuum left by their former scaly overlords. In the early rainforests of Australia during the Cenozoic Era (65 - 2.6 million years ago), many of the earliest relatives of the marsupials we know today evolved as global mammal diversity exploded. Many of these species probably also inhabited the similar rainforests of Antarctica before it broke away.

Light filters through a rare opening in the dense canopy of the Daintree Rainforest.

The amazing biodiversity of these ancient rainforests is still around in a few pockets. New Guinea has a tremendous overlap of species in its rainforests due to the fall of sea level that has created a land bridge with Australia a few times over the last several million years. In Australia, the wet tropic rainforests of Queensland are the best spot to travel back in time and see what a large swath of Australia and Antarctica used to be like.

In the Daintree Rainforest, the world’s most primitive marsupials still hop, climb or scurry through the leaf litter, living relics from Australia’s tropical past. A perfect example of these living fossils are bandicoots, a rabbit-sized omnivorous marsupial with a pointy nose and large hind feet. They are a part of the more primitive order of marsupials, the Peramelemorphia order (today only consisting of bandicoots and bilbies). These were the dominant marsupials in Australia early on, but have seen their ecological importance retract with the rainforests. The arrival of rats from Southeast Asia was also detrimental to bandicoots. A few species of bandicoot still scurry throughout Daintree, but only 20 exist in Australia overall.

Queensland’s Wet Tropics are one of the last refuges in the world where rainforests have persisted since the time of Gondwana. Along with the ancient marsupials that hide out here in one of their last refuges, ancient plants from the Jurassic Period, like cycads and ferns, mingle with conifers and relatively modern flowering plants in the dense undergrowth competing for the rare ray of light that makes it to the forest floor. It truly is a land before time and offers a glimpse of how the earth used to look.

Daintree Rainforest and Its Amazing Biodiversity

The Daintree Rainforest, Australia’s largest remaining rainforest, is estimated to be around 180 million years old. However, it was only discovered by European explorers very recently. George Dalrymple first explored the region in 1873, naming the river he traveled down after the government geologist, and his boss, Richard Daintree. Of course, the area has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Kuku Yalanji people, but the Daintree name stuck and today the river and the surrounding rainforest still bear his name.

In addition to being the world’s oldest rainforest, Daintree is also one of the most important to science because of its high levels of biodiversity and opportunity for scientific breakthroughs as a time capsule of Gondwana rainforests. While roads were being built throughout the park in the 1970s, one of the most important scientific discoveries in Australian history happened when the so-called idiot fruit, Idiospermum australiense, was discovered in the rainforest. It is one of the world’s most primitive flowering plant and incredibly rare. It only occurs in the World Heritage-listed rainforests surrounding Daintree and is called the idiot fruit because of its idiosyncratic nature. It also has the largest single seed of any tree in Australia, which is similar in size to a human’s balled-up fist. Its re-discovery in 1970, when the last specimen had been found in 1902, highlighted North Queensland’s tropical rainforest as a treasure trove for scientific discovery.

In addition to its importance to science, UNESCO also lists these rainforests because of the amazing biodiversity they protect. These rainforests are home to 3,000 species of vascular plants, with 576 species being found nowhere else on earth. The Daintree Rainforest, in particular, is home to 30% of Australia’s frog species, 20% of Australia’s reptile, and 30% of the continent’s marsupial species. 65% of the country’s bat and butterfly species fly through the forest. Out of the 368 species of birds found in the region, 11 are found nowhere else. This is spectacular because the Wet Tropics of North Queensland covers only 0.2% of Australia. These forests are a bastion for endemic species conservation.

The diversity of species here is outstanding, but the species are also incredibly interesting. If you are traveling along and see a glint of iridescent blue flash in front of you, it is from the sun reflecting on the wings of the Ulysses butterfly. It is one of the most beautiful creatures to watch as it erratically flies through the dense undergrowth of the forest.

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A Lumholtz’s tree kangaroo using its meter-long tail to help it climb a tree.

Although one is unlikely to cross paths with a tree kangaroo, the Wet Tropics are home to two species of them, the Lumholtz’s and the Bennett’s tree kangaroos. Unlike their iconic relatives that bound across the outback, these kangaroos prefer to spend most of their time in trees, bouncing from tree top to tree top, in pursuit of fruit to eat. The 13 species of tree kangaroos decided to diverge from their macropod relatives (kangaroos and wallabies) and return to the trees where they first evolved from many millions of years ago in forests like Daintree. They are an interesting example of continuing evolution as they re-adapt to life in the trees: their legs are becoming shorter and their forearms are becoming stronger for all the climbing they have to do. These two species of tree kangaroos are the largest tree-dwelling mammals in Australia.

Several interesting species of reptiles live in the Daintree Rainforests. Australia’s largest snake, the Amethystine Python (aka the scrub python), uses heat-sensing pits in its head to hunt down its prey throughout the rainforests. It can grow up to 25 feet long and in the right light, its scales will give off a similar hue to the purple amethyst gem. The curious snake occasionally ventures out of the rainforest and into suburban homes. Racing through the forest floor is the Boyd’s forest dragon, a medium-sized lizard that usually has a large yellow blotch behind its eye as a striking contrast against their brownish-green body. Unlike most other lizards, they do not bask. Their body temperature instead fluctuates with the air temperature. This means the lizards are only active during the day and are quite cryptic due to their camouflage.

Boyd’s forest dragon

In addition to bandicoots, several other primitive marsupials exist in the rainforest trying to avoid scrub pythons. In the trees, the common striped possum uses its extended fourth finger to dig grubs out of bark. On the ground, swamp wallabies hop around, content with their decision to stay terrestrial as the tree kangaroos crash through leaves high in the trees. The most primitive and smallest species of the macropod family also exists in these ancient rainforests. The musky rat kangaroo searches the rainforest floor for fruit and insects and hops around like its much larger descendants. As the name suggests, it is a similar size to a rat. The spectacled flying-fox is one of the Wet Tropics most recognizable non-marsupial mammals. They have a light patch of fur around their eyes that gives them their namesake “spectacles” (read more about the dangerous climate facing Australia’s flying foxes here).

A swamp wallaby munches on a piece of sweet potato at a wallaby rehabilitation center in the rainforest. Being able to hand-feed wallabies sweet potatoes is as great as it sounds.

The two most interesting species in the Daintree Rainforest and Wet Tropics as a whole were the two most iconic and dangerous species in the jungle. Lurking throughout the Daintree River and other waterways are saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus), the largest and most widespread species of crocodile in the world. In Northern Queensland, swimming in any open waterway carries a deadly risk as the saltwater crocodile can tolerate both fresh and saltwater and has one of the strongest bites on the planet. They can grow up to 20 feet and eat anything foolish enough to get near the water’s edge.

Crocodiles have been existing in rainforests like these for tens of millions of years. But the amount of crocodiles in the Daintree River got dangerously low in the early 1970s as the tremendous animals were hunted for their hides. In 1974, legislation was passed to protect them and today the population has rebounded to a respectable 70 estimated adults in the Daintree River. Spotting crocodiles on boat cruises throughout the river is a big tourist draw. When I went, I was lucky enough to spot three crocodiles, including one juvenile, one adult female and one huge adult male close to 20 feet named Scarface because of a large scar over his mouth. I would not want to see what the crocodile that did that to him looks like now.

Above: a juvenile, an adult female and an adult male (“scarface”) saltwater crocodile

The other iconic creature in this area is one of the most spectacular birds in the world (it does adorn this site’s homepage). It looks like Big Bird with a bright blue head, black feathers and legs that belong to a large predatory dinosaur. The Southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is one of the world’s largest birds, weighing easily over a hundred pounds and standing 6 feet tall. Although it eats fruit (including those with seeds laced with cyanide that the bird can pass through its system without being poisoned), it has a nasty reputation as the world’s most dangerous bird, thanks to its aggressive and territorial nature and a deadly inner nail (on their middle toe) which can slice someone open just like a dagger. A few days before we visited Daintree, a Florida man had been killed by a cassowary after he was kicked by the large bird. This was the first confirmed cassowary kill since 1926, although attacks seem to happen at least once every year. This tragedy seemed to have the macabre effect of making us want to see a cassowary even more than we already did. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), the deadly birds are very reclusive in the wild.

A southern cassowary poses for the camera at the Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary in New South Wales. Their crests are made out of keratin, the same material our fingernails are made of.

Cassowaries, which also live in rainforests in New Guinea, are very ecologically important to the wet tropics. Because they eat fruit, they pass the seeds throughout the forest after it passes through their system. Unfortunately, cassowaries are endangered throughout their range. The World Heritage site offers some safe haven but the magnificent birds are still struck by vehicles as they try to cross the road. In 2014, there were estimated to be only 4,000 cassowaries in the entire Wet Tropics region and their population is decreasing according to the IUCN.

A poignant edit someone made on one of the signs along the main drag through Daintree National Park.

Threats to Daintree and the Wet Tropics

UNESCO estimates that roughly 80% of the Wet Tropics rainforest is still intact since the arrival of Europeans, which is extremely great compared to other swaths of tropical forests around the world. Its distinction as a World Heritage site, as well as efforts by the Australian and Queensland governments to ban logging in 1987, have helped the forest remain pristine over the past few decades. However, much of the lowland forests around the protected rainforests have been cleared, leading to rainforest fragmentation. Human disturbances, such as roads and abandoned mine shafts, throughout the rainforest still affect the natural environments.

A truck drives through a river in the Daintree Rainforest.

Another threat toward the unique wildlife of the Wet Tropics is the continued existence of invasive species, like feral pigs and cats, that threaten ecological roles by outcompeting or hunting native animals. Most of these animals are not equipped to face these strange animals from other parts of the world.

Of course, as with every other inch of our remarkable planet, climate change will threaten the existence of this tremendous pocket of Gondwanian rainforest. As the temperatures continue to warm, UNESCO predicts that the rainforest size will shrink and the range of suitable habitats for every animal in the rainforest will likewise retract. Although climate change may seem overwhelming at times, a huge part of the solution is forests like the Wet Tropics because trees can act as a carbon sink. They are able to absorb the harmful atmospheric CO2 from the air and recycle it into safer, less harmful gases. Planting more trees, as well as protecting the forests we have left, will be key to curbing the effects of climate change. Several deforested areas around the Daintree National Park have been replanted with trees to protect the forest’s integrity, take carbon out of the atmosphere and offer habitats to threatened species of animals. The survival of unique and incredible rainforests like Daintree and the Wet Tropics are not only vital for the animals that live there, but also for our survival on this planet.

The stunning view of the mouth of the Daintree River from Mount Alexandra lookout.

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At Cape Tribulation Beach, you literally stumble right out of the rainforest onto one of the most pristine, and dangerous, beaches in the world.

Four scoops of Daintree ice cream (clockwise from top): mango, wattle seed and Davidson plum with banana on the bottom.

Me taking a dip in one of the crocodile-free swimming creeks in the Daintree Rainforest.

Three Things You Must Do When At Daintree Rainforest

1. Definitely head to the amazing views at Cape Tribulation. The area was named by legendary explorer James Cook after his ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, which is right off the coast from Daintree, in 1770. Today it offers the spectacular combination of intact rainforest and pristine beach, although be wary of swimming. Saltwater crocodiles and box jellyfish make this one of the most dangerous beaches in the world.

2. Stop at the Daintree Ice Cream Company. Well worth it for anyone who likes ice cream (who doesn’t like ice cream?), the Daintree Ice Cream Co. offers four unique flavors every day from their tropical fruit orchards. When I was there, the flavors were wattle seed (creamy, coffee-like flavor), Davidson plum (the best one in my opinion, very fruity), mango and banana. When is the next time you’ll have wattle seed ice cream?

3. Take a dip in one of the swimming holes throughout the park. There is definitely nothing like hopping in a natural creek in the middle of a rainforest, especially on a nice warm day. The cool, clear water is full of tiny fish that will swim up and examine you. Before jumping in, it would be a good call to check to make sure there are no crocodiles in that particular swimming hole. That would be a tough way to end your trip to Daintree!

All photographs and art done by Jack Tamisiea.

Sources:

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/486/

https://www.discoverthedaintree.com/daintree-rainforest-6/

https://www.livescience.com/37285-gondwana.html

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2017/07/the-idiot-fruit-tree/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tree-kangaroo

http://www.destinationdaintree.com/the-daintree/wildlife/mammals

https://daintreerainforesttour.com.au/blog/the-salt-water-crocodiles-of-the-daintree-rainforest/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/14/florida-cassowary-attack-man-dies-after-encounter-with-worlds-deadliest-bird/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.63c5e78cb73d

https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22678108/131902050

Phillip Island: A Remarkable Destination Thanks to a Remarkable Conservation Triumph

A swamp wallaby bounces around at sunset on Phillip’s Island.

Phillip Island, off the south coast of Victoria, Australia, is a destination known for its natural wonders, ranging from a nightly parade of tiny penguins on the beaches to an abundance of koalas and wallabies. Some crucial wildlife conservation efforts saved these natural wonders for years to come.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to take a tour of Phillip Island, a popular day trip from Melbourne, nestled just off Australia’s southern coast. The island is famous to both nature lovers and motor bike enthusiasts alike, due to the island’s wonderful and abundant wildlife and the yearly motor bike race at the Phillip Island Grand Prix racetrack. Both of these help draw immense crowds to the island. Most are only visitors. The island is only home to a little more than 7,000 people, but it used to house a much larger population.

Besides the big race every year, Phillip Island’s biggest draw is the nightly “penguin parade” of tiny blue penguins (the smallest penguin species in the world) out of the water and up a hill to their nests at Summerland Beach. It is an extremely bankable event for tourists as hundreds of penguins come out of the Southern Ocean every night causing thousands of people to show up and pack the stands along the beach, like spectators to some sporting event of tiny penguins waddling across the beach as fast as their tiny legs can waddle. They move faster than you would think, though the occasional spill reminds you that they are adapted for the water.

The little penguin colony here on the northern end of Phillip Island may be the largest in the world at an estimated 32,000 total with at least 5,000 nesting on or near Summerland Beach. It would be drastically reduced if the Summerland Peninsula was still home to hundreds of people, like it was for much of the 20th century.

The peninsula was initially divided into 776 residential lots in 1927 and had almost 200 homes constructed at one point in a community known as Summerland Estate. Although the people living there did not directly aim to kill penguins, their mere existence gravely threatened the colony. Cars would strike penguins as they tried to make it to their nests, cats and dogs would kill the penguins, and the hundreds of homes going up took away valuable penguin nesting habitat.

But today on the north end of Phillip Island there is almost no evidence that a large human community ever lived there, except for one old street sign jaggedly sticking from wild grass and the slight outlines of lower levels of vegetation where roads once existed. Swamp wallabies and large Cape Barren geese graze throughout the old settlement, sometimes bounding or waddling across the only remaining road to find a better patch. The large tract of land, which is now run by the Phillip Island Nature Park, looks about as wild as it probably ever did, thanks to an ambitious re-wilding attempt by the Victorian government.

A swamp wallaby hanging out where Summerland Estate, a large housing complex, used to exist on Phillip Island.

In 1985, the government began to buy back the property owned throughout the peninsula. The final property was not purchased until 2010, at which point an intensive habitat restoration effort was undertaken and the Summerland Peninsula Master Plan, which seeks to promote tourism on that part of the island while still protecting it, was formed. The homes were removed, the roads taken out, and all the signs, save the one, taken down. All of this was done to insure that the incredible and profitable penguin colony survived, which during the height of the Summerland Estate, was estimated to have been decimated by 1997 if things did not change.

This is an unprecedented move by the Victorian Government to purchase an entire town for conservation purposes. And it has paid off, for both the penguins and the government (but not so much for the area’s ousted residents who met the move with the scorn you would expect when someone’s beachside community is taken away from them). The government used 10.5 million Australian dollars to buy back all the houses. The “penguin parade” is estimated to bring in an estimated $498 million to the state’s economy each year!

A little penguin peeks out from his wooden nest at sunset.

Today instead of houses, tiny wooden man-made penguin burrows dot the hillsides of what once was Summerland Estate. The little penguins were not the only species saved as the endangered eastern barred bandicoot has also been released in the park. Additionally, one species was kicked off the island along with the settlers of Summerland Estate. Foxes have been successfully eradicated on the island and no longer feed on the penguins as they shuffle to their nests.

The “penguin parade” truly is a magical site to witness as the little penguins dart out of the water in varying group sizes. At first you can only see their white bellies bobbing up and down as they frantically make their way up the beach (they come out at night to avoid hawks and move as quickly as they can to avoid the occasional hawk out for a late night snack). Once off the beach, the group splits up and each penguin goes its separate way to its nest. There are lighted boardwalks that go all the way up the hill so visitors can walk besides the penguins as they trudge on up the hill. If a penguin has a nest on the top of the hill, they’ll have to hop over a small curb, a task as difficult as us trying to jump half our body height with virtually no knees. To my relief, the penguin I saw attempt the jump got it on his first try.

The little blue penguins parading up the beach may be the most unique thing you’ll see on Phillip Island, but there is plenty else to see. I started off my trip with a visit to the Cape Woolamai beach, another protected area, and watched the surfers shred the waves on a perfect day. Cuttlebones from cuttlefish, an internal shell-like structure that helps the cuttlefish stay afloat, dotted the beach like arrowheads after an ancient battle.

Me holding a cuttlebone from a cuttlefish. Some were the size of my hand and must have been from some frighteningly large cephalopods.

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Above: Some of the sights along Woolamai Beach.

After the beach, I stopped at the Koala Reserve, to see the only animal on Phillip Island (sorry wallabies) capable of challenging the little penguins for the island’s cutest animal. The reserve has two large outdoor areas that are almost entirely wilderness, save for two boardwalks that take visitors to the koala’s level. The koalas were not quite as plentiful as my trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, but it was a lot more like seeing them in the wild which made it all the more worthwhile. The best part was that a few of the notoriously languid koalas were awake, munching on eucalyptus leaves and lazily eyeing the visitors snapping pictures of them.

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Me snapping some of the pictures above at the Koala Reserve.

Another intriguing spot on Phillip Island for nature lovers is the board walk at the Nobbies, another protected area along the north end of the island that offers exquisite views of the rugged Southern Ocean coastline. Just off the coast is Seal Rock which contains Australia’s largest fur seal colony (the seals are unfortunately out of view). While working your way along the boardwalks that wind along the cliffs, keep your eyes out for little penguins scurrying under the boardwalk or peeking out from their wooden nests. I also saw a copperhead snake lying in the grass just off the boardwalk, and several wallabies mulling about, as seems to be the case everywhere on Phillip Island.

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Above: Some scenes from the Nobbies at sunset including some striking scenery and rock formations, a posing wallaby and a copperhead snake.

Phillip Island is incredible thanks to an ambitious conservation effort that exhibits one of the best habitat restoration efforts in the world. The “penguin parade” is as neat as it sounds (no photography is allowed but check out some incredible pictures here) and I was there on a relatively quiet day with only 200-300 penguins coming ashore. It was awesome to see koalas, pristine and rugged coastlines, and hundreds of tiny penguins all on one incredible island.

All pictures taken by Jack Tamisiea

Sources:

https://www.penguins.org.au/conservation/conservation/conservation-programs/habitat-rehabilitation/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-08/phillip-island-when-penguins-won-and-land-owners-lost/9464698