A large number of black cockatoos end up living at a special rehab centre in Perth’s foothills.
As food becomes scarce they have taken to feeding from roadside bushes, then flying into the wind to get airborne.
Many are injured by flying into traffic.
Inkwire [read this story]
The Koori Mail
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
Police, the WA government and Aboriginal community organisations agree that night patrols are an essential service.
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Teams of trained Aboriginal workers drive through the streets of Perth and regional towns at night, stopping to speak to stranded countrymen who are often intoxicated or otherwise distressed.
They then offer them a lift home, or to emergency accommodation
In July 2013 the WA Aboriginal affairs minister ordered a review of the service, with a view to extending it.
Meanwhile the Commonwealth Attorney General, who part-funded the service in Broome and Perth, decided to cut funding for the patrols by 37 and 20 per cent respectively.
Midland Reporter and Kalamunda Reporter
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
A delegation of local councillors from Perth’s eastern suburbs copped a lot of flack over a European trip to learn about waste management. A team from one of the tabloid TV current affairs programs had shadowed them, portraying the trip as a “junket” in prime viewing time.
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As a former local government officer I had the feeling they were taking a cheap shot, so I attempted to find out just how much of the trip was leisure and how much was travel and work.
The trip’s organisers didn’t help the PR effort. When I requested an itinerary, the office took a whole day to send me a four-day-old media release. They also put a gag on the delegates, leaving the media free to interview their political enemies.
Luckily one of the delegates decided to break ranks and talk to me. A few months later he became Mayor of his city.
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
ALL IMAGES ARE (c) JUDY ROGERS
Earlier this year I wrote a catalogue essay for Judy Rogers’ exhibition STILL at the Melody Smith Gallery.
Science Network WA
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
THE World Wildlife Fund and Indigenous rangers have commenced a survey of three Kimberley rock wallaby species.
World Wildlife Fund ecologist Darren Grover says the animals’ habitats have not been surveyed for up to 10 years, and there are concerns about declining numbers in the wild.
Science Network [read this story]
This story was also republished in The Kimberley Echo on 11 July 2013.
The Western Review
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
This is a 1995 review of a show by Jon Denaro at Margaret River Galleries.
He has since held regular exhibitions and undertaken public art commissions on both sides of Australia.
Many of these are collaborations with his partner Bec Juniper.
From The Western Review July 1995.
Science Network WA
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Climate change could lead to sea turtles successfully breeding further south, a scientist says.
While instinct drives a mother turtle to lay her eggs at her own hatching place, cyclones sometimes take her a long way away when she is ready to lay.
She may have to make an emergency landing – and laying – on another beach when she is caught short.
Hotter summers are likely to make new beaches warm enough to incubate turtle eggs in future.
Dirk Hartog Island has the southernmost loggerhead turtle rookery.
Science Network [read this story]
This story was republished in The Northern Guardian on 13 November 2013.
Science Network WA
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
A sea snakes expert says species that used to be abundant at Ashmore Reef have not been seen for years.
Dr Vimoksalehi Lucoschek said the change has been one of the most marked declines of a large marine vertebrate ever recorded.
On her last trip to the reef she made an extensive search, finding just two species present.
Science Network [read this story]
An edited version of this story also appeared in The West Australian on Wednesday 6 November 2013
The Koori Mail
STORY BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Traditional owners of Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula are gearing up for a fight with a company proposing to quarry the land underlying the area’s renowned Aboriginal rock carvings.
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The peninsula in WA’s Pilbara region contains an estimated one million rock carvings, known as petroglyphs, with some dating back to the last ice age.
The Guardian has republished my Koori Mail story. Must be time to get interviewed by Andrew Bolt, or published in Quadrant.
Science Network WA
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
THE CSIRO has been monitoring air quality at Lake Argyle in the Kimberley, and in Darwin and Jabiru in the Northern Territory, for 10 years.
CSIRO’s Dr Ross Mitchell says the research began because it became clear that aerosol has an important but poorly understood effect on climate.
From Broome Advertiser
“What we’ve done is to provide the climate modellers with a very firm basis on which to build and test their models of how the fire regime and the subsequent emission of smoke aerosol can be realistically represented in the global climate models,” he says.
“The smoke that we are talking about comes from the seasonal burning of the tropical savannah.
“That includes the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the top two thirds of the Northern Territory, and adjacent areas of Queensland.”
Dr Mitchell says most of the fires are deliberately lit for land management, with the majority of the smoke generated during the late dry season between August and November.
This story first appeared in Science Network WA on Sunday 4 August 2013. You can read the rest of the article if you click here.
Broome Advertiser republished it on Thursday September 5 2013.