Clean Up Australia Day – tackling the unnatural disaster
Congratulations to Ian Kiernan on the 20th 'Clean Up Australia Day', with 7,084 sites registered in 2010. Congratulations also to Carmel Wallace for her stunning works (exhibited at 101 Collins Street, Melbourne) made from litter collected from the beach at Discovery Bay. [caption id="attachment_1107" align="aligncenter" width="492" caption="Carmel's 'colony' of rope collected on Discovery Bay beach"][/caption] During the 2008-09 year, the Victorian EPA issued 19,465 litter infringement notices, around 90% involving cigarette butts tossed from vehicles, earning a $234 fine. In March 2010, members of Transition Town Port Phillip collected and surveyed litter from St Kilda West Beach. Cigarette butts made ...
Bluebottles in the Bay – a sign of things to come?
The recent discovery of Bluebottle jellyfish on Portsea back beach and Bellarine front beach received a low key response in Melbourne mainstream media. Despite a fearful reputation that routinely causes closure of Queensland beaches, a web search revealed that the editors of 'Adelaide Now' seemed more interested. [caption id="attachment_1066" align="aligncenter" width="498" caption="Bluebottle pictured on Wollongong Beach by Fiona Wilkinson"][/caption] Also known as 'Stingers' and 'Portuguese Man o' War' (or Physalia physalis), these other-worldly creatures are an amazing partnership of four different co-existing organisms, each with a specialised function. Fiona Wilkinson's pic above shows the Bluebottle 'float' which can sit up to ...
Carmel Wallace: marine messenger
Artists like Carmel Wallace are rarer than a message in a bottle on the shoreline! Port Phillip EcoCentre was honoured to host Carmel as Artist-in-Residence in July 2008. In just 4 weeks she collected an extraordinary array of litter from beaches in the Bay and the Yarra Bank below Westgate Bridge; and assembled them into a beautiful, but scary, wall-hanging called 'An Octopus's Garden'. Carmel not only donated her time to create the work, She was happy to share her knowledge of the scourge of marine litter with EcoCentre visitors. 'An Octopus's Garden' has remained a ...
The one that got away!
Your average bi-valve spends most of its life partially buried in the seabed, waiting to filter fine particles of food from water currents. A pretty low-key existence, but it's a living. Whereas the predatory sand snail Polinices sordidus can go right over the top! They climb onto other molluscs to rasp a perfectly neat hole in the shell with their tongue, aided by a shell-dissolving secretion. Perhaps the victim's only chance is for the an even bigger predator to arrive on the scene? [caption id="attachment_1014" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="one perfectly drilled bi-valve and one lucky escape"][/caption] The two bi-valves and Sand Snail (aka ...
Wild Things
Bluebottles in the Bay – a sign of things to come?
The recent discovery of Bluebottle jellyfish on Portsea back beach and Bellarine...
The one that got away!
Your average bi-valve spends most of its life partially buried in the seabed, waiting...
Angel Wings – uniquely boring!
If you’re a very slow moving creature, finding a feed while avoiding being...
Read more posts from Wild Things
Education
Clean Up Australia Day – tackling the unnatural disaster
Congratulations to Ian Kiernan on the 20th ‘Clean Up Australia Day’,...
Blue-ringed Octopus – seashell surprise
Investigating our amazing coastal plants and animals is a cool way to spend summer....
Find a shore thing on a beach near you
Most Australians remember fun days at the beach: beating the heat, building sand...
Read more posts from Education
Advocacy
Carmel Wallace: marine messenger
Artists like Carmel Wallace are rarer than a message in a bottle on the shoreline! Port Phillip EcoCentre was honoured to host Carmel as Artist-in-Residence in July 2008. In just 4 weeks she collected an extraordinary array of litter from beaches in the Bay and the Yarra Bank below Westgate Bridge; and assembled them into a beautiful, but scary, wall-hanging... [Read more of this review]
Cigarette butts bad news for the Bay
Cigarettes have been marketed as glamorous for the girls and macho for blokes…. anyone happy to set something in their mouth on fire has got to be a ‘cool and can-do’ type! Unfortunately, due to choices many of these people make, hundreds of thousands of cigarette butts enter the Bay each year via stormwater drains; and some see no... [Read more of this review]
Read more posts from Advocacy
