Field notes
We’re catching up with some of our sponsorship recipients so you can see how your contributions help conserve our natural history and keep alive the Aussie spirit of adventure.
THE AGS HAS wrapped up its first round of project sponsorship for 2017, with funds going to a host of amazing adventure, science, environment and community-based projects.Wildlife biologist Christina Zdenek and other University of Queensland researchers are aiming to radio-track up to 23 death adders for one full year to determine their movements at various Queensland urban-bush interfaces.The team expects this to help them better understand prime death-adder habitat in order to prioritise conservation management plans and reduce persecution of these reptiles. Early next year Patrick Spiers will join a team of eight mountaineers and sailors on an expedition to Cape Adare in East Antarctica. The team plans to reach the top of the unclimbed Mt Sabine (3621m), which lies in the Admiralty Range at the head of the Murray Glacier. During fieldwork in 2016, Espen Knutsen discovered numerous skeletal remains weathering out of Jurassic sandstones in the Geraldton area in Western Australia.With AGS support, Espen now hopes to excavate what may be a medium-sized tetrapod known as an ichthyosaur (a dolphin-like marine reptile), which would be a first from the Jurassic period for Australasia. Experts, including Dr Sally Amos, at the Universities of Tasmania and Melbourne are partnering with the Ottawa Health Research Institute to investigate a novel treatment strategy for Devil Facial Tumour Disease.The aim is to test whether oncolytic viruses – which selectively infect and destroy cancer cells – are able to infect and destroy the contagious cancer that is threatening the survival of the Tasmanian devil.