Melanie Massaro
SHARING HER PASSION FOR SEA BIRDS ON LORD HOWE ISLAND, N SW
AFASCINATION WITH seabirds has seen Melanie Massaro travel the world. An Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, where she teaches courses in ornithology, conservation and ecology, she has been studying birds since her early twenties, when she completed an undergraduate degree in Germany. She then moved to Newfoundland, Canada, where she completed her Masters of Science. During her studies there she was invited to visit Antarctica in 1998.
“It was really the diversity and abundance of seabirds in the Southern Hemisphere that led me to enrol in a
PhD program at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand,” Melanie says. “For my doctoral research I studied yellow-eyed and Snares penguins.”
During her years as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Canterbury, NZ, she also worked in Antarctica for 12 austral summer seasons, including five seasons as a researcher studying Adélie penguins on Ross Island.
“After living in New Zealand for almost 13 years, I moved to Australia in 2013 to take up an academic position at Charles Sturt University. At the moment, I lead research projects in the Northern Territory and on Lord Howe Island, where I’m studying the Lord
Howe currawong.”
Melanie’s research is far ranging, covering the icy antics of Adélie penguins in
Antarctica, nest predation rates and identification of predators at songbird nests in Tassie woodlands, and the impacts of feral cattle, water buffalo and pigs on the savannahs, wetlands and biota of northern Australia.
You can join her on Lord Howe Island as part of the Australian Geographic Society’s Scientific Expedition, run annually and scheduled for
5–10 September 2022.
Lord Howe Island is a gem of the natural world. Its dramatic scenery, lush subtropical forests, rare flora and fauna, pristine beaches and colourful marine life are breathtaking and unique. Sir David Attenborough once wrote that Lord Howe is “so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable… Few islands, surely, can be so accessible, so remarkable, yet so unspoilt.”
Lord Howe is also relatively undiscovered. Vast areas of World Heritage wilderness are rarely visited or researched, and just like the Galapagos, Lord Howe is a hot spot for endemic species.
The 2022 Australian Geographic Expedition is for citizen scientists to work with experts from Australian Geographic, including Melanie, and the Lord Howe Island Board. With dedicated support, people with a good level of fitness (able to walk 5km in 1.5 hours) and interest in science – you don’t need any scientific training – can help with important projects.
It’s an exciting time for conservation on Lord Howe. During the winter of 2019, a comprehensive rodent eradication project was completed, and while monitoring will continue for a few years, islanders and researchers alike are hopeful about a rodent-free future. Removal or reduction of rodents will have a significant impact on bird life, and this is the focus of the 2022 expedition. Over six days, we’ll survey the established Birdlife Atlas sites from North Bay to the summit of Mt Gower to help study populations of local and migratory birds. We’ll also do some marine life surveys with NSW Marine Parks, and some invertebrate surveys.