Mount Diablo Group: "Travels in Tasmania"
Wednesday, September 10, 7 pm, Winslow Center, 2590 Pleasant Hill Road (at Taylor Boulevard), Pleasant Hill.
Tasmania is Australia's smallest state, and perhaps its wildest. An island, it is separated from "over there" (Victoria) by about 240 km of the Bass Strait. Fully one-quarter of Tasmania is designated as national park, and most of southwestern Tasmania is a World Heritage Area. In no other Australian state can one see so much wildlife so regularly and so easily. Unfortunately, many of these sightings are of roadkills; it has been estimated that several hundred thousand larger marsupials (mostly Bennett's wallabies, pademelons, and brushtail possums) are killed yearly on the state's roads, where speed limits are typically 100 km per hour even on the windiest mountain roads. In spite of Tasmania's reputation as "the wilderness state", large tracts of magnificent old-growth eucalyptus (yes, here it's a native plant, not a weed, and it includes the tallest flowering plants in the world) continue to be cut and chipped for export. Environmental battles are ongoing here.
A few years ago some students came to Merritt College Professor Ron Felzer, raving about their trip to Tasmania with its abundant wildlife and wild forests. Ron decided to head there for his next New Year holiday and found it all that the students had said. After a further two months of scouting, including all 19 of Tasmania's national parks, Ron taught a two-week field natural-history course on Tasmania over the 2006 - 2007 holidays.
At the Sep. 10 general meeting of the Mount Diablo Group, Ron will give a slide lecture of the highlights of the nature of Tasmania as well as the many "field nat" friends that he has made there. Tasmania has perhaps the highest density of field natural-history groups anywhere in the world. Their memberships include very active, involved, and "keen" observers and defenders of Tasmania's astounding natural legacy. From Ron's various "scouting" trips and his field course a year and a half ago, you will see scenes of southern beech forests, dolerite cliffs, and wild marsupials from such diverse parks and reserves as Mount Field, Freycinet, Maria Island, Douglas Apsley, Mount William, Narawntapu, Rocky Cape, and Cradle Mountain-Lake Saint Claire.
Ron has degrees in forest management and forest ecology, and has been teaching biology, forestry, and natural history at Merritt College since 1970. He retired from full-time classroom teaching in 2004, but continues to teach about two field natural history courses per year. Other recent courses have included New Zealand, Western Australia, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the North Woods of Minnesota, California State Parks, and Costa Rica. In preparation are field classes on the Peloponnese of Greece, Hokkaido in Japan, Lake Tahoe, the Selway River in Idaho, and Switzerland.
The Group's program is open to all. No reservations are necessary. For information, contact Ken Lavin at (925) 686-9393 or by email to ken_lavin -at- hotmail.com