By Damian Bathersby

Anyone who’s ever had teenagers will sympathise with the big cat supervisors at Australia Zoo.

They’ve got three young Bengal tigers on their hands and while they may have officially turned one on Friday, they have all the behavioural attributes of any teenage human.

“They’re not adults and not really cubs ... to us they are like naughty teenagers,” big cat section supervisor Giles Clark said.

“They know the rules and boundaries but push them anyway to see if they can get away with it.
“It’s a crucial age for them because they are learning their limitations – how far they can push each other, how far they can push their handlers and how far they can push the adult tigers.”

Sound familiar?

The big difference between them and most one-year-olds is that Charlie, Mika and Sunita weigh in at about 90kg.

It’s not surprising, considering they each eat more than 3kg of raw meat a day.
“They pack away as much as the adult tigers as they are still growing at a phenomenal rate and are much more active than the adult tigers,” Giles said.

And while the trio might look and act like over-sized kittens, their handlers can never afford to think of them that way.

“They are incredibly big and incredibly powerful and ultimately they are still wild animals.
“They are nothing like Tiddles at home and we have to treat them with the utmost respect.
“They weigh more than some of their handlers; are very powerful and have very big teeth and claws ... I would never compare them to a family pet cat.”

But every youngster loves a birthday and the trio celebrated on Friday with “cakes” made of meat, blood and jelly.

They also enjoyed generous squirts of their favourite treat – canned whipped cream.

By Glenis Green

Belted by a car and hauled 12km, but this lucky koala dodges death

He’s got to be the luckiest koala in Queensland- not only surviving a hit by a car travelling at 100km/h, but also a harrowing, fur-raising 12km ride with his head stuck in the vehicle’s front grille.

So it’s no wonder the staff at the Australian Wildlife Hospital at Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast have dubbed the 8-year-old marsupial Ely "Lucky" Grills, after the late Australian television actor with the same name.

Astonishingly, little Lucky suffered no serious injuries in the unusual car versus koala clash.

This was even though initial rescuers who saw him stuck to the car and alerted the unsuspecting driver believed he had been decapitated.

It turned out the koala's body was dangling from the front of the car, but his head and left arm had been forced through the grille with the force of 100km/h impact.

Zoo staff yesterday said the accident had happened on Dayboro Rd near the Petrie Quarry on twilight last week.
The driver was unaware of her unusual hitchhiker until she stopped 12km away at Petrie Railway Station.

An urgent call was made to the Caboolture Koala Care and Rescue group, with member Rhonda Hay undertaking the delicate job using scissors as the "jaws of life" to cut around the car's grille mesh to release the animal.

Lucky was able to sit up and eat after two hours in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Hospital manager Gail Gipp said the koala's story underlined the need for drivers to always be alert for wildlife on roads and to be prepared to stop and seek help in the case of an accident.

"Koalas are more likely to be on the move over the  next few weeks coinciding with the onset of the koala breeding season," she said.

"We ask drivers to exercise particular caution when travelling in koala habitat areas."

Ms Gipp said that because koalas were bumper-bar height, they were vulnerable to suffering severe injuries from even the slightest car hit, highlighting how fortunate Lucky was to survive unscathed.

In keeping with his new name, the hospital's veterinary team discovered Lucky was also suffering an underlying chlamydial infection, for which he is now receiving treatment. He should be released back into the wild in 45 days.

Ms Gipp said nearly a quarter of the hospital's 5000-plus admissions last year were animals that had been hit by cars.

By Glenis Green

By Sam Benger

It’s a tough gig being a kids’ TV host. You have to watch cartoons, go to fun places, meet interesting people and have hundreds of adoring ankle-biter fans following your every move. But the crew from Saturday Disney have managed to take it all in their stride this week as they film on location at Australia Zoo.

Presenters Jack Yabsley, Sally Scanton and Shae Brewster put on a brave face when they met Bengal Tigers, American Alligators and Asia Elephants.

And the bubbly trio, who have also travelled to Disneyland and New Zealand for the show, will continue to shoot segments for the show, to be screened on Channel 7 on July 5, this week, with more up close and personal encounters with some of the zoo’s inhabitants.

“It’s awesome that we get to hang out and play with animals at work," Sally said.

“But it can get a bit full on, like the time I had to have a spider crawl up my arm, or the time we went to a reptile park in NSW and I had to walk round a pond with 40 alligators in it.”

By Glenis Green

Irwin scientists find rare springs on proposed mine site

Terri Irwin has vowed to “fight to the end” to stop mining in the Cape York wilderness area dedicated last year to her late wildlife warrior husband Steve Irwin.

The Australia Zoo director said yesterday there could be no compromise which would allow mining within the 135,000ha Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve because even the removal of a small section of bauxite would affect the site’s delicate ecology.

Instead Ms Irwin said she was drawing up a world-class management plan for the reserve which would not only see the area preserved as a conservation property but also become a focus of international wildlife study, the arts and medical research.

Calling her fight Save Steve’s Place, Ms Irwin has begun an email campaign (sign the petition) to garner international support against mining plans.

The Federal Government bought the land for $6.3 million to be owned and managed by the Irwin family trust. But mining company Cape Alumina Pty Ltd has applied to remove more than 50 million tones of bauxite over 10 years from within 12,300ha of the reserve.

Ms Irwin said perched springs, a special type of underground water supply, had been discovered on the site.

"One wetland ecologist has spent his entire career searching for perched springs in the Cape and didn’t find any and we have found five so far (in the area) which has been earmarked for mining," she said.Both Cape Alumina and Australia Zoo have commissioned environmental impact studies.

Cape Alumina chief executive officer Paul Messenger said it was premature to take any action against his company’s mining proposals as its environmental study was not due for completion until next year.

"There’s been a lot of emotion in the last day or so,” he said. It’s too early, too premature to comment when the EIS is not even prepared yet."

By Glenis Green

Irwin's widow fights company over plans for wildlife reserve

A Key crocodile research area dedicated to the memory of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin is under threat from strip-mining.

The 135,000ha Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve on Queensland Cape York Peninsula was one of the last places visited by Irwin for his annual crocodile tagging expedition only weeks before he was fatally wounded by a stingray barb in September 2006.

It was bought for $6.3 million last year by the Federal Government to be owned and managed by the Irwin family trust. However, mining company Cape Alumina has lodged mining lease applications targeting more than 50 million tonnes of bauxite within 12,300ha of the reserve.

Terri Irwin, Australia Zoo principal and widow of the wildlife icon, said the reserve’s ecological value was irreplaceable and needed to be preserved in order to protect Australian habitat.

Ms Irwin said it was home to three important spring-fed wetlands that provided a critical water source to threatened, a permanent flow of water to the Wenlock river, and were home to rare and vulnerable plants and wildlife.

The proposed area for mining on the reserve contained the headwaters of irreplaceable waterways and unique bio-diversity which would not recover after mining was finished, she said.

The Wenlock River also supported a critical population of endangered spear-tooth sharks, sawfish, and the now-vulnerable estuarine crocodile.

“I am a realist and I understand that mining is an important industry,” she said.

“However, we have learned over the past 50 years of bauxite mining that it is critical to set aside the most environmentally sensitive areas such as Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve and not consider mining them.

“Responsible mining companies are already doing this as part of developing carbon credit programs,”

Cape Alumina chief executive officer Paul Messenger said yesterday that he agreed areas of sensitivity needed to be preserved and there were no plans to mine any wetland, only dry bauxite, plateaus covered by common vegetation which would be consistently  rehabilitated.

He said his company has started a full environment impact study of the area last year, which would not be completed until next year, taking half of former Bertiehaugh  Pastoral Station within the reserve area, plus and adjoining section of Aboriginal land.

Mr Messenger said the company would be conducting extensive consultation and held the view that the project could benefit all stakeholders, especially the Aboriginal community.

Bindi Irwin continued to carve out her own niche in the Australian entertainment industry last night, picking up the gong for the best new female talent at the Logie Awards in Melbourne.

The nine-year-old daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin won the award for her ABC show Bindi: The Jungle Girl, beating talent such as Home and Away’s Charlotte Best and Neighbour’s Adelaide Kane.

It was one of seven Logies taken home by the public broadcaster, which was beaten by the Seven Network, with eight gongs, at a glittering ceremony in Melbourne’s Crown Entertainment Complex.

With her teary-eyed mum Terri standing close by on stage, an obviously excited Bindi dedicated the Logie to her late father.

“ This is so exciting- I can’t believe it,” she said.
“I’d like to thank the ABC for helping me get the conservation message out.
“I’d definitely like to dedicate this to my mum and my dad and would also like to thank everybody out there who helped by watching Bindi: The Jungle Girl.”

And with special mention to her manager John Stainton “who helped me all the way through”, she gave a squeal that would have done any nine-year-old girl proud and skipped of stage to thunderous applause, with beaming mum Terri in tow…

By Vanesa Salvia

When a whale is sighted from the bow of a modern whaling boat, gunners will shoot it with an explosive harpoon. If the detonation doesn’t kill the whale, a second harpoon or high-caliber rifle may fire the lethal shot, after which a pulley system will haul the animal aboard ship. The carcass will be weighed and measured. If female, its ovaries will be examined to obtain reproductive status and history. A plug of wax will be taken from the ear to determine its age. The intestinal contents—mostly small fish and krill—will be emptied and examined. The whale, probably a minke but possibly a fin whale or even an endangered humpback, will be flensed of skin, its blubber measured then cut away and hewn into thick white slabs. The pink, oily meat will end up in Japanese markets as sushi, canned in whale stew, added to pet food or deep-fried for distribution by government funded school lunch programs. International Whaling Commission (IWC) regulations require that whales killed for research be utilized after the data is obtained, but conservationists take a long, hard look at modern-day scientific whaling and call it commercial fishing in disguise. Supporters vow not to lose Japan’s centuries-old tradition of whaling, while Japanese officials attest that they must cull whales—from the same populations, in the same waters, year after year—to accurately set quotas for their harvests the following year. This irony of killing whales to justify more killing is not lost on native Eugenean Terri Irwin, the widow of “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin. She has recently pledged her support of Oregon State University marine mammal biology professor Bruce Mate and his plan to study whales without killing them.

Eugenean Terri Irwin teams with OSU in support of non-lethal whale research

B y Vanesa Salvia

She expected condolence mail related to Steve’s previous filming in Antarctica with OSU researchers. “For some reason I just opened it, and Bruce wrote the most interesting story,” Terri remembers. While in Antarctica, some of Steve’s prepaid boat time had not been used, and Mate was offered use of the boat. “Bruce was tagging humpbacks using Steve’s boat,” says Terri, and in gratitude he named one of the humpbacks “Steve.” As Terri remembers, “He contacted me to say it was the darndest thing, because Steve the Whale left Antarctica faster than any whale they’d ever tracked. We had a good laugh about that!” Terri later met with Mate at Newport’s Hatfield Marine Science Center. There he presented Terri with a plaque showing where and when Steve the Whale was tagged. “I looked at the plaque and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’” she says. “They tagged Steve the Whale on February 22, Steve’s birthday. I told him, ‘I think we were meant to work together.’” Mate’s past work had included the monitoring of whales in shipping channels, and urging shipping companies to alter their movements to avoid hitting whales. “I was so impressed that Bruce was not just doing valuable research for the sake of research, but was accomplishing something tangible,” Terri says. “I told him I really wanted to get involved.”

The science of conservation

One year ago, Terri purchased a whale-watching company on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. “We take visitors out five months out of the year to see the humpbacks when they’re migrating, so I thought this research would be the next step,” she says. It would also be a way to honour Steve’s passion for protecting whales, which he hadn’t been able to see to fruition. “There’s a real lack of knowledge in the Southern Hemisphere with what’s going on with the whales,” Terri says. “I was astounded, the more I learned, to find that we really don’t know anything.” Whalers argue that information gleaned from necropsies is useful in predicting how whale populations are growing, which helps establish the number of whales available for harvest. But “there are other ways of getting reproductive intervals besides ovary harvest,” says Mate, who has been studying various species since 1973. Long-term photo identification is very effective at linking females with their calves, he says, and at providing information on exact ages of specific individuals and mortality rates. Back in 1986, the IWC enacted a moratorium on whaling under scientific permit. Since then, only Japan, Norway and Iceland have defied the ban, and in recent years Norway has ceased. Japan’s quota for 2007-08 allows it to take as many as 935 Antarctic minke whales, as well as 50 fin whales and 50 humpback whales … although conservationists celebrated a small victory recently when Japan announced it would delay the humpback take until at least June 2008. “Populations are a far ways from being recovered enough for quota-based harvests,” says Mate, and whaling fleets notoriously flout laws. In January, for instance, a Japanese whaling ship was spotted from the air in protected New Zealand waters. “I think we need this global approach to encourage Japan—that by stopping whaling they can set a precedent and be heroes,” Terri Irwin says. “With all due respect to Japan, if I am to assume that they are doing bona fide research, it’s exciting to know that we have the means to do the research without killing whales.”

A whale of a plan

While admittedly done with an eye toward halting scientific whaling, the intent of the research being performed by Mate’s team is to gain information. “We don’t know where blue whales calve,” says Terri. “We don’t know how many humpback whales are migrating, and we don’t know [population] numbers on a lot of the whales. So finding out information about the whales is of first and foremost importance.” Terri is helping to underwrite a two year, $1.5-million whale-research project by Mate and his team. “Hopefully our relationship will just go from there,” she says. While exact details are still being ironed out, the plan will likely involve two studies per year in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres on humpback whales and other endangered species. The research will use minimally invasive high-tech science to link foraging and breeding areas, which has not been done before for most southern and many northern whale populations. “This allows us to determine what breeding stock is being influenced when whales are taken in a specific feeding area, such as the area that was proposed for humpback harvest this year,” Mate says. “This is very basic biology related to these populations.” Mapping critical whale habitats identifies which countries need to help with recovery efforts and what other risks whales may face, such as ship strikes, fishing gear entanglements or mineral extraction issues. “Terri and Steve have both made a big difference in many wildlife conservation issues,” says Mate. “They have been effective personally and publicly as voices for conservation, so the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University will benefit not only from their funds, but also from folks who will take Terri’s commitment to MMI as a serious endorsement of what we are doing for whales.” Funding shortages are always barriers to conservation oriented work, and Mate hopes that more “like-minded” folks who care about whales will also help support MMI’s other important work in contributing to enlightened management decisions.

The effort continues

The Irwin family honours the memory and passion of their husband and father through ongoing conservation and protection efforts. Nine-year-old Bindi has filmed 26 episodes of a wildlife documentary called “Bindi the Jungle Girl”; the first seven episodes include Steve. “After we lost Steve, Bindi was still keen to continue filming,” Terri says. “It’s really uplifting because we’ve got footage of Steve throughout the show.” Bindi recently filmed a video for kids on eating healthy, and she has put her stamp on Bindi Wear, an international clothing line with messages like “Extinct Stinks.” Four-year-old Robert appears in Bindi’s show and is a wildlife wrangler in the making. “He catches everything now—there’s not a lizard that is safe!” says Terri. She says she travels everywhere with the kids, and her parents and siblings still live in Eugene. As a result, the Irwin’s enjoy the Oregon Coast with the senior Raineses, and Terri’s sisters and nephews, a couple of times each year. “My children are very lucky to go back and forth from Australia to Eugene,” Terri says. “There’s no place like home, and I really enjoy the place I grew up.” Terri recently allowed The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to rename one of its boats the Steve Irwin. Director Paul Watson reels in miles of fishing line, and has pledged to disrupt whaling operations. “Steve always saw Paul as a bit of a hero and definitely a wildlife warrior,” says Terri. “I admire Paul because he stays within the law, he doesn’t harm anyone. He’s simply someone out there saying, ‘This must be stopped.’ “I’m very proud to be a part of that, and I get a kick out of headlines reading ‘Steve Irwin stops Japanese whaling vessel!’” she adds. “That’s pretty cool.” Vanessa Salvia is a contributing editor of Eugene Magazine. She lives with her family in Lowell.