For over a year the NSW south coast has slowly cracked and dried.
A little over a week ago a neighbour and his friends tried to save native fish as they struggled to survive in a coastal lagoon that had gone so rank everything living in it was starting to die. A few days later it […]

[Read more →]

By James Woodford
SCIENTISTS have gained a glimpse into how the koala, one of the nation’s most loved creatures, may have acted tens of […]

[Read more →]

This week we had the spectacle of climate-denier-politicians Barney Joyce and Nicky Minchin (Nobel prize-winning scientists and philosophers that they aren’t) telling us everyone else with a doctorate and a brain is wrong and that they are right. Humans have nothing to do with climate change, they say. We actually don’t need to worry, our […]

[Read more →]

Exclusive footage of green turtle being released off Lord Howe Island by marine parks ranger, Sallyann Gudge 
After months in the care of humans, three precious green sea turtles are back in the hands of chance.
The three young reptiles were born last summer somewhere on an unknown beach in Queensland and were rescued, off course […]

[Read more →]

Photos and Story by JAMES WOODFORD
Entire populations of some of Lord Howe Island’s unique wildlife are to be herded and brought into captivity for their safety.
Cattle and chickens will be slaughtered or sent away. Even though the threat is negligible, dogs will be muzzled and children brought close. Then for 100 days a poison will […]

[Read more →]

By JAMES WOODFORD
Where do fish look when they are locked in an elevator together?
It is a question that will remain a mystery for a little longer, says the Sydney Catchment Authority’s senior environmental manager, Tony Paull.
Even so, elevator etiquette was a crucial consideration for the state’s first ‘fish lift’ which was officially opened yesterday by […]

[Read more →]

Pictures and Story by JAMES WOODFORD
Additional pictures at Stuart Cohen’s Flickr site and at Rick Stevens’ Flickr site
It is the mystery of the Montague Island “mouse” that shouldn’t be there.
The eighty-hectare nature reserve, nine kilometres off the NSW South Coast town of Narooma has suffered a feral mouse plague that has lasted for nearly 130 […]

[Read more →]

Dr Alistair Paterson is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Western Australia and in 2009 is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Copenhagen….Over the next few months as the world counts down to a crtical international climate change conference Real Dirt is hoping to run occasional news from Alistair.
The latest conference on […]

[Read more →]

By JAMES WOODFORD
Phil Watson says 9.50 am on January 12 will be a preview of the state’s sea level future.
Watson is the Team Leader of the Department of Environment and Climate Change’s Coastal Unit and for the first time has launched a program to document the flooding impacts of the highest tide visible during daylight […]

[Read more →]

  
Having just returned from Townsville I know it is a long way away and I certainly couldn’t imagine getting there on my own steam. That’s why I was surprised to see a note from the Australian Museum that some of the White Ibis researchers have colour banded in Sydney have turned up in far north […]

[Read more →]