My sixth and final week with CVA
focused on cassowary support projects along the Cassowary Coast in and near
Innisfail. We planted trees near a creek
on some farm land. This farm did have
some passion fruit vines. They looked
like grape vines until you see how big the fruits are. The vegetation around the creek is
fragmented, so we planted trees in the open sections. Some of the benefits to maintaining
vegetation around creeks include: lengthened safe passage for animals (like the
wildlife corridors); decreased land degradation and loss due to erosion
(important to the land owners); and improved water quality (agricultural runoff
into the creeks will reach the ocean and affect the Great Barrier Reef). We also spent a couple of days working at the
Innisfail Nursery – the birthplace of most of the trees used in regional revegetation projects.
During the week, we were on the
hunt for cassowaries. What is a
cassowary? It is a large, flightless,
prehistoric-looking bird. The Southern
Cassowary resides in the rainforests of Northern Queensland, and it is
endangered (probably less than 2000 left).
It is extremely important to the rainforest for its ability to disperse
large seeds. Cyclone Yasi threatened the
availability of fruits for the cassowary, so a program was established to
provide fruit for them for several months.
Volunteers would cut up high-quality fruit which was left at feeding
stations. The locations of these
stations were temporary in order to prevent the cassowaries from becoming
entirely dependent and encourage them to seek out their own native fruits as
well. The call of the cassowary is a
very low frequency “boom” – the lowest known bird call.
In the area, there are many signs
encouraging folks to be cass-o-wary.
This behavior is for the protection of both the cassowary and people. Drive slow and stay alert in cassowary
crossing areas. Don’t feed them, because
the wrong diet can hurt them. They have
a dagger-like claw on their powerful legs… so if you are confronted by a
cassowary (a male with his chicks can be aggressive), don’t run, back away
slowly, and try to put a solid object between you and the bird. Perhaps I should add them to my serious damage list.
We hit a few cassowary hotspots
around Innisfail, but we had no luck.
We did see some fresh prints in the sand at Etty Beach. I am going to try to visit some more hotspots
on my own, but given their low numbers, I think I would be pretty lucky to see
one.
We finished up the week with a
trip to the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway.
The Mamu rainforest is the homeland of the Ma:Mu Aboriginal people. They recognized six different seasons, each one focused
on particular foods and based on the signs that indicated it was time to
harvest them. The walkway was built under
environmentally sustainable manners with special care not to introduce invasive
species or diseases to this rainforest area.
It provides different perspectives of the rainforest, from the forest
floor to middle level to the canopy. The
middle level places you at the same height as epiphytes. This type has first caught my eye when I saw
it at the Botanical Building in Balboa Park (San Diego):
I learned more about the growth
of rainforest plants and trees. I had
noticed that many trees would have two different types of leaves: glossy, dark
green leaves and matte, light green leaves.
The light green leaves drooped and bunched together forming an
umbrella. It turns out that the drooping
leaves are the newest leaves. The sun
might be too strong for these leaves, so they start out with defensive
mechanisms until they can develop further.
The new leaves of other species may start out red for the same
reasons. Quite the opposite behavior
from the trees in New England, where a leaf turns red before it falls off the
tree.
I heard that scientists are
discovering new insects at Mamu every week. Perhaps these guys have not been officially
discovered yet?
Now that my time has ended with
CVA, I am on my own again. We’ll see
what the next adventure brings.
No comments:
Post a Comment