Veronika Wild

The Highlands Power Trail I hadn’t really planned on doing the Highlands Power Trail but I wanted to avoid the steep valley where my van gave up the ghost last year. Now, belatedly looking at the brochure, it seems I did most of it anyway. Apart from the fact that the C 178 was unsealed and narrow and there was always the risk of meeting a fast moving ute flying around a blind corner, it was a lot more interesting than the A5. This was obviously where most of the action was before the main road came through. Farmsteads with freshly -shorn lambs clung to hillsides, elder trees with frothy flat flowerheads lined the banks of the Shannon River and puffy clouds drifted overhead. It looked altogether more lived in than most parts of the A5.  I shouldn’t complain about the road. Had it not been for the Hydro Electric Commission, most of Tasmania’s roads would still look like this and many parts - especially in the West, would still be inaccessible.  Waddamana -where Tasmania's fir...

Vulnerable - Tasmania's Masked Owl   -Image - JJ Harrison  per wiki under CC.3 Since writing about raptors a couple of weeks ago, I have talked to wildlife expert and consultant Nick Mooney, who has had fifty years of experience with Tasmania’s native species focusing on birds of prey or raptors. The good news he said, was that the large raptors such as the Wedge – tailed Eagle and the White-bellied Sea-eagle do seem to be holding their own, possibly even increasing in areas where devils have drastically declined, thus freeing up much carrion. Changes in attitude and laws leading to decreased persecution have also helped. Sea-eagles may have also benefited from the many new artificial lakes and ponds.  However, he warns, this could change rapidly if the thirteen wind farms proposed for Tasmania go ahead, together with all the supporting power lines and infrastructure. As the Spanish example with regard to Bonelli’s Eagle has shown, detailed survey...