A Rather Grand Day for Environment Lovers

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Issue no 38— April 2015
A Rather Grand Day for Environment Lovers
The above are only a few of the 900 – 1000 people who attended the Fossils day alongside
the BLSC on Sunday the 22nd February.
Dr Vicki Karalis President of the Sandringham Foreshore
Association, was the prime mover, and she was
supported on the day by far too many people to name.
The proceeds of gold coin donations are planned to be
put to a book on our fossils .
The keynote speaker was the well known environmentalist Tim Flannery, supported by Erich Fitzgerald of
Museum Victoria and John Buckeridge of RMIT.
Five lucky people won a raffle and got a copy of the
pamphlet shown here and also a fossil sharks tooth.
There is now international interest in protecting this
precious local heritage , and if any one doubts the
commitment of Baysiders to protecting their local
environment, that doubt was well demolished on
Sunday the 22nd.
The Fossil Event Speakers
John Buckeridge
Tim Flannery
Vicki Karalis
Erich Fitzgerald
The array of speakers was a rare get together
of environmental ‘talent,’
It was also nice to see a number of councillors
attending and a wrap up speech from our new
Mayor Cr Felicity Frederico .
The fossils identification hour was most
successful.
Page 2
Felicity Frederico
More on Fossils
Ross Wilkie (centre right) was astounded at the Beaumaris fossils discovery day on
February 22nd when he saw a mounted display of fossils he had collected decades ago.
The owner was none other than our own founding president, Bob Whiteway, who had
brought the small collection along for identification by fossil experts.
Ross, 65, has been collecting Beaumaris fossils for half a century and made the display
for the owners of Keefers jetty, kiosk and boat hire in 1993. Keefers' big boatshed had
burned down in 1984 but a smaller operation ran until about 15 years ago.
"I just saw this bloke [Bob] sitting there with it and said, that's the board I made 20
years ago! I never knew what happened to it."
Ross believes he has the largest private collection of Beaumaris fossils, including 600
shark teeth (including parts of megalodon teeth) and lots of whale bone. He has donated
many items to the Melbourne Museum but there's one he won't part with until he has
shuffled off this mortal coil.
"I've got a very large sperm whale tooth which I am bequeathing to the museum. I just
can't part with it yet."
Ross lives in Tooradin, where he runs the Old Jetty Cafe.
(This story and image from our member and good friend on the Melbourne Bayside newspaper, Teresa Murphy)
Page 3
Eclectic
Just to prove that where there is a will there is a way, a young ocean scientist, and part
time PV ranger Amelia Travers, is sailing to the Falklands ( Malvinas) from the tip of South
America as an on-board scientist as you read this.
Her blog may be of interest to those with a passion for faraway places you are unlikely to
ever go, or just for the interesting science she is attempting to do, measure plastic pollution in the South Atlantic.
Either way her blog is a great read http://gisandjournalism.weebly.com/blog/archives/032015. Its great what our young people can do these days.
And here a link to great project video on water pollution by school children from
Warrnambool. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=350995768445030
Above we had two tables at the coffee shop,
‘apre dive’ to celebrate Terry’s Birthday. A
muffin, cut 15 ways, served as a cake.
Above, found under a rock near the Tea
House Reef. The Museum says it’s a species
of Tethya a golf ball sponge.
Here, a locally rare seahorse found near the jetty of the BMYS. From Peter Dedrick
Issue no 38— April 2015
Page 4
This and that
This sign, which is inside
the Tea house, is becoming historic. The Tea House
was rebuilt fire in 1985,
now 30 years ago! No
doubt seems like yesterday to some of us.
If anyone knows of any
other ‘ageing’ signs of
local foreshore and marine
interest, the editor would
like to know and record
them for posterity.
We were pleased to be able to mount an extra beach cleanup under the banner of the 25th
anniversary of Clean up Australia day.
Despite this extra Half Moon Bay clean
up on our Ricketts Point calendar, and
being on a Sunday, we were pleased to
see 25 people arrive to help. As you can
see we found a great deal of rubbish,
most of it being distributed it in the
saltbush surrounds of the foreshore. The
beaches themselves were very clean.
Issue no 38— April 2015
Page 5
Citizen Science
(Above) There is a sea star wasting disease that has been recently observed in
Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park.
It begins as shown above with a
bleached lesion, and then proceeds to
spread rotting the surrounding flesh. If
you see such, then please get an image,
location time , depth etc , and immediately let Emily Verey of Parks Vic know.
Email Emily
[email protected] . It may
also help to let the editor know and we
can mount a further search.
And here is a rare bit of footage from Kim
Wrights Flikr page that has a 30 second youtube track of a ribbon worm emerging from the
sand on Sandringham beach.
Citizen Science (2)
Our UW photographers simply get
better and better. This wonderful
image of a Skeleton Shrimp was taken
by Phil Watson on Wednesday the
25th February at Rickets Point
With many of our divers now using
special lighting and macro lenses, we
can expect more such wonderful
images in the future.
This creature can be sized against the
Codium fragilis frond in front of it
(about 0.5 cms in diameter).
And below another wonderful image of
Phil’s, a nudibranch known as
Ercolanie.
From Mark Rodrigue of Parks Victoria. “There was a large Leatherback Turtle seen Monday 2nd March at Point Nepean in the Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park.
Hopefully all boat operators are keeping a sharp eye out for this magnificent animal”.
If anyone out there shares
our fascination with the
local nudibranchs, let me
know and if there is
enough interest we can do
a full page on them in the
next issue.
And right a lovely Waratah anemone seen beside the
Tea House Reef on March 14th. [Actinia tenebrosa]
EDITORS NOTE
Marine Care
MCRP Business Address
PO Box 7356 Beaumaris 3193
Editor: Ray Lewis
[email protected]
Find out more about MCRP.
You r b u sin ess t ag lin h ere .
Go to our website .
www.marinecare.org.au
Beth Jensen advises that our Clean Up Australia
Day beach clean at Half Moon Bay resulted as
follows: Twenty four people collected 61 kg of litter
totalling 17 shopping bags. Our most frequent items
were cigarette butts, plastic fragments, aluminium
cans and glass bottles. We will input this data not
only to the Beach Patrol Australia website, but also
to the Clean Up Australia team, to add it to their official clean-up details.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that in the
years ahead, as we learn to ‘see’ the miniature life
in the Sanctuary, we will be featuring many more
wonderful images, [like those on the previous
page]. Tour locally developing skills have led to an
upcoming MCRP Photographic Exhibition as part of
MESAC’s National Science Week events in August
Left a very nice underwater scene from Kim
Wright. It illustrates too, the richness of our
alga these days. A far cry from the pre
sanctuary days.
Below, even toadies can be beautiful
Image Susan Carden
Download a PDF copy of the latest local
fossils booklet. http://
www.marinecare.org.au/images/
Fossils_of_Beaumaris_Feb_2015.pdf
…. Next issue likely June 2015