Weed Wanderings Ezine Feature

Hello!

Just a short note today saying thank you to Justine Smythe for featuring my site in Susun's Weed Wanderings ezine for June! You can go have a look at the ezine by clicking here .

Bye!
Ceilidh


Little Devils Day - 30 May 2008

Hi everyone!

Friday 30 May was "Little Devils Day" at my school! It was a really great day and all the kids loved it! Dr Steve Smith came and gave three presentations: one to Grades 4-7, one to Grades 2 and 3, and one to Grades Prep to 1. We saw a video on devils, and then Dr Smith did a PowerPoint presentation on what's happening with the disease and what we can do to help.

     


The Preps did a poster on what they learned about devils, and also including pictures of what they thought a devil looked like!

  


We raised nearly $300 for the Foundation.

I'm working with a student in Idaho who wants to have the day in her school and I'm also speaking to the principals of a couple of other neighbourhood schools to see if they'd like to have the day.

If you'd like to have a Little Devils Day at your school, you can register your interest by using the form at my site. There is a powerpoint presentation you can download to show your principal too on the What you can do to help page - as well as fact sheets on devils and DFTD.

You can also have a Big Devils Day! So if you're a business who'd like to help register at the same page.

Bye!

Ceilidh

Tassie Visit: April 10 and 11

The last two days of my visit to Tasmania were very busy! We met with University of Tasmania Foundation staff Lisa Morissett and Rodrigo Hamede - who's a research scientist! It was so good to finally meet everyone!

While at the uni Rodrigo - who is a scientist working in the field with the devils - told me lots of interesting information about tracking collars they use and the information the collars send to the scientists - like how many males and females are in a certain area, how many times they contact each other, and for how long. They also put cayenne pepper on the collars to stop the devils biting them off!

       
   

We then went to Go Wild! Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary where Dr Sally spent lots of time with me showing me all the animals and telling me about their rehabilitation program. I also met with Greg who is the keeper of the Bonorong Devils. Just have a look at how much they love him and jump all over him when he gets in the enclosure:

   


Then on Friday night I met with Nature Nic! He's so cool! We had dinner with his family and I got to pat his blue tongue lizard. My mum told him that before we left for Tasmania we had a blue tongue lizard in our compost bin but it was about 30cm long ... he liked that!  He's done so much for the devils in Tasmania and his Black and White Day is now going all around Australia and hopefully the world soon!


Bye!

Ceilidh

Tassie Visit: April 8 and 9

Hi everybody! Here's an update of what I've been doing in Tasmania:

Tues April 8:

Arrived and looked around Hobart. In the afternoon we met with Steve Smith and Nadeen Burge from DPIW. They told me some interesting things! There are estimated to be 60,000 devils in the wild now - down from about 150,000. Steve said that he would be happy to come to my school on 30 May for Little Devils Day - YAY!

Wed April 9:

Today I went to The Possum Shed for lunch on the way to Something Wild Sanctuary. While there, I saw a platypus IN THE WILD! He was swimming around in the river - that looked like a creek - getting food. We then went to Something Wild and I met with Shaun Douglas one of the keepers. We saw lots of animals there. Then Shaun brought out Taz who is a 10 month old orphan devil. He was much better behaved than Mandu. Little bit of growling but sniffed us and let me pat him a lot. He's been hand reared.


Ceilidh with Taz


    Ceilidh with Leanne (Owner - Something Wild)

We saw lots more devils in the enclosure. We saw one that was on her own and she had some babies in her pouch - her name was Nicole. They put her on her own because the males are aggressive and they need to take her out. Mummy devils have about 30 babies but only 4 find teats and survive. How sad! But it also explains why there aren't that many. Also, devils only live for about 5 years and don't start breeding until they are 2 so they only have about 2 breeding cycles. Baby devils can climb trees like a possum. Babies are pretty quiet until they're about 7 months when they start to get pushy and bitey.


Nicole in her log

The sanctuary is working on a "no injury" breeding program to try and increase the number of "clean" devils for when it may be necessary to repopulate.

While there we also saw Common Wombats, cockatoos that said 'hello' and danced, funny looking koalas (they are southern koalas so look different to the ones in Queensland - they have fluffier fur around their ears and reddish/brown fur instead of grey), spotted quoll with spots all over its body, kangaroos and wallabies, and golden brushtail possums - like a mountain brushtail but blonde!

It was a great day and I decided to adopt Taz. I'll get regular updates on his progress and I can post them here.

Bye for now.

Ceilidh
xx

Upcoming Things....

Hi everybody! Update on recent activities:

Trip to Tasmania:

Next week I'm going to Tasmania! It's going to be a great trip. It's very cold down there right now. I'm going to go see some devils. I hope they're not as scary as Mandu. I'm excited about going to Tasmania. I'm going to meet with Nature Nic. Recently Nic sent me a package with his information in it including calendars and wrist bands. I hope that he'll be willing to work with me in a team to try and raise awareness of the danger to devils - two of us working together is much better than one!

I'll also be meeting with a couple of sanctuaries in Tasmania and finding out first hand what's happening "on the ground" in the fight against the devil's extinction. We're also going to hopefully meet with the DPIW staff to update them on what's been happening.

Little Devils Day:

I came up with a fundraising idea for my school called "Little Devils Day". The school has confirmed the date is May 30. So if the day is a success I'm going to be approaching other schools in my area to see if they'll run a similar event. It's not just a free dress day; we'll be having learning activities teaching about the devils and DFTD including drawings and mask making for the little ones. 

I'm trying to arrange for some bandanas to be printed up for the day to sell too.

The most exciting news is that I was contacted by a student from Ohio who wants to do something about saving the devils too and we're going to try and get Little Devils Day into her school which will be great.

Young Star Award:


I also won a Young Star Award recently from my local newspaper for the project. I brought my Tassie devil toy, Phoebe, with me to the awards. I got a big glass award. One of my friends came which was great. The best thing about winning the award was lots of people were there so lots more people became aware of the problem and can hopefully do something about it.

I realise that there is a lot of work to be done to make the devils better. Hopefully what I'm doing will help to make people aware of the problem and get them to help.

Cafe Press Store:

I recently opened a Cafe Press store with lots of clothes, hats, mugs books, calendars and other stationery. You can visit the store here: Tassie Devil Diner.  The net proceeds from all sales will be donated to the Devils in Danger Foundation. So make sure you visit - there's some really cool stuff and it makes great presents!

I'll be back after my trip to update you on how things went!

Bye

Ceilidh