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