June 6th, 2008 admin
Hi – I’m Lydia, WWF Australia’s Tropical Marine and Coastal Policy Manager and I am so excited to be part of WWF’s campaign to Save the Coral Sea.
I just spent the last few days in Port Douglas meeting with the some wonderful scientists from James Cook University to learn more about the beautiful Dwarf MinkeWhale. These magnificent creatures are a regular visitor of the Northern Great Barrier Reef between June and July and are known to inhabit the Coral Sea. It was fascinating to learn about these research that James Cook University are doing in collaboration Museum of tropical Queensland and Undersea Explorer – apparently the whales have been shown to exhibit a behavior called pirouetting where they spin vertically in water like a ballerina - amazing!
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September 26th, 2007 admin
The Coral Sea campaign has been gathering momentum over the last couple of weeks and we’ve been really pleased by the amount of media attention that has been generated. There’s been wide coverage on TV, radio newspapers and magazines and of course, as you’re reading this, our website has been a hit too!
In many ways the real work starts now as we have to translate the obvious interest and concern that we all share for the future of the Coral Sea into action. The challenge is not to let the Coral Sea slip from the minds of our decision-makers and while WWF will keep building the case for protection, your help in showing your interest will also be key. Why not take a moment to sign the petition?
Our Coral Sea celebrity ambassadors have certainly been doing their part with Mimi MacPherson doing some wonderful TV interviews and she and Elka Graham also having a star feature in the New Idea magazine. We will soon have the results of some of the new shark research that we undertook on the Coral Sea expedition so stay tuned for the next update!
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September 17th, 2007 admin
Hi - I’m Rick, WWF-Australia’s Tropical Marine and Coastal Policy Manager and I’ve just returned from the Coral Sea on board the Undersea Explorer - a research/tourism vessel. Part of WWF’s work to push for more protection for the Coral Sea is to raise the profile of this spectacular area, and that’s what this trip was all about.
Going out to sea for 4 days with a bunch of media people and a couple of WWF’s celebrity ambassadors might not sound like hard work, but with 2-3 metre swells and 25 knot winds it wasn’t too easy either! Fortunately everyone one board loved the trip and once we were in the water checking out the Coral Sea’s awesome marine wonders any thoughts of sea-sicknesses soon disappeared.
A major highlight of the trip was when marine biologist Richard Fitzpatrick retrieved a data logger that had been placed on a grey reef shark 6 months previously. This is a world first and we are keenly waiting to hear what insights into these amazing animals these data will provide.
I think we all returned to shore with a greater appreciation of the uniqueness of the Coral Sea and the realisation that we need to protect the wonderful area before it suffers a similar fate to other tropical marine regions. Please keep coming back to the blog to hear how the campaign is going and hear some more tales from WWF’s Coral Sea expedition.
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