Journal articles on the topic 'Salinity Victoria Phillip Island'

Little penguins, Eudyptula minor, from a breeding colony on Phillip Island, Victoria were radio-tracked at sea during incubation, chick-rearing and non-breeding periods from 1991 to 1993. Their locations, which we have assumed to reflect foraging movements, varied according to season and breeding activities, and there were marked differences from year to year. Duration and distance of trips ranged from single day-trips a few kilometres from Phillip Island, typically during the breeding season, to longer trips outside the breeding season up to 500 km away lasting more than a month, but 95% of all birds located were within 20 km of the coast. In the breeding season foraging trips averaged 4.4 days during incubation compared with 2.1 days when there were chicks in the nest; in the non-breeding period foraging trips took 5.2 days on average. The duration of trips for adults feeding chicks increased with the age of the chicks. Birds from nests on the north and south sides of Phillip Island differed in their use of areas close to the island, but showed a similar distribution on more distant trips. The location of foraging trips is discussed in relation to information on the abundance of prey species of fish within the foraging range of the birds.

A newly established Greater Crested Tern Thalasseus bergii colony was observed on Kanowna Island, northern Bass Strait, in December 2019 and was monitored through January 2020. A maximum of 532 ± 28 nests was counted,representing ~15–20% of the known northern Bass Strait breeding population. Resightings of 69 leg-banded individuals (from 3 to 24 years of age) demonstrated that founding individuals originated from colonies in Victoria [The Nobbies on Phillip Island (54%), Corner Inlet Barrier Islands (39%), Mud Islands in Port Phillip Bay (6%)] and one individual from South Australia. Breeding began 2 months later than usual for northern Bass Strait, perhaps because the birds only moved to Kanowna Island after failed nesting attempts elsewhere (Corner Inlet and Phillip Island). Individuals were observed to mainly feed their chicks with Barracouta Thyrsites atun and Jack Mackerel Trachurus declivis, contrasting with the usual predominance of Australian Anchovy Engraulis australis in the diet of this species in the Bass Strait region. This relocation may result from local changes in prey availability and/or a combination of potential human disturbance, predation and storm events. The recent 50% decrease in the number of breeding Greater Crested Terns in Victoria suggests substantial changes in the regional environmental conditions, highlighting the importance of understanding the impact of environmental variations on seabird species.

In May 1995, numbers of little penguins, Eudyptula minor, coming ashore declined at Phillip Island and St Kilda concurrently with deaths of many penguins in western Victoria and a massive mortality of one of their food species (pilchard) throughout southern Australia. Among 1926 dead penguins reported were 131 banded birdsrecovered from Phillip Island (86% adults and 14% first-year birds), 26 from Rabbit Island and six from St Kilda. The number of banded penguins found dead per number of adult Phillip Island birds at risk was 2.3% in 1995 compared with an annual mean of 0.7% for 1970–93. Of 29 corpses autopsied, at least 26 died of starvation associated with mild–severe gastro-intestinal parasitism. Following the pilchard mortality, egg-laying by penguins in the subsequent breeding season (1995–96) was ~2 weeks later than the long-term mean and 0.3 chicks were fledged per pair compared with the long-term mean of 1.0. Unlike previous years, few penguins were recorded in Port Phillip Bay in September–October 1995, a period when pilchard schools were infrequently seen. It is concluded that the increase in penguin mortality in northern Bass Strait and the significant reduction in breeding success were associated with the widespread pilchard mortality.

This study aimed to adapt M-44 ejectors for use in sandy soils and to assess the feasibility of incorporating the modified M-44s into a long-term fox-control program on Phillip Island, Victoria. M-44s were adapted by burying a plastic cylinder around them, which prevented sandy soil from collapsing and inhibiting the trigger mechanism, and at the same time orientated the fox's mouth vertically over the M-44 to maximise the dose of poison delivered. The fast-acting poison sodium cyanide was used to ensure the collection of fox bodies and any non-target animals. A fox was killed on 78.6% of occasions that an M-44 was triggered. No non-target species triggered M-44s, although rodents and birds occasionally ate the unpoisoned baits. The modified M-44 ejector technique accounted for 19% of foxes killed by all techniques during one year on Phillip Island. To assess whether M-44s were a worthwhile technique to include in the fox-control program on Phillip Island, we compared their catch per unit effort (number of foxes killed per 1000 person-hours) with other control techniques (spotlight shooting, treadle snaring and hunting with fox hounds). Deployment of M-44s with cyanide was labour intensive, due to safety considerations, and cyanide can be used only as a research tool. Future management use of the M-44s would be with sodium monofluoroacetate (1080), so an estimate was made of the catch per unit effort of M-44s with this poison. Results suggest that deployment of M-44s with 1080 is likely to be more time-effective than the other techniques.

Tree species selection was studied in free-ranging populations of koalas [Phascolarctos cinereus] on Phillip Island and the Brisbane Ranges in Victoria. At both sites koalas were found mainly on Eucalyptus spp. but occasionally used Acacia spp. Although koalas occurred on most of the Eucalyptus spp. present, both populations showed preferences for one or two species, particularly E. viminalis. Individual koalas showed different preferences, but the majority preferred E. viminalis. Some occurred exclusively on other species even when E. viminalis was close by. Koalas also showed preference for individual trees within a species.

In a series of experiments, seeds from a temperate seagrass species,Zostera nigricauliscollected in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia were exposed to a range of salinities (20 PSU pulse/no pulse, 25 PSU, 30 PSU, 35 PSU), temperatures (13 °C, 17 °C, 22 °C), burial depths (0 cm, 1 cm, 2 cm) and site specific sediment characteristics (fine, medium, coarse) to quantify their impacts on germination rate and maximum overall germination. In southern Australia the seagrassZ. nigricaulisis a common subtidal species; however, little is known about the factors that affect seed germination which is a potential limiting factor in meadow resilience to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Overall seed germination was low (<20%) with germination decreasing to <10% when seeds were placed in the sediment. When germination ofZ. nigricaulisseeds was observed, it was enhanced (greater overall germination and shorter time to germination) when seeds were exposed to a 20 PSU pulse for 24 h, maintained at salinity of 25 PSU, temperatures <13 °C, in sediments with fine or medium grain sand and buried at a depth of <1 cm. These results indicate that germination ofZ. nigricaulisseeds underin situconditions may be seasonally limited by temperatures in southern Australia. Seed germination may be further restricted by salinity as freshwater pulses reaching 20 PSU are typically only observed in Port Phillip Bay following large scale rainfall events. As a result, these populations may be particularly susceptible to disturbance with only a seasonally limited capacity for recovery.

The day roosting behaviour of the little forest bat (Vespadelus vulturnus), Australia’s smallest bat, was investigated in the context of the planned removal of dead timber within managed woodlands on Phillip Island, Victoria. Between August 1999 and March 2000, 14 female little forest bats were fitted with VHF microtransmitters and tracked to a total of 16 roost trees. All roosts were located in dead timber, 11 in severely decayed remains of eucalypt trees, and five in dead sections of live trees. Roost trees were compared with randomly chosen trees from within the available habitat, for a range of tree characteristics. Female little forest bats selected roosts in trees with dead timber offering many hollows and reduced canopy cover. Furthermore, roost trees were located in areas (0.1-ha plots) with higher densities of these types of trees than in the available habitat. However, there was no difference in the height or diameter of roost trees or roost plots compared with available habitat. Emergence time from roosts was strongly associated with civil twilight (when the centre of the sun is 6° below an ideal horizon), and the number of bats exiting a single roost tree ranged from 1 to 120 (median = 20). Dead trees provide critical roosting habitat and we recommend retention of dead standing trees for conserving little forest bat roosts in managed woodlands.

The distribution and abundance of the eggs and larvae of the anchovy (Engraulis australis) and pilchard (Sardinops neopilchardus) were determined for the waters near Phillip Island between May 1992 and January 1994. Eggs and larvae of both species were common in these waters, indicating that this region is an important spawning area for both species. Pilchard eggs and larvae occurred at sample stations in Bass Strait and in the western entrance to Western Port. Anchovy eggs and larvae were collected both within Western Port and at most plankton stations in Bass Strait. The mean density of anchovy eggs in Western Port differed markedly between the two spawning seasons, suggesting that the number of adult fish spawning therein can vary between years. Densities of pilchard eggs and of the larvae of both species exhibited considerable spatial variability in Bass Strait.

THE introduction of feral cats (Felis catus) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) to Australia in the 1800s had a profound impact on resident ecosystems. Both predators colonised successfully and now are distributed across most of mainland Australia (Saunders et al. 1995; Abbott 2002). They consume mainly ground-dwelling mammals (Coman 1973; Croft and Hone 1978; Jones and Coman 1981; Lapidge and Henshall 2002; Hutchings 2003), but where these are scarce, birds, reptiles, insects and human refuse may become important dietary components (e.g., Bubela et al. 1998; Paltridge 2002). Although they prey on similar species, when compared at the same location differences in diet between the predators are evident (Triggs et al. 1984; Catling 1988; Risbey et al. 1999).

AbstractAfter reviewing the development of wire fencing in Great Britain and the United States of America in the early nineteenth century, I examine the introduction of wire into Australia using published sources only. Wire was available in the colonies from the early 1850s. The earliest published record of a wire fence was on Phillip Island near Melbourne (Victoria) in 1842. Almost a decade passed before wire was used elsewhere in Victoria and the other eastern colonies. Pastoralists either sought information on wire fences locally or from agents in Britain. Local agents of British companies advertised in colonial newspapers from the early 1850s, with one exceptional record in 1839. Once wire was adopted, pastoralists rejected iron posts used in Britain, preferring cheaper wood posts cut from the property. The most significant innovation was to increase post spacings with significant cost savings. Government and the iron industry played no part in these innovations, which were achieved through trial-and-error by pastoralists. The large tonnages of wire imported into Australia and the increasing demand did not stimulate local production of wire, and there were no local wire mills until 1911.

The diet of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) on Phillip Island, Victoria, was assessed from the frequency of occurrence and volume of food items in stomachs of foxes killed during a 16-year control program (1983 to 1998). Of the 289 stomachs examined, 244 (85%) contained recognisable food items. Based on frequency of occurrence, the most common prey were short­tailed shearwaters (Puffinus tenuirostris, 47%), European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus, 30%), house mice (Mus musculus, 15%), insects (15%), little penguins (Eudyptula minor, 12%), other birds (12%), sheep (Ovis aries 8%) and black rats (Rattus rattus 5%). The seasonal attendance patterns of P. tenuirostris caused substantial variations in the fox diet. When P. tenuirostris were present, between September and April each year, they were the most common food item, and when absent, they were replaced by rabbits. The sex of foxes did not appear to influence diet, but age did. Juvenile (Rubus fructicosus), than did adult foxes.

It is important to have knowledge of basic population parameters to understand how these vary geographically and temporally and how they contribute to population dynamics. This paper investigates three of these parameters in Victorian koala populations: sexual maturity, aspects of the breeding season, and the continuity of individuals’ breeding. The investigation was carried out in koalas of known-age in two free-living (Redbill Creek on French Island and Brisbane Ranges) and one semi-captive (the Koala Conservation Centre on Phillip Island) population as well as koalas of unknown age in four Victorian populations of overabundant koalas: Mt Eccles and Framlingham in south-west Victoria, French Island in Western Port and Snake Island in south Gippsland. At sexual maturity, female koalas had a mean age (±95% confidence interval) of 24.4 months (23.5–25.3 months), a mean head length of 125 mm (124–127 mm) and a mean body mass of 6.6 kg (6.3–6.8 kg). Only 7.4% of independent females (of unknown age) were carrying young when they weighed less than 6 kg. The breeding season was more restricted in the south-west populations. At Framlingham and Mt Eccles 85% and 91% of births, respectively, occurred between December and March. At Snake and French Islands only 46% and 53% of births, respectively, were recorded in the same period. In the Chlamydia-free population (Red Bill Creek) none of the koalas that were monitored stopped breeding and then resumed breeding in a subsequent season whereas many females from Chlamydia-infected populations (Brisbane Ranges and the Koala Conservation Centre) did so. This variation in reproductive patterns is likely to make an important contribution to the variation in the demography observed in different koala populations.

Abstract ContextCapture, measurement, genetic sampling, ringing and flagging of shorebirds on their nests are standard techniques that underpin the study and conservation of these species. However, these techniques may reduce hatching success by compromising parental care or nest crypsis, thereby negatively influencing results, study populations and bird welfare. Only a few studies that examine the effect of capture of shorebirds on subsequent egg hatching success are currently available. AimsTo compare the hatching success of masked lapwing (Vanellus miles) nests, at which adult capture and associated techniques (ringing, flagging and bleeding) have occurred, with nests at which these did not occur, on the fox-free Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia. MethodsHatching success of masked lapwings was monitored and compared between nests at which adult capture did, and did not, occur. Clutches were aged and age was included in our models to adjust for exposure of clutches to risks such as predators. Key resultsThere was no difference in egg hatching success between nests at which capture occurred and those at which it did not occur: 138 chicks hatched from 178 eggs attended by adults that were captured (77.5% hatched); and 279 chicks hatched from 442 eggs attended by adults that were not captured (63.1%). ConclusionTrapping incubating lapwings using our existing protocols does not compromise egg hatching success, at least where there are no foxes present. ImplicationsStudies of ground-nesting shorebird hatching success in relation to capture can usefully assess for adverse effects of the methods employed. We suggest that further examination of capture of lapwings at the nest be conducted in environments where foxes are present.

Parameters that influence blood oxygen carrying capacity (whole-blood haemoglobin content, haematocrit and red blood cell count) were measured in samples of 30 breeding, adult short-tailed shearwaters (Puffinus tenuirostris) on Phillip Island, Victoria at seven key stages of their reproductive cycle. The aim of the investigation was to determine whether variation in blood oxygen carrying capacity during the birds’ 7-month breeding cycle was correlated with variation in the energy demands they experienced or was an incidental by-product of other physiological changes. All the blood parameters varied significantly during breeding, but the pattern of variation was only partly correlated with the likely pattern of changing energy demand imposed on parents by their schedule of breeding activities. The main trend conceivably related to energy demand was that significantly higher values were recorded for these blood parameters during the nestling stage than earlier in the breeding cycle. This could have reflected the high costs of the very long foraging trips undertaken by parents feeding nestlings, but it could also have occurred in preparation for the long migration undertaken soon after breeding finished. It involved an ~10% increase in blood oxygen carrying capacity above the lowest mean value recorded during the breeding cycle and so other mechanisms must also be employed to achieve the increase in aerobic metabolism likely to be required at this stage. The lack of adjustment of blood oxygen carrying capacity to energy demand early in the breeding cycle suggests that either oxygen delivery was not a rate-limiting process for aerobic metabolism at that time or that delivery was enhanced through other mechanisms. At egg laying, females had a lower haematocrit and erythrocyte count than males, which could be attributable to either estrogenic suppression of erythropoiesis or an increase in osmotic pressure of the blood associated with yolk synthesis. Immature, non-breeding birds attending the colony were of similar mass to adults, but did not show the increase in the parameters determining blood oxygen carrying capacity that occurred in adults later in the breeding cycle. Factors other than changing energy requirements (dehydration, burrow hypoxia and differential responsiveness to capture stress) that might have influenced the pattern of variation in blood oxygen carrying capacity of adults during breeding are discussed.

AWARDSSome major international children’s literature awards have just been announced as I compile the news for this issue. Several of these have Canadian connections.2016 ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) Book & Media Award WinnersJohn Newbery Medal"Last Stop on Market Street,” written by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Christian Robinson and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Books (USA) LLC Newbery Honor Books"The War that Saved My Life," written by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and published by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Books (USA) LLC“Roller Girl,” written and illustrated by Victoria Jamieson and published by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Books (USA) LLC“Echo,” written by Pam Muñoz Ryan and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.Randolph Caldecott Medal"Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear," illustrated by Sophie Blackall, written by Lindsay Mattick and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.Caldecott Honor Books"Trombone Shorty," illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Troy Andrews and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS“Waiting,” illustrated and written by Kevin Henkes, published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers“Voice of Freedom Fannie Lou Hamer Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement,” illustrated by Ekua Holmes, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and published by Candlewick Press“Last Stop on Market Street,” illustrated by Christian Robinson, written by Matt de le Peña and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Books (USA) LLC Laura Ingalls Wilder AwardJerry Pinkney -- His award-winning works include “The Lion and the Mouse,” recipient of the Caldecott Award in 2010. In addition, Pinkney has received five Caldecott Honor Awards, five Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards, and four Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors. 2017 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture AwardJacqueline Woodson will deliver the 2017 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. Woodson is the 2014 National Book Award winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir, “Brown Girl Dreaming.” Mildred L. Batchelder Award“The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy,” published by Enchanted Lion Books, written and illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna, and translated from the French by Claudia Zoe BedrickBatchelder Honor Books“Adam and Thomas,” published by Seven Stories Press, written by Aharon Appelfeld, iIllustrated by Philippe Dumas and translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M. Green“Grandma Lives in a Perfume Village,” published by NorthSouth Books, an imprint of Nordsüd Verlag AG, written by Fang Suzhen, iIllustrated by Sonja Danowski and translated from the Chinese by Huang Xiumin“Written and Drawn by Henrietta,” published by TOON Books, an imprint of RAW Junior, LLC and written, illustrated, and translated from the Spanish by Liniers.Pura Belpre (Author) Award“Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir," written by Margarita Engle and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing DivisionBelpre (Author) Honor Books"The Smoking Mirror," written by David Bowles and published by IFWG Publishing, Inc."Mango, Abuela, and Me," written by Meg Medina, illustrated by Angela Dominguez and published by Candlewick PressPura Belpre (Illustrator) Award"The Drum Dream Girl," illustrated by Rafael López, written by Margarita Engle and published by Houghton Mifflin HarcourtBelpre (Illustrator) Honor Books"My Tata’s Remedies = Los remedios de mi tata,” iIllustrated by Antonio Castro L., written by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford and published by Cinco Puntos Press“Mango, Abuela, and Me,” illustrated by Angela Dominguez, written by Meg Medina and published by Candlewick Press“Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras,” illustrated and written by Duncan Tonatiuh and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMSAndrew Carnegie Medal "That Is NOT a Good Idea," produced by Weston Woods Studios, Inc.Theodor Seuss Geisel Award"Don’t Throw It to Mo!" written by David A. Adler, illustrated by Sam Ricks and published by Penguin Young Readers, and imprint of Penguin Group (USA), LLCGeisel Honor Books "A Pig, a Fox, and a Box," written and illustrated by Jonathan Fenske and published by Penguin Young Readers, an Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC"Supertruck," written and illustrated by Stephen Savage and published by A Neal Porter Book published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership"Waiting," written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes and published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.Odyssey Award"The War that Saved My Life," produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, written by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and narrated by Jayne EntwistleOdyssey Honor Audiobook"Echo," produced by Scholastic Audio / Paul R. Gagne, written by Pam Munoz Ryan and narrated by Mark Bramhall, David De Vries, MacLeod Andrews and Rebecca SolerRobert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal"Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras,” written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMSSibert Honor Books"Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans," written and illustrated by Don Brown and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt"The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club," by Phillip Hoose and published by Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers"Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March," written by Lynda Blackmon Lowery as told to Elspeth Leacock and Susan Buckley, illustrated by PJ Loughran and published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC"Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement," written by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Ekua Holmes and published by Candlewick PressCONFERENCES & EVENTSThis 2016 is shaping up to be a busy year for those of us involved with Canadian children’s literature. To tantalize your appetite (and encourage you to get involved) here are some highlights:January:Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable event: A Celebration of BC’s Award Children’s Authors and Illustrators with special guests Rachel Hartman and the Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada 2015 Information Book Award winners Margriet Ruurs & Katherine Gibson, January 27, 2016, 7 – 9 pm. Creekside Community Centre, 1 Athletes Way, Vancouver. Free to members and students.April:Wordpower programs from the Young Alberta Book Society feature teams of Albertan children’s literary artists touring to schools in rural areas. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Cenovus Energy, schools unable to book artist visits due to prohibitive travel costs are able to participate.April 4-8: Wordpower South will send 8 artist teams to communities roughly between Drumheller and Medicine Hat. Artists include Karen Bass, Lorna Shultz-Nicholson, Bethany Ellis, Marty Chan, Mary Hays, Sigmund Brouwer, Carolyn Fisher, Natasha DeenApril 25-29: Wordpower North will have a team of 8 artists traveling among communities in north-eastern Alberta such as Fort MacKay, Conklin, Wabasca, Lac La Biche, Cold Lake, and Bonnyville. The artists include Kathy Jessup, Lois Donovan, Deborah Miller, David Poulsen, Gail de Vos, Karen Spafford-Fitz, Hazel Hutchins, Georgia Graham May: COMICS AND CONTEMPORARY LITERACY: May 2, 2016; 8:30am - 4:30pm at the Rozsa Centre, University of Calgary. This is a one day conference featuring presentations and a workshop by leading authors, scholars, and illustrators from the world of comics and graphic novels. This conference is the 5th in the annual 'Linguistic Diversity and Language Policy' series sponsored by the Chair, English as an Additional Language, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. Tom Ricento is the current Chair-holder. The conference is free and lunch is provided. Seating is limited, so register early. The four presenters are:Jillian Tamaki, illustrator for This One Summer, and winner of the Governor General's Award for children's illustration.Richard van Camp, best-selling author of The Lesser Blessed and Three Feathers, and member of the Dogrib Nation.Dr. Nick Sousanis, post-doctoral scholar, teacher and creator of the philosophical comic Unflattening.Dr. Bart Beaty, University of Calgary professor, acclaimed comics scholar and author of Comics vs. Art TD Canadian Children’s Book Week 2016. In 2016, the Canadian Children's Book Centre celebrates 40 years of bringing great Canadian children's books to young readers across the country and the annual TD Canadian Children’s Book Week will be occurring this May across Canada. The theme this year is the celebration of these 40 years of great books written, illustrated and published in Canada as well as stories that have been told over the years. The 2016 tour of storytellers, authors and illustrators and their area of travel are as follows:Alberta: Bob Graham, storyteller; Kate Jaimet, authorBritish Columbia (Interior region) Lisa Dalrymple, author; (Lower Mainland region) Graham Ross, illustrator; (Vancouver Island region) Wesley King, author; (Northern region, Rebecca Bender, author & illustrator.Manitoba: Angela Misri, author; Allison Van Diepen, authorNew Brunswick: Mary Ann Lippiatt, storytellerNewfoundland: Maureen Fergus, authorLabrador: Sharon Jennings, authorNorthwest Territories: Geneviève Després, illustratorNova Scotia: Judith Graves, authorNunavut: Gabrielle Grimard, illustratorOntario: Karen Autio, author; Marty Chan, author; Danika Dinsmore, author; Kallie George, author; Doretta Groenendyk, author & illustrator; Alison Hughes, author; Margriet Ruurs, author.Prince Edward Island: Wallace Edwards, author & illustratorQuebec (English-language tour): LM Falcone, author; Simon Rose, author; Kean Soo, author & illustrator; Robin Stevenson, author; and Tiffany Stone, author/poet.Saskatchewan: (Saskatoon and northern area) Donna Dudinsky, storyteller; (Moose Jaw/Regina and southern area) Sarah Ellis, authorYukon: Vicki Grant, author-----Gail de Vos is an adjunct professor who teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, young adult literature, and comic books & graphic novels at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta. She is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. Gail is also a professional storyteller who has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.

It was always based on a teenage love story between the two kids. One is a sniffer and one is not. It was designed for Central Australia because we do write these kids off there. Not only in town, where the headlines for the newspapers every second day is about ‘the problem,’ ‘the teenager problem of kids wandering the streets’ and ‘why don’t we send them back to their communities’ and that sort of stuff. Then there’s the other side of it. Elders in Aboriginal communities have been taught that kids who sniff get brain damage, so as soon as they see a kid sniffing they think ‘well they’re rubbish now, they’re brain damaged.’ So the elders are writing these kids off as well, as in ‘they are brain damaged so they’re no use now, they’ll be in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.’ This is not true, it’s just information for elders that hasn’t been given to them. That is the world I was working with. I wanted to show two incredibly beautiful children who have fought all their lives just to breathe and how incredibly strong they are and how we should be celebrating them and backing them up. I wanted to show that to Central Australia, and if the rest of Australia or the world get involved that’s fantastic. (Thornton in interview)Warwick Thornton’s 2009 film Samson and Delilah won the hearts of Australians as well as a bag of awards — and rightly so. It is a breathtaking film that, as review after review will tell you, is about the bravery, hopelessness, optimism and struggles of two Indigenous youths. In telling this story, the film extends, inverts and challenges notions of waste: wasted youths, wasted memory, wasted history, wasted opportunities, getting wasted and wasted voices. The narrative and the film as a cultural object raise questions about being discarded and “the inescapable fact that the experience of catastrophe in the past century can only be articulated from its remains, our history sifted from among these storied deposits.” (Neville and Villeneuve 2). The purpose of this paper is to examine reaction to the film, and where this reaction has positioned the film in Australian filmmaking history. In reading the reception of the film, I want to consider the film’s contribution to dialogical cultural representations by applying Marcia Langton’s idea of intersubjectivity.In his review, Sean Gorman argues thatThe main reason for the film’s importance is it enables white Australians who cannot be bothered reading books or engaging with Indigenous Australians in any way (other than watching them play football perhaps) the smallest sliver of a world that they have no idea about. The danger however in an engagement by settler society with a film like Samson and Delilah is that the potential shock of it may be too great, as the world which it portrays is, for many, an unknown Australia. Hence, for the settler filmgoer, the issues that the film discusses may be just too hard, too unreal, and their reaction will be limited to perhaps a brief bout of anger or astonishment followed by indifference. (81.1)It is this “engagement by settler society” that I wish to consider: how the voices that we hear speaking about the film are shifting attention from the ‘Other’ to more dialogical cultural representations, that is, non-Indigenous Australia’s emerging awareness of what has previously been wasted, discarded and positioned as valueless. I find Gorman’s surmise of white Australia’s shock with a world they know nothing about, and their potential power to return to a state of indifference about it, to be an interesting notion. Colonisation has created the world that Samson and Delilah live in, and the white community is as involved as the Indigenous one in the struggles of Samson and Delilah. If “settler” society is unaware, that unawareness comes from a history of non-Indigenous power that denies, excludes, and ignores. For this reason, Samson and Delilah is a dialogical cultural representation: it forces a space where the mainstream doesn’t just critique the Aborigine, but their own identity and involvement in the construction of that critique.Wasted VoicesWaste is a subjective notion. Items that some discard and perceive as valueless can be of importance to others, and then it also becomes a waste not to acknowledge or use that item. Rather than only focusing on the concept of “waste” as items or materials that are abandoned, I wish to consider the value in what is wasted. Centring my discussion of ‘waste’ on Thornton’s film provides the opportunity to view a wasteland of dispossession from another cultural and social perspective. Reaction to the film has constructed what could be perceived as an exceptional moment of engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices in dialogic intercultural dialogue. By revisiting early examples of ethnographic collaboration, and re-examining contemporary reactions to Samson and Delilah, I hope to forge a space for intervention in Australian film criticism that focuses on how ‘non-Aboriginality’ depends on ‘Aboriginality’ in a vast wasteland of colonial dispossession and appropriation.Many of the reviews of Thornton’s film (Buckmaster; Collins; Davis; Gorman; Hall; Isaac; Ravier; Redwood; Rennie; Simpson) pay attention to the emotional reaction of non-Indigenous viewers. Langton states that historically non-Indigenous audiences know ‘the Aborigine’ through non-Indigenous representations and monologues about Aboriginality: “In film, as in other media, there is a dense history of racist, distorted and often offensive representation of Aboriginal people” (24). The power to define has meant that ethnographic discourses in the early days of colonisation established their need to record Indigenous peoples, knowledges and traditions before they ‘wasted away.’ At the 1966 Round Table on Ethnographic Film in the Pacific Area, Stanley Hawes recounts how Ian Dunlop, an Australian documentary filmmaker, commented that “someone ought to film the aborigines of the Western Desert before it was too late. They had already almost all disappeared or gone to live on Mission stations” (69). This popular belief was one of the main motivations for research on Indigenous peoples and led to the notion of “smoothing the dying pillow,” which maintained that since Aborigines were a dying race, they should be allowed to all die out peacefully (Chandra-Shekeran 120). It was only the ‘real’ Aborigine that was valued: the mission Black, the urban Black, the assimilated Black, was a waste (Cowlishaw 108). These representations of Aboriginality depended on non-Indigenous people speaking about Aboriginality to non-Indigenous people. Yet, the impetus to speak, as well as what was being spoken about, and the knowledge being discussed and used, relied on Indigenous voices and presences. When Australia made its “important contribution to ethnographic films of its Aborigines” (McCarthy 81), it could not have done so without the involvement of Indigenous peoples. In her work on intersubjectivity, Langton describes “Aboriginality” as a “social thing” that is continually remade through dialogue, imagination, representation and interpretation. She describes three broad categories of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal intersubjectivity: when Aboriginal people interact with other Aboriginal people; when non-Aboriginal people stereotype, iconise, and mythologise Aboriginal people without any Aboriginal contact; and when Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people engage in dialogue (81). Since W. Baldwin Spencer’s first ethnographic film, made between 1901 and 1912, which recorded the customs of the Aranda and neighbouring Central Australian tribes (McCarthy 80), the development of Australian cinema depended on these categories of intersubjectivity. While the success of Samson and Delilah could be interpreted as opening mainstream eyes to the waste that Indigenous communities have experienced since colonisation — wasted knowledge, wasted youths, wasted communities — it could also signify that what was once perceived by dominant non-Indigenous society as trash is now viewed as treasure. Much like the dot paintings which Delilah and her nana paint in exchange for a few bucks, and which the white man then sells for thousands of dollars, Aboriginal stories come to us out of context and filtered through appropriation and misinterpretation.Beyond its undeniable worth as a piece of top-notch filmmaking, Samson and Delilah’s value also resides in its ability to share with a wide audience, and in a language we can all understand, a largely untold story steeped in the painful truth of this country’s bloody history. (Ravier)In reading the many reviews of Samson and Delilah, it is apparent there is an underlying notion of such a story being secret, and that mainstream Australia chose to engage with the film’s dialogical representation because it was sharing this secret. When Ravier states that Aboriginal stories are distorted by appropriation and misinterpretation, I would add that such stories are examples of Langton’s second category of intersubjectivity: they reveal more about the processes of non-Indigenous constructions of ‘the Aborigine’ and the need to stereotype, iconise and mythologise. These processes have usually involved judgements about what is to be retained as ‘valuable’ in Indigenous cultures and knowledges, and what can be discarded — in the same way that the film’s characters Samson and Delilah are discarded. The secret that Samson and Delilah is sharing with white Australia has never been a secret: it is that non-Indigenous Australia chooses what it wants to see or hear. Wasted SilencesIn 1976 Michael Edols directed and produced Floating about the Mowanjum communities experiences of colonisation, mission life and resistance. That same year Alessandro Cavadini directed and Carolyn Strachan produced Protected, a dramatised documentary about life on the Queensland Aboriginal reserve of Palm Island — “a dumping ground for unwanted persons or those deemed to be in need of ‘protection’” (Treole 38). Phillip Noyce’s Backroads, a story about the hardships facing a young man from a reserve in outback New South Wales, was released in 1977. In 1979, Essie Coffey produced and directed My Survival as an Aboriginal, where she documented her community’s struggles living under white domination. Two Laws, a feature film made by four of the language groups around Borroloola in 1981, examines the communities’ histories of massacre, dispossession and institutionalisation. These are just some of many films that have dealt with the ‘secrets’ about Indigenous peoples. In more recent times the work of Noyce, Rolf de Heer, Stephen Johnson, Iven Sen, Rachel Perkins and Romaine Moreton, to name only a few, have inspired mainstream engagement with films representing Indigenous experiences and knowledges. “We live in a world in which, increasingly, people learn of their own and other cultures and histories through a range of visual media — film, television, and video,” writes Faye Ginsburg (5). Changing understandings of culture and representation means that there appears to be a shift away from the “monologic, observational and privileged Western gaze” towards more dialogic, reflexive and imaginative mediation. Perhaps Samson and Delilah’s success is partly due to its contribution to social action through compelling the non-Indigenous viewer to “revise our comfortable and taken for granted narrative conventions that fetishise the text and reify ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference.’ Instead, we — as producers, audiences, and ethnographers — are challenged to comprehend the multiple ways that media operate as a site where culture is produced, contested, mediated and continually re-imagined” (Ginsburg 14). In his review, Tom Redwood writes about the filmLike life in the desert, everything is kept to a minimum here and nothing is wasted. ... Perhaps it took an Indigenous filmmaker from Alice Springs to do this, to lead the way in reinstating meaningfulness and honesty as core values in Australian cinema. But, whatever the case, Thornton's Indigenous heritage won't make his difficult vision any easier for local audiences to swallow. Most Australians aren't used to this degree of seriousness at the movies and though many here will embrace Samson and Delilah, there will no doubt also be a minority who, unable to reject the film as a cultural curiosity, will resist its uncompromising nature with cries of 'pessimism!' or even 'reverse-racism!’ (28-29)Perhaps the film’s success has to do with the way the story is told? — “everything kept to a minimum” and “nothing is wasted.” In attempts to construct Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal intersubjectivity in previous representations perhaps language, words, English got in the way of communication? For mainstream white Australian society’s engagement in dialogic representations, for Indigenous voices to speak and be heard, for non-Indigenous monologues to be challenged, perhaps silence was called for? As the reviews for the film have emphasised, non-Indigenous reactions contribute to the dialogic nature of the film, its story, as well as its positioning as a site of cultural meaning, social relations, and power. Yet even while critiquing constructions of Aboriginality, non-Aboriginality has historically remained uncritiqued—non-Aboriginal endorsement and reaction is discussed, but what this reaction and engagement, or lack of engagement (whether because of ignorance, unawareness, or racism) reveals is not. That is, non-Aboriginality has not had to critique the power it has to continue to remain ignorant of stories about wasted Indigenous lives. Thornton’s film appears to have disrupted this form of non-engagement.With the emergence of Indigenous media and Indigenous media makers, ethnographic films have been reconceptualised in terms of aesthetics, cultural observations and epistemological processes. By re-exploring the history of ethnographic film making and shifting attention from constructions of the ‘other’ to reception by the mainstream, past films, past representations of colonisation, and past dialogues will not be wasted. With the focus on constructing Aboriginality, the cultural value of non-Aboriginality has remained unquestioned and invisible. By re-examining the reactions of mainstream Australians over the last one hundred years in light of the success of Samson and Delilah, cultural and historical questions about ‘the Aborigine’ can be reframed so that the influence Indigenous discourses have in Australian nation-building will be more apparent. The reception of Samson and Delilah signifies the transformational power in wasted voices, wasted dialogues and the wasted opportunities to listen. Wasted DialoguesFelicity Collins argues that certain “cinematic events that address Indigenous-settler relations do have the capacity to galvanise public attention, under certain conditions” (65). Collins states that after recent historical events, mainstream response to Aboriginal deprivation and otherness has evoked greater awareness of “anti-colonial politics of subjectivity” (65). The concern here is with mainstream Australia dismantling generations of colonialist representations and objectifications of the ‘other.’ What also needs to be re-examined is the paradox and polemic of how reaction to Aboriginal dispossession and deprivation is perceived. Non-Indigenous reaction remains a powerful framework for understanding, viewing and positioning Indigenous presence and representation — the power to see or not to see, to hear or to ignore. Collins argues that Samson and Delilah, along with Australia (Luhrmann, 2009) and First Australians (Perkins, 2008), are national events in Australian screen culture and that post-apology films “reframe a familiar iconography so that what is lost or ignored in the incessant flow of media temporality is precisely what invites an affective and ethical response in cinematic spaces” (75).It is the notion of reframing what is lost or ignored to evoke “ethical responses” that captures my attention; to shift the gaze from Aboriginal subjectivity, momentarily, to non-Aboriginal subjectivity and examine how choosing to discard or ignore narratives of violence and suffering needs to be critiqued as much as the film, documentary or representation of Indigenality. Perhaps then we can start to engage in dialogues of intersubjectivity rather than monologues about Aboriginality.I made [Samson and Delilah] for my mob but I made sure that it can work with a wider audience as well, and it’s just been incredible that it’s been completely embraced by a much wider audience. It’s interesting because as soon as you knock down that black wall between Aboriginals and white Australia, a film like this does become an Australian film and an Australian story. Not an Aboriginal story but a story about Australians, in a sense. It’s just as much a white story as it is a black one when you get to that position. (Thornton in interview)When we “get to that position” described by Thornton, intercultural and intersubjective dialogue allows both Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality to co-exist. When a powerful story of Indigenous experiences and representations becomes perceived as an Australian story, it provides a space for what has historically been ignored and rendered invisible to become visible. It offers a different cultural lens for all Australians to question and critique notions of value and waste, to re-assess what had been relegated to the wasteland by ethnographic editing and Westernised labels. Ever since Spencer, Melies, Abbie and Elkin decided to retain an image of Aboriginality on film, which they did with specific purposes and embedded values, it has been ‘the Aborigine’ that has been dissected and discussed. It would be a waste not to open this historiography up to include mainstream reaction, or lack of reaction, in the development of cultural and cinematic critique. A wasteland is often perceived as a dumping ground, but by re-visiting that space and unearthing, new possibilities are discovered in that wasteland, and more complex strategies for intersubjectivity are produced. At the centre of Samson and Delilah is the poverty and loss that Indigenous communities experience on a daily basis. The experiences endured by the main characters are not new or recent ones and whether cinematic reception of them produces guilt, pity, sympathy, empathy, fear or defensiveness, it is the very potential to be able to react that needs to be critiqued. As Williamson Chang points out, the “wasteland paradigm is invisible to those embedded in its structure” (852). By looking more closely at white society’s responses in order to discern more clearly if they are motivated by feelings that their wealth—whether material, cultural or social—or their sense of belonging is being challenged or reinforced then ruling values and epistemologies are challenged and dialogic negotiations engaged. If dominant non-Indigenous society has the power to classify Indigenous narratives and representation as either garbage or something of value, then colonialist structures remain intact. If they have the self-reflexive power to question their own response to Indigenous narratives and representations, then perhaps more anti-colonial discourses emerge. Notions of value and waste are tied to cultural hierarchies, and it is through questioning how a dominant culture determines value that processes of transformation and mediation take place and the intersubjective dialogue sparked by Samson and Delilah can continueIn her review of Samson and Delilah, Therese Davis suggests that the film brings people closer to truthfulness, forcing the audience to engage with that realism: “those of us ‘outside’ of the community looking in can come to know ourselves differently through the new languages of this film, both cultural and cinematic. Reformulating the space of the national from an ‘insider,’ Aboriginal community-based perspective, the film positions its spectators, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, in a shared space, a space that allows for new forms of attachment, involvement and self-knowledge, new lines of communication.” Davis goes on to caution that while the film is groundbreaking, the reviews situating the film as what Australian cinema should be need to be mindful of feeding “notions of anti-diversity, which “is an old debate in Australian Cinema Studies, but in this instance anti-diversity is doubly problematic because it also runs the risk of narrowly defining Indigenous cinema.” The danger, historically, is that anything Indigenous, has always been narrowly defined by the mainstream and yes, to continue to limit Indigenous work in any medium is colonising and problematic. However, rather than just caution against this reaction, I am suggesting that reaction itself be critiqued. While currently contemporary mainstream response to Samson and Delilah is one of adoration, is the centre from which it comes the same centre which less than fifty years ago critiqued Indigenous Australians as a savage, noble, and/or dying race wasting away? Davis writes that the film constructs a new “relation” in Australian cinema but that it should not be used as a marker against which “all new (and old) Indigenous cinema is measured.” This concern resembles, in part, my concern that until recently mainstream society has constructed their own markers of Aboriginal cultural authenticity, deciding what is to be valued and what can be discarded. I agree with Davis’s caution, yet I cannot easily untangle the notion of ‘measuring.’ As a profound Australian film, certainly cinematic criticism will use it as a signifier of ‘quality.’ But by locating it singularly in the category of Indigenous cinema, the anti-colonial and discursive Indigenous discourses the film deploys and evokes are limited to the margins of Australian film and film critique once more. After considering the idea of measuring, and asking who would be conducting this process of measuring, my fear is that the gaze returns to ‘the Aborigine’ and the power to react remains solely, and invisibly, with the mainstream. Certainly it would be a waste to position the film in such a way that limits other Indigenous filmmakers’ processes, experiences and representations. I see no problem with forcing non-Indigenous filmmakers, audiences and perceptions to have to ‘measure’ up as a result of the film. It would be yet another waste if they didn’t, and Samson and Delilah was relegated to being simply a great ‘Indigenous Australian film,’ instead of a great Australian film that challenges, inverts and re-negotiates the construction of both Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality. By examining reaction to the film, and not just reading the film itself, discussions of dialogical cultural representation can include non-Aboriginality as well as Aboriginality. Films like this are designed to create a dialogue and I’m happy if someone doesn’t like the film and they tell me why, because we’re creating dialogue. We’re talking about this stuff and taking a step forward. That’s important. (Thornton)The dialogue opened up by the success of Thornton’s beautiful film is one that also explores non-Aboriginality. If we waste the opportunity that Samson and Delilah provides, then Australia’s ongoing cinematic history will remain a wasteland, and many more Indigenous voices, stories, and experiences will continue to be wasted.ReferencesBuckmaster, Luke. “Interview with Warwick Thornton”. Cinetology 12 May 2009. 18 Aug. 2010 ‹http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/05/12/interview-with-warwick-thornton-writerdirector-of-samson-delilah›.———. “Samson and Delilah Review: A Seminal Indigenous Drama of Gradual and Menacing Beauty”. Cinetology 6 May 2009. 14 June 2010 ‹http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/05/06/samson-delilah-film-review-a-seminal-indigenous-drama-of-gradual-and-menacing-beauty›.Chang, Williamson, B. C. “The ‘Wasteland’ in the Western Exploitation of ‘Race’ and the Environment”. University of Colorado Law Review 849 (1992): 849-870.Chandra-Shekeran, Sangeetha. “Challenging the Fiction of the Nation in the ‘Reconciliation’ Texts of Mabo and Bringing Them Home”. 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