General News
Tim’s new report GONE: Australian animals extinct since the 1960s, co-authored with Carol Booth, was released in May by the Invasive Species Council. Its finding that invasive species have caused two thirds of all recent extinctions was mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald and reported on by Yahoo News and Open Forum. Tim appeared on Channel 10 news to talk about the situation.
In June Tim appeared at Sydney’s Vivid festival talking about nature connections (see box below).
He appeared in the ABC TV special Surviving Extinction, talking about extinction and the plight of the endangered regent honeyeater. The episode is available on YouTube
He was recently interviewed at length by Shoba Narayan for her Bird Podcast based in India.
In May last year he spoke at events in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Invasive Species Council, a group that formed in response to Tim’s 1999 book Feral Future. He had called for better policies on invasive species and the Council is committed to that. Tim became one of the founders of the group, as reported in The Age in 2003.
Tim is spending most of his time writing.
Tim appeared on 7 June as part of Sydney’s Vivid Festival, on the topic What Can We Learn from Nature. He spoke at the Australian Museum with acclaimed bird photographer Leila Jeffreys and American meditation philosopher David Gandelman.
Tim talked about today’s naturalists keeping alive the hunter-gatherer skills of our forebears when seeking out rare birds and mammals. He mentioned urban wildness, describing a falcon attack near his garden. He talked about seeing deaths in nature as a way to understand and welcome the reality that death awaits us all.
Book News
Tim’s most recent book talk was at Eltham Pub, inland from Byron Bay, where he talked about birds to a capacity audience at a Science in the Pub event. He mentioned, among many other topics, the vast flocks of topknot pigeons that once graced the region. Other talks will be announced in due course. He gave a zoom talk to a bird group in Florida in December 2022, following one he did for the Nuttall Ornithological Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Tim Low with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews after winning People’s Choice at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (Photo Matt Deller).