News

Tim’s report GONE: Australian animals extinct since the 1960s, co-authored with Carol Booth, was released in May by the Invasive Species Council. Tim and Carol were interviewed about the report on ABC Radio, and the interview was written up as an article for the ABC website. Tim appeared on the ABC News channel and on Channel 10 news to discuss the report, which was also mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald and reported on by Yahoo News and Open Forum. It considers every animal extinction since 1960, to conclude that most were caused by invasive species, including chytrid fungus (6 frogs), wolf snakes (3 lizards and a bat) and cats and foxes.

In the Spring issue of Australian Birdlife magazine, Tim has an article, ‘Almost a Bird-of-Paradise’, about the Australian chough as a close relative of birds-of-paradise that has more in common with them than we might realise.

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 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 20^th 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.