MLSSA

Newsletter

APRIL 2002

No. 287

"Understanding, enjoying & caring for our oceans"


Next Meeting 17/4/02

Our next meeting will be held at the Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield Street on Wednesday 17th April commencing at 7.30pm.

Our speaker will be Member and noted Film Maker Mike Piper. An outline of the film he will be showing is to be found on Page 8.


Contents

Report on MLSSA (Part 3)

Film Night For April Meeting

The Naming Of Gulf St Vincent

(& Other Locations)

MARINE WILDLIFE NEWS

Diving With Dragons

Welcome to a New Member


Membership Fees are

NOW DUE

It is that time of the year again! To assist Members an Invoice will be enclosed with this Newsletter.

We ask you to pay either at the April General meeting or if not attending then please send your fees before the meeting. This will greatly assist the Treasurer.


Annual General Meeting

This will be the May Meeting. If you wish to be nominated for the Committee then please advise me as to who is making the nomination in time to place your name in the May Newsletter. I will need it by the 26th of April at the very latest.

At present we have the following nominations:

President - Philip Hall

Secretary - Steve Reynolds

Treasurer -

Committee #1 - Chris Hall

Committee #2 - David Muirhead


Emma Egel, a student, came to our October General Meeting in 2001 and asked permission to do a study of the Society as part of her university course. The Meeting agreed to this and I have been publishing her report over the last two months. This is the final section.

The footnotes in the original are sequential to 37, but each of these individual parts will have the footnotes beginning from 1 again.

I have had to make some corrections and alterations for the sake of accuracy. (Philip Hall - Editor)

Part 3

As MLSSA has been in operation for a long time its previous campaigns are numerous. A selected few of these include the protection of the Leafy Seadragon, the laying of transect lines at Port Noarlunga Reef in 1981 and Fishery Beach in 1983 ensuring everything that was seen was recorded. The monitoring of marine life has occurred at both The Bluff in Victor Harbor and at the Screwpile Jetty, several settlement plates were installed and the developing growth was observed. The collection of specimens has been a staggered campaign occurring only if the Society is putting on an educational display, of which they have done many. They have had aquarium displays in banks, libraries, shopping centers, the Malacological Society Show, boat shows, the South Australian Museum and the Maritime Museum, and at the Royal Adelaide Show. At present MLSSA has its hands full with several campaigns all of which are of a considerable size. Partly due to MLSSA’s efforts, protection has been afforded to the Leafy Seadragon causing their focus to shift to concerns involving the protection of the Weedy Seadragon in South Australian waters1. The Weedy Seadragon is rare and is a slow swimming fish that once discovered is easily caught or harassed. The protection given to the Leafy Seadragon may inadvertently create more interest in Weedy Seadragon making them more vulnerable. MLSSA is calling on the state government to formally protect the Weedy Seadragon to ensure these creatures remain in our waters. Slow progress has been made with this campaign recently as it has taken a back seat to other priorities such as Dragon Search and the Jewels of the Sea project.

Dragon Search2 is a monitoring program that encourages members of the community to provide information on seadragon sightings and the project is conducted and supported nationally by the Marine and Coastal Community Network, Threatened Species Network and the Australian Marine Conservation Society. The information collected by the community will be used to determine the distribution, habitat requirements, and research and management priorities for the species. The two species of seadragon, Leafy and Weedy, are found only in southern Australian waters. Both inhabit rocky reefs, seaweed beds, seagrass meadows and structures colonized by seaweed. Seadragons are threatened by habitat destruction and the aquarium fish trade even though it is illegal to collect or export them without a permit. Dragon Search is calling on people to be pioneering scientists by observing captive or wild seadragons to gain more information about their basic ecology, "anyone who visits the beach can get involved"3. Recreational divers are encouraged to record their sightings in dive logs whilst others can observe beach washed specimens. Dragon Search has actively encouraged the protection of these animals in national legislation and at many state levels and also promotes the need for marine reserves in general to conserve a comprehensive and representative range of marine life and habitats.

The Jewels of the Sea4 project is a collection of marine study kits that are going to be made available for loan to South Australian Schools. Jewels of the Sea or JOTS as it is commonly known is a Coastcare funded project ($35,000)5 with an equivalent in kind contribution from MLSSA. It will contain a South Australian teachers guide. This guide was originally intended to be an insert to "The Octopus’s Garden" which was developed in Victoria by Jacinta Farrugia and Cheryl Linford in 1996 but it will now be an independent book. The JOTS project has been developed in response to the lack of marine educational resources and support services available for South Australian students and educators and to promote ecologically sustainable use and development of Australia’s coastal and marine habitats. The project focuses on southern Australian temperate marine life and has been created with ideas, activities and materials from each of the Australian states that share the Southern Ocean. There are seven "companion"6 kits to be created by the project; one has interactive marine puppets for children aged 5 - 9 years old. Three kits are for junior schools resources - children aged 7 - 11 years old, and the other three are for middle school resources for children aged 12 - 16 years old. All the kits have a wide variety of educational materials such as books, posters, videos, and marine specimens to stimulate the interest of children in marine life. JOTS correlates with the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability framework. This framework is a "futures-orientated curriculum that promotes the medium of communication technologies to develop a knowledge and understanding about the sustainable use of our resources"7. The aim of this project is to "foster and encourage creativity and ingenuity to think outside the square for continued environmental solutions and changing behaviors"8. This project is quite likely to be highly successful, as education is one of the best long-term environmental management strategies available. The kits will build the foundations for children to have the understanding, skills and knowledge to recognize environmental problems and contribute to their solutions. The Minister for Environment, Iain Evans MP, actively encourages JOTS, stating that "I encourage their use and continued development"9, "I believe that these kits will be a valuable resource"10, and "My Department is proud to have been a supporting partner in this project"11. The hopeful completion date of the project is the 2nd of December 2001.

In addition to these campaigns MLSSA has an active member who is assisting the Reefwatch "Feral or in Peril"12 campaign which monitors vulnerable, threatened or endangered species.

A work in progress is the Beachwash Booklet13 which is quite substantial in size and content. It is a detailed description of many items that could be found washed up on South Australian shores. The purpose of the booklet is for the community to be able to identify objects in order to record them or simply observe them.

MLSSA also actively takes part in annual KESAB clean up dives along the coastline.

In closing, MLSSA is an environmental organization that greatly deserves the praise and respect of the community for its efforts in preserving and enhancing our marine environment. The Societies focus on educational projects proves that they are looking towards long-term solutions for our environmental problems. They are extending marine conservation beyond the beach and bringing it into classrooms, shopping centers, playgrounds, and family homes. Through the development of attitudes and the changing of lifestyles an environmentally responsible Society can grow and when it does MLSSA can stand tall and take recognition for the importance their role has played in such an occurrence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

SECONDARY SOURCES

________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.mlssa.asn.au. (Web Page). 2001. MLSSA

2 Dragon Search. 2001. Australia, Dragon Search.

3 Dragon Search. 2001. Australia, Dragon Search.

4 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

5 McPeake, Phill. Interview. 17th October 2001.

6 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

7 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

8 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

9 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

10 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

11 Isaccson, Tony. 23rd October 2001. (Electronic correspondence).

12 Ball, Chris, (Ed.). ReefWatcher. ReefWatch. October 2001, Vol. 2, Issue 5.

13 MLSSA, General Meeting. 17th October 2001.


Film Night for April Meeting

MLSSA members Mike Piper and Vicki Harris will be showing us one of their film productions at our General Meeting on 17th April. Mike and Vicki operate Piper Films Pty Ltd. They will be showing a film about the red crabs of Christmas Island. I’m keeping quiet about the film’s title because I want to describe the film in the following manner:-

The red crabs of Christmas Island are said to be nature’s consummate gardeners. They apparently till the soil, clear away leaf litter and weeds, and control the regeneration of rainforest plants. The island is over 70% rainforest and Mike Piper says that the crabs are nature’s custodians of the forests. He says that without the crabs the unique composition of the island’s rainforests would change forever.

Each year millions of red crabs migrate to the island’s coastline for a mass spawning. It is one of the most extraordinary biological events on earth. During the migration the crabs face many threats and hazards. Cars, moray eels and robber crabs all threaten the existence of the millions of crabs but it is a tiny creature that is their biggest concern.

A creature no bigger than a fingernail poses the greatest threat to the crabs. It is an introduced species accidentally introduced some 50 years ago. These tiny creatures are able to subject the crabs to a slow painful death. As they crawl over and around the crabs they release formic acid, spraying it onto the eyes of the crabs and into their mouth openings. The crabs become stressed and spend up to 12 hours dying.

Crabs, which survive the attacks, are able to spawn. The female crabs produce up to 100,000 individual fertilised eggs. These are released into the sea where they hatch into larvae within seconds. Baby crabs that return to the shore and attempt to reach their rainforest habitat are themselves attacked by the acid spraying creatures. They die in their millions.

The tiny killers are rapidly spreading over the island. Their increase in numbers and the loss of so many red crabs is altering the island’s ecology.

Mike and Vicki had to contend with these crab killers themselves whilst filming the attacks. The formic acid would irritate their skin. They also had to withstand mosquito attacks and incredible pain caused by stinging trees.

The resulting footage is apparently spectacular and we are fortunate to be offered a private viewing. Come along and see what these crab killers actually are.

Steve Reynolds

(From information provided by Piper Films Pty Ltd)


The Naming Of Gulf St Vincent (& Other Locations)

Captain Matthew Flinders named South Australia’s Gulf St Vincent after an English Earl. He named the gulf in honour of Sir John Jervis who was in charge of the naval battle off of Cape Saint Vincent in 1797. Jervis was later made an Earl, making him a nobleman or peer. As an Earl he took on the name Saint Vincent after the naval battle, becoming Earl (of?) Saint Vincent. An Earl is ranked just below a Duke.

In 1795 Spain had reverted to French alliance and the *British Admiralty was ordered to hold the Mediterranean Sea. Jervis was a Commander in the Royal Navy and at the end of 1795 he was sent to take command of the Mediterranean fleet. He is credited with having transformed the condition and morale of the fleet which had been worn out by constant patrolling. Under Jervis’ command the discipline, training and supply situation were all overhauled.

Jervis was based on the **flagship HMS Victory in the Mediterranean Sea. The British Admiralty received word of a Spanish invasion of England and they ordered the Mediterranean fleet to withdraw to the British colony of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain, just inside the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, where the Strait of Gibraltar separates Africa from Spain.

On 13th February 1797 a large Spanish fleet was sighted escorting a convoy carrying mercury which was essential for refining silver from the "New World". The British fleet comprised just fifteen ships compared with the Spanish fleet, which had twenty-seven. The two fleets engaged in battle in the Atlantic Ocean off of Portugal’s Cabo de Sao Vicente (Cape St Vincent). The Cape is the south-west tip of Portugal, lying halfway between Lisbon (Portugal) and Cadiz (Spain).

Admiral Nelson and Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge were also involved in the confrontation. Nelson was on board the British ship Captain. The British fleet captured four Spanish ships and the battle’s success prevented the proposed amalgamation of French and Spanish fleets for an invasion of England.

Jervis may have been made an Earl soon after the 1797 battle. Captain Matthew Flinders is said to have named Gulf St Vincent after Earl St Vincent in 1802. Flinders had set sail from England in 1801 when Jervis may already have been the Earl of St Vincent. Sir Thomas Troubridge was a distinguished Naval commander and he was apparently Flinders’ sponsor.

(Flinders was sailing onboard the HMS Investigator, which is said to have seen service in the wars between England and France itself as the Xenophon. Built in 1795, the Xenophon was sold to the British Government in 1798 and was used for convoy (escorting) duties. In 1799 she was in charge of the whaling fleet at Hull. She became the Investigator in 1801 for Flinders’ expedition. Condemned in 1810, she became the Xenophon once more. Between 1867 and 1872 she "worked" in Victoria’s Port Phillip (Port Phillip Bay?). She was broken up in 1872 after a "life" of some 77 years.)

Between January and March 1802 Flinders charted the shores of the two gulfs that became part of South Australia. It seems that he designated the name of St Vincent to one of our gulfs at that time. Although it was some years later before Flinders published details of his explorations, it seems that he selected the name of Gulf of Saint Vincent when filling in his log whilst he was in the area.

On 23rd March 1802, whilst charting the eastern shores of Gulf St Vincent, Flinders gave Sir John Jervis’ name to the cape at the southern tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula. So, Cape Jervis is also named after Sir John.

The Fleurieu Peninsula was named in 1911 following a visit by a grand-nephew of Captain Nicolas Baudin, a French navigator. Nicolas Baudin had been charting our shores onboard the Geographe about the same time as Flinders. Flinders was sailing east whilst Baudin was sailing west. The two met off of the area of the mouth of the River Murray on 8th April 1802 before continuing their respective journeys.

In 2002 South Australia will be celebrating the bicentenary of the charting of the SA coast by both Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin and their ‘encounter’ at Encounter Bay in April 1802.

Since Baudin was travelling in the opposite direction to Flinders and charted the waters of the two gulfs just after Flinders had, many of the locations that Baudin named from thereon had already been named by Flinders. Baudin had chosen the name of Cape Fleurieu for Cape Jervis. His choice honoured the French Navy Minister who had financed Baudin’s expedition, Charles Pierre Claret, Count M. de Fleurieu. The peninsula was then named after the Count in 1911.

The township of Port Vincent on the western shore of the gulf is also, indirectly, named after Lord St Vincent. The area was originally called Port Saint Vincent after the Gulf of Saint Vincent when it was first surveyed in 1839. Robert Cock chose the location in May 1839 when he selected the site for a port to serve newly arrived settlers on Yorke Peninsula. The "Saint" part of the name was later dropped for simplicity.

Flinders named Troubridge Hill, Troubridge Point, Troubridge Island and Troubridge Shoal in St Vincent Gulf after his sponsor Sir Thomas Troubridge.

John Jervis was born in 1735. He fought with distinction off Ushant in 1778, and at Gibraltar 1780-2. He was then successful in the battle off of Cape St Vincent in 1797. He was made Admiral of the Fleet, the top rank in Admirals, in 1821 and he died in 1823.

FOOTNOTES

*The Board of Admiralty is a British government department in charge of Naval affairs. Th Royal Navy is thus directed and administered by the Board of Admiralty whose offices are in Whitehall, London.

Sir John Jervis was made the First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty. The First Lord Commissioner is the head of the Board and is sometimes referred to as the President of the British Admiralty. The position is a political appointment.

The make-up of the Board may possibly have changed over the years but I have read that the First Lord appointed by the Government was usually a member of either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. The Board is said to consist of six Sea Lords, all of whom are professional Royal Navy Officers holding the rank of Admiral.

There are four ranks of Admiral in the Royal Navy. They are as follows, in descending order:- Admiral of the Fleet, Admiral, Vice-Admiral and Rear-Admiral. All are usually referred to as ‘Flag Officers’ because the ships that they command fly a flag indicating their rank.

**A ship ‘wearing’ the flag of an Admiral is known as a "flagship". According to "Ships Monthly" magazine for June 1997 HMS Victory was a 186 foot galleon of 2,162 tons burden which later became Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship for the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The ship has been at Portsmouth, England since 1824 and was restored in 1928. She is apparently kept in dry dock and is protected from the elements.

There are two islands called St Vincent. One is in the West Indies and the other (Sao Vincente) is part of the Cape Verde group off of the NW coast of Africa (not too far away from Portugal?). Cape Verde itself is at Dakar on the coast of Senegal on the NW coast of Africa.

The original St Vincent was a Deacon and a martyr. Catholics celebrate the Feast Day of St Vincent (de Paul) on 27th September each year and, to a lesser degree, on 22nd January. The St Vincent de Paul Society is a Catholic charity group.

It seems that Captain Nicolas Baudin’s expedition named a location on the west coast of Yorke Peninsula ‘Cape St Vincent de Paule’ in the region to the south of Fishermans Bay.

Baudin’s expedition would have named the Gulf of St Vincent as ‘Golfe Josephine’ after General Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife at the time and Spencer Gulf as ‘Golfe Bonaparte’ after Napoleon himself. The French called the whole coastline from Western Port to the Nuyts Archipelago ‘Terre Napoleon’.

(There is also a Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the Timor Sea west of Darwin. After leaving Kupang in Timor, Baudin returned to the WA coast where he entered a gulf that they named after Joseph Bonaparte, the King of Naples and Spain and the oldest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte.)

Flinders had named Spencer Gulf (and Cape Spencer on Yorke Peninsula) after Earl Spencer, another First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty.

Steve Reynolds


MARINE WILDLIFE NEWS

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/BMLSS/News2002.htm

Reports of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents and conservation initiatives as they affect the flora and fauna of the NE Atlantic Ocean. Full details of these reports and their authors can be found on the BMLSS webpage.

10 February 2002

A Harbour Porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, was washed up dead on Blackrock Sands near Morfa Bychan near Portmadoc in north Wales. This itself is not a particular unusual event in view of the hundreds of dolphins washed up dead on English Channel coasts. Porpoises are common in the north of Cardigan Bay and used to get caught up in fixed nets before the fishery was halted.

Ivory Gull feeding on the carcass on 10 February 2002

Photograph by Chris Galvin

However, this porpoise was graced by a visit by an Ivory Gull, Pagophila eburnea, an nearly all-white Arctic species which may have been blown further south by the recent storms. This gull is a very rare vagrant to Wales and England.


Diving With Dragons

The launch of the leaflet "Diving with Dragons" which has been produced by Dragonsearch took place at Port Noarlunga on Sunday 10th March.

Reefwatch was holding its annual fish census at Port Noarlunga Reef at the time and about 60 divers and snorkellers took part. This provided an excellent opportunity to educate both divers and snorkellers with regard to their interaction with Seadragons and their environment.

Tony Flaherty from the Marine and Coastal Community Network performed the launch. Many people and organisations including MLSSA were thanked for their contributions.

From MLSSA, David Muirhead contributed his famous "pregnant Leafy" shot and he and several others had sent in suggestions for the Code of Conduct.

More information in the May Newsletter.

Philip Hall


Welcome to a New Member

We would like to extend a cordial welcome to Val Adamson who joined us in early March. We hope to see you at our General Meetings Val.


 

 

 

To Home Page