Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

Then to Murdoch University, lecture at 12.30.
Lunch with Jeff Malpas, from New Zealand. He was for a time at University of New England.
Arnold Thompson, University of Manchester, is now here.
Patsy Hallen, an American, is here, but in the Science and Technology Program. She has managed
to arrange a position in ecofeminism every other year. It has been filled by Carolyn Merchant, then
Karen Warren, and will be filled next by Val Plumwood, and Vandana Shiva. Hallen supervised the
dissertation of Wawrick Fox. She works only half a year and is in the bush or whatever the second
half. She teaches one class in environmental ethics, another in ecofeminism.
There are only four vet schools in Australia: Murdoch, Adelaide University, one in Melbourne, one
in Sydney. There is a woman on the animal ethics committee at the University of Western Australia
who thinks highly of Bernie Rollin.
After lunch, we walked on a boardwalk at a pond. Waterfowl. egrets, cormorants. Two rabbits on
the Murdoch University campus.
Tour of Freemantle - a Victorian town.
Back at dusk. This area is called Sunset Coast. lorikeets in the trees along the coast at sunset.
The tropical sun can set with a flash of green just at the setting. Green flash.
Rottnest Island, a "nest of rats," in Dutch, or, more accurately, quokkas, a small marsupial.
Kentucky fried chicken.
Ken Johnson, The Ausmap Atlas of Australia. Oakleigh, Victoria: Cambridge University Press,
1992. ISBN 0-521-42122-5
Australian bushfires are some of the worst in the world, as a threat to settled areas. The danger
is greatest after vegetation has flourished and then fried out. They create their own localized fire
storms. Good map of fire frequency (p. 77). The vastest part of the continent burns less often than
once every twenty years.
Drought is common. At any time some part of the continent is experiencing drought. There were
great droughts at the turn of the century, the 1940's, and in 1982-83.
Floods are common, owing to the extreme variability of the climate. The intense high rainfall floods
the streams. Wetter or drier periods are common.
Development spreads into flood prone areas, shifts the runoff patterns and makes the floods worse.
Good rainfall map, p. 73. Low rainfall compared with other continents, and more variable than on
other continents. Good climate maps, p. 71.
Steve Parish, Big Picture Book of Australian Wildlife. Fortitude Valley, Queensland. Steve Parish
Publishing Pty, Ltd. ISBN 1 875932 038. Good pictures of echidna, platypus.
Discover Australia. Sydney: Reader's Digest, 1991, 1994. ISBN 0 86438 135 2. Later got it ILL at
CSU, excellent for a survey of the types of landscapes.