A MUSTER OF DEVILS

After a two-year break, the Devil Country Muster music festival was back on in full swing this February. Held at the Riverbend Youth Centre in Smithton, country artists such as Adam Harvey, Dean Perrett, Aleyce Simmonds, Gina Timms and Pete Denahy took to the stage to play to locals and travellers alike.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was Errol the dancing devil who joined in the festivities and bopped along to his favourite tunes, while raising awareness of roadkill and asking festival goers to slow down on the roads for wildlife

A big thank you to Eric, Gina and the Rotary Club of Smithton for putting on a great event and to UTAS for kindly lending the devil costume to Cradle Coast NRM for the occasion.

A wildlife phenomenon, thought to be caused by ocean upwelling has seen thousands of krill washed up on Ocean Beach, Strahan, on the West Coast, and as far north as Marrawah!

Upwelling is a process in which currents, winds and the rotation of the Earth, bring deep cold water to the surface of the ocean, locally known to be part of the Great Southern Australian Upwelling System Conditions are optimal for upwelling along the coast when winds blow along the shore Displaced surface waters are replaced by cold, nutrient-rich water that “wells up” from below Because the deep water brought to the surface is often rich in nutrients and is exposed to sunlight, coastal upwelling supports the growth of algae and plankton

These, in turn, provide food further up the food chain for fish, marine mammals, and birds On the west coast, krill swarms have gathered to feed on the phytoplankton.

This is all great news for Tassie birdlife, particularly the Short-tailed Shearwater. During their life cycle, a shearwater’s single egg hatches in early January and both parents feed the chick regurgitated food inside the burrow. Chicks can wait up to two weeks between meals if the adults have to travel to the waters around Antarctica to feed, so when the krill are closer to the Tasmanian coastline, there’s a much shorter trip to bring food back to their burrows