Latest news with #Adelaide
ABC News
an hour ago
- Climate
- ABC News
'Heartbreaking' algal bloom hits metropolitan Adelaide beaches
The South Australian government says some of the algal bloom that has been plaguing the state's coastline and Coorong has now been pushed to metropolitan beaches. Beachgoers and scientists have been discovering a wake of dead marine life washing up on Adelaide beaches, including Glenelg, Grange and Semaphore. Marine biologist Mike Bossley has spent thousands of hours roaming the beach in his lifetime, but since Tuesday has sighted species he's never seen on the shore. "Different kinds of rays and sharks, lots of pipefish, things called ling, which is a very unusual thing. I've never seen them washed up on the beach before, and lots of species of fish that I don't even know the names of," he said. A marine heatwave brought on the harmful algal bloom, causing discoloured water and foam in the Fleurieu Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, Yorke Peninsula and the Coorong. Surfers and swimmers started reporting falling ill after being in the water in March, and countless dead creatures have since washed up all over the state's coastline. Environment Minister Susan Close confirmed the impact on metropolitan beaches was in part due to recent weather events. "Partly because some of the bloom has been pushed towards us, but also because we've had a big storm, that some of the dead marine life that's come out of the gulf has now washed up onto our coastline," she said. Citizen scientists have been reporting dead fish washing up closer to the city throughout the past month, from Sellicks to North Haven. But Dr Bossley said there had been a swell in dead marine life on the shore since Tuesday's storm. "I was appalled when I came here [to the beach] and it was just dead marine life, dead fish everywhere, and sharks, rays, all sorts of stuff," he said. Glenelg North resident Ali Wylie is a frequent beachgoer and was concerned to see the carnage on the seashore. "I had no idea that the algal bloom had got here, but it's so — it's just heartbreaking," she said. "I was heartbroken at Coorong, I couldn't bear to look at the footage, and now it's here. What can we do?" Rodney Shugg said he had also been seeing fish, small sharks and rays wash up dead at Semaphore Beach on walks with his dog since the storms last week. He said he had attempted to return some of the still-living marine life to the water. "Most of them were sharks, Port Jacksons; different-looking crabs that we don't normally get down here too," he said. Mr Shugg said he had been rolling over the dead sharks and rays looking for any sign of injuries but only sees redness on their undersides. He added he was concerned for dogs on the beach after hearing of a labrador that had become ill after eating something that had washed up. Marine and wildlife conservation student Emily Beckmann said she had documented more than 30 species of dead creatures at Largs North and Taperoo in the last three days. "As a passionate marine biology student, it is heartbreaking to see the animals I admire so much dead on the beach instead of thriving out in their natural environment," she said. The state government is asking people to contact Fishwatch to report dead sea life to help scientists better understand the algal bloom and potential events in the future. "The sooner we can get there and test the animals, the faster we'll know what's going on," Dr Close said. Dr Bossley said the algal bloom is a reminder that climate change "is here". "We really need to have our governments doing everything they can to deal with it." Dr Close said more needed to be done to help ecosystems bounce back after challenges like the algal bloom. "We need to look after nature so that she's more resilient in the face of this kind of pressure, and we need to understand the connection between this and climate change and really make sure that everyone's taking climate change seriously across the world," she said. The state government has described the algal bloom as stubborn but, in an update on the Department for Environment and Water website, said the latest statewide observations show sea surface temperatures have continued to decrease in shallow coastal and gulf waters. It added deeper continental shelf waters, however, continue to experience marine heatwave conditions. In the meantime, Dr Bossley is in talks with psychologists about setting up eco-grief workshops to help people cope with the devastation they're seeing. "You don't have to be a marine biologist to be really, really sad about what's happening," he said. "It's just ordinary people who walk along the beach and enjoy the beach and the marine life; they're impacted just as badly."
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Rare colour footage of extinct Australian animal seen again after 90 years
An extinct Australian animal can once again be seen bounding across a paddock after rare 16mm film was digitised by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) this week. Taken almost 90 years ago, the clip contains the only known colour footage of a living Toolache wallaby, a species relentlessly hunted to extinction. While the marsupials were once common, the film itself shows just one female fenced in a paddock. She was likely the last living representative of her species when the footage was shot in 1936. Bernard Cotton, from the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia, would have understood the animal's significance as he travelled to film her at Robe, a coastal town located more than 340km south of Adelaide. The trip was in October, just one month after the last-known Tasmanian tiger died at a zoo in Hobart. The film begins in black and white and ends in colour, showing a Toolache wallaby completing common behaviours like hopping, eating, and cleaning itself and ends with a snippet showing four rock wallabies for comparison. Three years later, this individual was dead, and her species was extinct. Related: Unseen photos of Tasmanian tigers spark hope more could be discovered Australia has the highest rate of mammalian extinction in the world, and watching back the newly digitised footage in 2025, the Field Naturalist's current vice president, Peter Matejcic, said he felt 'saddened'. Not only did the Toolache wallaby lose habitat to the agriculture industry, it was both culled and shot for fun. A diary from the 1800s that was unearthed by the Field Naturalists indicates recreational hunting of native species was a common weekend pastime across Australia. 'Co-existing with native fauna is difficult given human priorities,' Matejcic lamented as he spoke with Yahoo News Australia. The film, Toolache Wallaby in 1936 by BC Cotton, is owned by the Field Naturalists and it has granted Yahoo News permission to obtain and use it for this article. A digital copy of the film has been held at the South Australian Museum for 20 years, but that version is entirely black and white. What's incredible about the newly digitised NFSA copy is that it contains 34 seconds of colour footage at the end. Few people alive today had likely seen the colour version until it was removed from a canister and digitised in June. In black and white, it can be hard for modern viewers to imagine what it was like to see a living animal that has since gone extinct. In 2021, the NFSA engaged experts in Paris to painstakingly colourise footage showing a Tasmanian tiger, but luckily, this wasn't required for the Toolache wallaby. As NFSA technicians stared at the canister, they were initially unsure of the film's condition. Its film services team lead Dave McGrouther explained older 16mm film is made from diacetate, a material that shrinks and warps over time. 'The reality of working with film is that it's all deteriorating. The controlled storage conditions we have slow that down to a great extent, but there are occasions where we come across a film and it simply can't be saved,' he told Yahoo News. The first five minutes of the Toolache wallaby film, which are in black and white, were in reasonably good condition. And while the colour section had deteriorated and turned a deep magenta in colour, it still helps viewers imagine what this fascinating creature was like to see in real life. Anyone visiting the South Australian Museum can see a taxidermy specimen on display, but watching one alive on film, moving through its environment, adds another dimension of excitement. Although Yahoo has colour-corrected two stills from the footage, NFSA opted to release the video without alteration because doing so could result in the loss of some detail. McGrouther is one of the world's most experienced film preservation experts. He's working on an NFSA initiative called Deadline 2025, which aims to digitally preserve sound and film from the Twentieth Century before it ages and degrades. This includes thousands of old newsreels from cities and regional towns that tell Australia's history. At current rates, it's estimated the team has at least 70 years worth of work ahead of them. 'Film is our cultural record, it's how we view ourselves, it's a visual record of what Australia looked like in this previous century,' McGrouther said. While film is an important way for Australians to visualise their history, written first-hand accounts are also powerful. In March 1945, months before the end of World War II, an article in the Field Naturalists journal reflected on the demise of the Toolache wallaby. It includes a historic description detailing when the species were in such great numbers they 'swarmed in the neighbourhood of Kingston', at the southern end of the state's famous Coorong wilderness. A separate account indicates visitors to Australia have always marvelled at its wildlife. A man who saw Toolache wallabies in the mid-1800s says, 'I never saw anything so swift of foot as this species: It does not appear to hurry itself until the dogs have got pretty close'. When it became apparent that the Toolache wallaby was vanishing, less than a century after it was first described in 1846, efforts were made to preserve the species. But a plan to capture and breed the last survivors in the late 1920s was disastrous, because most were left exhausted, stressed, and quickly died. Secret hidden beneath Australia's 'most important' parcel of land Tourists almost kill 'world's oldest' creature 'Inconvenient truth' that's a growing threat to Australia's reputation At 72 years of age, Peter Matejcic from the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia has seen 'significant declines' in biodiversity across the country. In 2025, there are more than 2,000 species federally listed as threatened with extinction. Some are already likely extinct, but not enough time has passed without a sighting for this to be officially declared. Others are in such small numbers their genetics could be compromised, making recovery a challenge. History has shown that captivity is not the magic bullet for preventing extinction, as seen with the Tasmanian tiger and Tooloache wallaby. Matejcic wants to see increased focus in Australia on protecting natural spaces so that native animals can thrive in the wild. 'Once a species is confined to only zoo enclosures, survival of that species may be too late,' he warned. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
ABC News
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Tradie Stuart Campbell's unlikely journey to dance instructor
Struggling through heartache and worried about his job, Stuart Campbell's mate was on a mission to cheer him up. With good intentions and some glee, his friend dragged him along to a Latin dance club in Adelaide. "I didn't know until we walked in the door and nobody spoke English to me, which was horrifically terrifying when you're trying to learn to dance," Mr Campbell recalled. "It was mostly driven by gesture because I had no idea what they were saying. "It wasn't actually embarrassing because I didn't know anybody besides my mate who was so busy laughing at me." It was 2017, his long-term relationship had ended and the Whyalla Steelworks where he worked as an electrician had gone into administration the year before. But despite a few nervous jitters, Mr Campbell fell in love with Latin dance. Within months he'd worn out his dancing shoes. When he moved to Gladstone in 2018, he travelled back and forth to Rockhampton to attend dance lessons. A year later he opened his own dance school in Gladstone to give locals in the industrial city a chance to find the same passion he found. He has about 50 students who attend his adult dance school each week. Yarwun local Bernadine Daley is one of his students and first attended after a friend asked her to join. Nerves and a fear of appearing uncoordinated delayed her first visit by more than a month, but now she's a regular. "I'm 53 and learning to dance and it just fills my soul with so much joy," Ms Daley said with a grin. "My favourites are swing, Charleston [a jazz dance] is my absolute favourite … I just completely fell in love with it. "When I go home, I'm so wired, it's hard to go down … it's been one of the best things I've ever brought into my life." Ms Daley plans to formally test her skills with a medal grading test later this year, where she'll be judged on her moves against a syllabus. Mr Campbell said in the industrial city, many men joined because of their wives. "A lot of blokes say, 'I'm not going to do that, I'm not dancing' … but once they come along and have a little bit of fun, they usually end up staying," he said.
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Albanese will need to resolve the standoff with Turkey if Australia is to host Cop31
The Australian government's bid to host a major global climate conference in Adelaide next year wasn't supposed to go like this. A two-week meeting of diplomats at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany, failed to resolve what has become a long-running issue: whether the summit known as Cop31 would be held in Australia or Turkey, the only other nation vying for the rights. At a final plenary session on Friday morning Australian time, delegates from several European countries – Germany, France, Norway and Switzerland – sounded slightly frustrated as they backed the event being hosted by Australia in partnership with Pacific island countries. The UK, Iceland and New Zealand voiced their support earlier in the conference. No countries in the group of 29 nations that will decide the 2026 venue – known as Western Europe and Others – have backed Turkey's bid. But under the UN's consensus decision-making process the issue cannot be resolved while the Turkish government, led by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, remains in the race. The delayed decision has potential ramifications for the organisation of an event that the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has said would be the largest ever hosted in Australia. For two sleepless weeks in November, it would draw tens of thousands of people from nearly 200 countries – and the world's attention – to the host city. It is a major political and logistical exercise. The annual Cops – short for Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – are the major event on the climate diplomacy calendar. If the Adelaide bid is successful, Bowen has said the focus of the negotiations between government officials should be on implementation: how to turn new national pledges for 2035 that are due to be submitted this year into concrete, rapid – and belated – global action. The diplomatic negotiations would run alongside a massive trade fair for green industries. Out on the streets, activists would call for Australia and other fossil fuel nations to do much, much more to back up their climate rhetoric. There had been expectations since before last year's Cop29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, that Turkey would eventually bow to the inevitable and withdraw. But there was no sign in Bonn of that eventuality. Instead, Turkey launched a renewed pitch to win the rights, holding a reception to lobby delegates with a presentation on why Cop31 should be held in the southern resort city of Antalya. It argued that, compared with its rival, it was geographically central – and not a major coal and gas exporter. Observers at the talks said countries did not appear to be swayed. Turkey's case has weakened since Baku after Erdoğan's main political rival was arrested in March, prompting widespread anti-government protests and clashes with police. And its record on climate action is not strong. Its resistance to pressure to exit the race means countries missed a deadline set in Azerbaijan that a decision should be made no later than the Bonn mid-year meeting so that the successful host had time to prepare. It has widely been assumed Turkey would be open to dropping out if the terms were right. It has argued that it should be removed from the list of 'annex 1' developed countries that since the 1990s have been expected to act first in combating the climate emergency. But there has been little appetite from other countries to allow this change. The Bonn meeting agreed the stand-off needs to be resolved as soon as possible. At the latest, it will have to happen by the Cop30 conference in Belém, a Brazilian city on the Amazon River, in November. The new host will then assume the Cop presidency, a global leadership role that lasts through the year. Observers in Australia are increasingly calling on the government to step up its campaign to get the issue resolved. The chief executive of the Smart Energy Council, John Grimes, is among those urging Anthony Albanese to get more involved. Albanese has not attended a Cop since becoming PM. 'It is time for the government to flick the switch if we are to get this done,' Grimes says. That requires a whole-of-government effort led by the prime minister, for whom the Cop will be a legacy defining opportunity, particularly in the eyes of his Pacific counterparts. Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion 'This cannot wait for a decision at the Cop in Belém. This is too important, the diplomacy too intricate, and the timeline now too tight, for there to be anything less than a full-throated Australian diplomatic effort to secure the bid by the time the prime minister goes to the United Nations (general assembly in New York) in September.' While relatively little discussed in political debate, Labor has been declaring its hope of hosting a 'Pacific Cop' since late 2021, before it was elected the following year. It has faced accusations of hypocrisy and alleged greenwashing for arguing it should lead a major climate event while it continues to back fossil fuel expansions and extensions, including a recent decision to allow Woodside Energy's North West Shelf gas plant to run until 2070. But leaders from the Pacific, green industries and climate groups have largely expressed a hope that Cop31 would spur government and business to accelerate action at home and abroad. Supporters include Palau's president Surangel Whipps Jr, who told the Guardian a successful bid would be a sign Australia was investing in its 'Pacific brothers and sisters' and 'ensuring that we have a healthy planet'. The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has become an enthusiastic advocate, including commissioning an analysis that suggested it could attract 30,000 people and could be worth $500m to the state – more than the combined benefit of all its existing major events. Bowen makes similar arguments. Speaking at an energy conference in Melbourne last week, he said the government was 'actively campaigning' for the conference to 'attract global investment', 'supercharge our transformation into a renewable energy superpower' and 'put the Pacific front and centre on the world stage'. He said it had been 'working hard' with its international partners and Turkey to resolve the bid. On the latest evidence, it may have to step it up a bit.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Test run-in starts as Lions kickstart journey on Fury Road against Western Force
And so begins a tour-shaping fortnight for the British & Irish Lions in Australia. Starting with the Western Force this weekend they will be playing five matches inside 15 days and covering 5,700km across five different states and territories. By the time they relocate from Adelaide back to Brisbane for the first Test they will have crisscrossed the outback more often than Mad Max in his heyday. There are so many variables involved that sticking to rigid plans will be nigh-on impossible. Leaving aside the opposition and the travel for a moment there are more than 90 people attached to this Lions expedition once you add in all the backroom staff, bottle washers and comms types. As plate-spinning exercises go it is a major logistical challenge. The trick, as ever, is to try to locate some order amid the road warrior chaos. On the field that means stress-testing certain combinations with one eye on the Test series kicking off on 19 July, particularly in areas where potential starters have seldom played together. There is no shortage of quasi-religious fervour attached to this tour but precious little time in which to turn water into wine. Which makes the Force game more significant than it might initially appear. In the wake of last week's defeat by Argentina, Andy Farrell will be looking for reassurance on a few fronts, both up front and behind the scrum. Squint into the Aussie sunshine long enough and it is possible to see this fixture influencing the Test destinies of several players, not least those without an Irish postcode. The whole raison d'etre of the Lions, it should be stressed, is the notion of familiar home union biases being set aside for the greater good. But if Farrell has a 50-50 selection call to make without much in the way of compelling fresh evidence the logical choice will be to stick with the green-shirted devil he knows. Particularly if this particular matchday squad containing 11 Irish internationals hits the Australian turf running. Swap in Blair Kinghorn, Jamison Gibson-Park, Maro Itoje and either Tom Curry or Jac Morgan and this might even be somewhere close to the best-balanced starting XV the Lions can field. So if they can click swiftly it will be an appreciable bonus for the management before the entire circus heads east to face the Reds in Brisbane next Wednesday, followed by the Waratahs in Sydney, the Brumbies in Canberra and an Australia and New Zealand invitational XV in Adelaide on 12 July. Looking down that fixture list those two midweek games against the Reds and the Brumbies, currently Australia's two best-performing Super Rugby sides, may just be the toughest. Neither Super Rugby franchise will be absolutely at full strength but, from a Lions perspective, it could help explain why the tour skipper Itoje does not feature this weekend. And maybe the traditional rhythms of a Lions tour are changing. What if it is Canberra, rather than Adelaide, where the Lions will quietly unleash their putative Test team – or at least the guts of it? Might it be the kiss of death for the midweek dirt-trackers, AKA the bin juice and the driftwood? Amid the blur that is modern tour scheduling, that concept may have to be mothballed until the game against the First Nations and Pasifika XV in Melbourne between the first and second Tests. Then again we have not yet factored in injuries, a fact of life when an itinerary becomes this congested. Farrell can only cross his fingers that, in this instance, Finn Russell will dovetail instantly with the fit-again Sione Tuipulotu and the Welsh scrum-half Tomos Williams. And that the Lions lineout, with hooker Dan Sheehan now installed as captain, has a better day. There is already a sense that if the consistently influential Tadhg Beirne has another good game there could well be a slot for him at blindside flanker in the Tests. Stirred into the mix are plenty of other fascinating questions. Can Henry Pollock make the most of the starting opportunity he has been handed? Ditto Scott Cummings and Joe McCarthy in the second row? And with two big left boots in the back three – both James Lowe and Elliot Daly can kick a long ball – might the Lions look to play a more territorial style of game on occasions? Even more instructive, perhaps, will be how well the Lions can refine their offloading game and accrue more reward for the promising attacking shape evident at times against the Pumas in Dublin. If things instantly click with Russell wielding the baton and his disparate orchestra combining sweetly from the off no one will be happier than Farrell: 'If you look at it there are key positions that have not played together before so that makes it interesting for us to see how cohesive it can be as a whole.' Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion If collective harmony initially proves elusive, though, the Force may feel emboldened. While past history is not particularly encouraging – the Lions beat Western Australia 116-10 in 2001 and defeated the Force 69-17 in 2013 – this is a potentially more resilient home squad containing six current Wallaby squad members. According to the injured Kurtley Beale, the fast feet of winger Mac Grealy could also pose problems while the 6ft 7in Darcy Swain poses an obvious lineout threat. But prop Ollie Hoskins, most recently on the roster at Saracens, has had to be plucked out of retirement for this contest while the replacement hooker Nic Dolly, capped once by England in 2021, was released by Leicester last year after an injury-plagued couple of seasons. The slightly sandy base to the pitch may complicate scrummaging life for some but the Lions scrum coach, John Fogarty, is more concerned that visiting players collectively trust their instincts and do not get distracted by murmurs about the Force looking to knock a few lumps out of their visitors. 'Any time you get into a game of rugby you should be expecting to bash someone and get bashed,' responded Fogarty with a knowing smile. 'We're excited about showing the best of ourselves.' He could have added that the Lions have not come all the way to one of the most remote cities in the world to twiddle their thumbs idly. By the time they pack their bags and transfer to the opposite coast of this vast continent the hope will be that Farrell's red-shirted marauders have embarked with real intent down rugby's equivalent of Fury Road.
