14 Australian Geographic
HIGH PRAISE
I thought I should write to you about
the 150th A G
magazine. Wow! What a magnificent
publication, I think it’s one of the best
issues ever. I read it from cover to
cover. I particularly liked the poster,
and I found the platypus article
fascinating. I also really liked the
high-quality map of the forest of
Victoria’s Central Highlands.
Please pass on my compliments to
everyone involved. Nothing replaces
hard work, and it’s clear that lots of
hard work went in to this issue.
DICK SMITH AC
TRADITIONAL WISDOM
As a member since 1994 I was very
pleased to receive my copy of AG 150.
YOUR SAY July. August 2019
My seven-year-old son was very
excited to see we had the first
edition of AG that was being
celebrated by the current one!
He was so impressed, he made acollage of our history of editions.
What fun! It’s always such a joy
to share the new wonders of
Australia with him each month.
Amy Kilpatrick, Canberra, ACTFeatured Letter
I read with interest the article
Creating a super-park. I also relate to
Dr Karl’s article in AG 146. We appear
to have learnt little from the traditional
owners of our country in relation to
fuel-reduction burns. The more and
larger parks we create will also bring
on more bushfires. I’m old enough to
remember both Black Friday in 1939
and many more since, including Black
Saturday in 2009.
The report that followed the fire
recommended fuel-reduction burns,
but even these seem to have been
reduced in size year on year.
I travelled to Darwin in 2016 and
was interested to see where mosaic
burns had been carried out north of
the Adelaide River. In Broome,
Aboriginal rangers carry out suchSend letters, including an address
and phone number, to editorial@
ausgeo.com.au or to Australian
Geographic, GPO Box 4088,
Sydney NSW 2001. Letters will be
edited for length and clarity.MAILBAG
WELCOMES
FEEDBACKfuel-reduction burns in the spinifex
country. Hopefully, we may still be able
to learn something from our past.
Thanking you for our great magazine.
G.N. HEDDITCH,
ECHUCA, VICMOTHER OF INVENTION
In your Geobuzz page, AG 150, you
wrote of the ‘black box’ flight recorder.
Did you know that its inventor,
David Warren, was the son of a CMS
(Anglican Missionary) who died in the
crash of a small plane between Victoria
and Tasmania? It went down in Bass
Strait and was never found. If you want
details, check in the book Dr No. 49,
written by his sister Grace Warren,
a specialist hand surgeon who worked
for The Leprosy Mission Australia for
many years and, after retiring, at Royal
Prince Alfred and Concord hospitals
in Sydney.
PAT LAMBERT,
ORIENT POINT, NSWSPOTTED, UP A TREE
I came upon your fundraising article
on the spotted-tailed quoll and it
brought back memories of an incident
on my uncles’ farm at Burrell Creek
near Wingham, NSW, 44 years ago.
We had two bachelor uncles,
Bob and Bert, who lived in the
original Easton homestead on their
own for many years. One was practical
and to the point, while the other was
an animal lover whose life revolved
around animals. As we always did when
on vacation in the area we took the
children to visit the farm, and on this
particular day we were greeted by a
very distressed pair of uncles. The
carcasses of 15 of their beautiful white
leghorn chickens lay strewn around the
chookyard, untouched apart from being
totally drained of blood from small
punctures in the neck. A conference was
called! Bob decided it was a quoll.
Despite growing up in the bush
I had never seen one and moved in
closer to protect my two children.WRITE TO US!
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T-shirt.DOUBLE PLATYPUS FUN