LAT LONG
LAT LONG: 23°27 S 151°55 E
Girt by sea. The Heron Island Research Station, right,
is the largest island research centre in the Southern
Hemisphere. The Heron Island Resort is the island’s only
other tenant.Hands-on work. Postdoctoral Research Fellow Eugenia
Sampayo (above) observes her coral larvae experiment,
while Collette Bagnato (centre), a volunteer researcher,
comforts a shearwater covered in sticky pisonia seeds.TOP IMAGE: AUSC
APE/UIG; C
LO
CKWISE
FROM CENTRE:Ardennasp.;Tridacna gigas; Chelonia mydasdive, snorkel and fish. During turtle breeding season
(November–March), sta members will also often
observe as female turtles dig pits and egg chambers.
A former employee even once helped to save a whale
calf. And, says Geraldine Bessone, a housekeeper for
the past two years, “When you finish work you can just
walk 30m and go for a snorkel with sharks and turtles.
It’s a very nice life.”
It is idyllic, but there are minor hiccups of the kind
you’d expect at remote facilities. Heron Island Resort,
the research station’s neighbour, supplies the utilities,
and when I wake one morning, a system breakdown108 A
G
S
OMETHING LIKE 21st-century castaways, 10 people
call tiny Heron Island, in the south of the Great
Barrier Reef, home. I’ve joined them here, 80km
north-east of Gladstone, Queensland, to visit their
workplace – a high-tech research facility open all hours
for scientists to study the reef surrounding them.
Owned and operated by the University of Queensland
(UQ), the Heron Island Research Station (HIRS) is the
largest on the Great Barrier Reef. The centre was built
in 1951 on land leased from the Queensland Parks and
Wildlife Service. However, most of its current facilities- including indoor and outdoor aquaria, wet and dry
labs, and separate research and education facilities –
were formally opened in 2009, after a devastating fire
forced a two-year rebuild.
Today, the station caters for up to 150 visitors, and in
September–October, its busiest months for research,
5–10 projects are typically running concurrently.
On the weekend of my visit, four projects are under-
way. The first is an ongoing experiment to forecast the
impact of climate change on the reef. Then there’s a UQ
filming project for a course covering tropical coastal
ecosystems; an experiment to determine the miner-
alogy of crustose coralline algae (CCA), which builds
and binds the reef; and a project examining how coral
larvae of dierent species compete during settlement.
A 27-strong group of high school students has also
just arrived. I watch as some clutch pillows to their
chests while they amble hesitantly o the catamaran
towards their week-long educational adventure.
The station employs 10 sta members: two each in
boating and diving, scientific services, administration,
maintenance and housekeeping. All live on-site and
everybody works for 10 consecutive days, with four
days o. With the exception of Maureen Roberts, the
finance and administration o¢cer, and boating and
diving o¢cer Isaac Ashton, Heron’s residents tend to
remain on the island during breaks.
Those with their own boats often escape to some of
the other islands in Capricornia Cays National Park to
HERON ISLAND
RESEARCH STATION
Cut o from the mainland and surrounded by ocean, a
group of scientists enjoys the perks of working in paradise.STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY KARA MURPHYag0914p108_latlong - 108 2014-08-12T15:54:16+10:00