Takayna BioBlitz has been a roaring success on its tenth anniversary. A unique event for Tasmania, two hundred people have joined from all around Australia. A BioBlitz is a large-scale citizen science event where scientists and volunteers work together to record all the living species, and in Takayna we surveyed in eight locations over three days. In just three days, two hundred and ninety species have been counted at the Bob Brown Foundation’s BioBlitz. Hundreds more are still to be catalogued and identified once the scientists return to their labs.
“Scientists and citizen scientists have sent a clarion call for the protection of Tasmania’s Takayna from our tenth annual BioBlitz. Takayna is World Heritage value, rich in globally unique species and is critically important as an intact wild place in this age of climate and extinction crises. Takayna is still threatened by logging and mining and secure protection is urgently needed,” said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaigns Manager.
“The reptiles and amphibians of the Takayna are amazing. They teach us about millions of years of adaptation to survive in these ancient cool temperate forests. When you depend on the temperature of the environment around you it’s extremely challenging. These animals are wonderful examples of resilience and adaptation. They teach us about how an ectotherm can survive in these really cool, wet environments. Now it’s up to us to adapt our human lifestyle so we can protect these animals and forests forever,” said Professor Jean-Marc Hero who travelled from Queensland to be a survey leader Takayna Bioblitz 2024.
“On our invertebrate surveys, we have recorded a diversity of species that we know are unnamed and unknown. Whether these Takayna forests will persist in a drying climate is something that is concerning me about the future,” Dr Lynne Forster said, invertebrate scientist at BioBlitz. “Large old logs that are generated by old growth forests like those in Takayna are essential habitat for stag beetles. These logs are lost when the forest is logged and take hundreds of years to recover.”
“I love visiting the incredible ecosystems that make up Takayna, observing and learning with the amazing scientists and citizen scientists on the Takayna Bioblitz. Takayna is such an incredible ecosystem full of biodiversity, a true World Heritage site. I feel so sad as a future generation that these Takayna ecosystems are being destroyed, taking away the opportunity of kids in the future to experience these magical wild places. As a photographer I use my photographs to help protect places like Takayna and inspire you to stand up for the intricate and threatened species in these ecosystems. Please Save Takayna for all of us,” said Spencer Hitchen, conservationist, environmental educator and nature photographer who travelled from Qld’s Sunshine coast to participate in Takayna BioBlitz.
“Importantly, the Takayna Bioblitz serves to improve the ecological literacy of the public. Guided by experts, each event equips people with new insights and the confidence to make better informed decisions about their relationship with the environment. Takayna is an exciting frontier for new knowledge about Tasmania and attracts increasing attention from scientists year by year. It remains highly prospective for undiscovered species, many confined to western Tasmania and with ancient connections to the supercontinent Gondwana. The stories we uncover from this work enlarge the understanding of our island as a special but fragile place. Documenting the fauna and flora of Takayna also allows us to establish a baseline against which to measure the effects of global warming on native species and to identify emerging threats such as new weeds and pests. This will help guide management decisions needed to support the wonderful diversity of this area into the future,” said Dr Peter McQuillan, UTAS Adjunct Senior Researcher, commenting on the tenth anniversary of Takayna BioBlitz.
“Ten years of Bioblitz has demonstrated not only the willingness of the public to engage in building the scientific case for protection of Takayna, but also has shown how many secrets Takayna still has to share. When we silence the bulldozers and the chainsaws there is a world of discovery and wonder right on our doorstep,” said Scott Jordan, Takayna Campaigner with Bob Brown Foundation.
