Tasmanian Wilderness | Summer School in Hobart, Tasmania

This captivating work charts the history of Tasmania from the arrival of European maritime expeditions in the late eighteenth century, through to the modern day. By presenting the perspectives of both Indigenous Tasmanians and British settlers, author Henry Reynolds provides an original and engaging exploration of these first fraught encounters. Utilising key themes to bind his narrative, Reynolds explores how geography created a unique economic and migratory history for Tasmania, quite separate from the mainland experience. He offers an astute analysis of the island's economic and demographic reality, by noting that this facilitated the survival of a rich heritage of colonial architecture unique in Australia, and allowed the resident population to foster a powerful web of kinship. Reynolds' remarkable capacity to empathise with the characters of his chronicle makes this a powerful, engaging and moving account of Tasmania's unique position within Australian history.

Three nature stories depicting the life cycle of the brilliantly coloured Superb Fairy Wren, common garden Skinks and flightless Native Hens. All the fauna live in the natural habitat of the Tamar Valley of Northern Tasmania. At the time of publication their habitat is not endangered.

In this addition to the critically acclaimed Scientist in the Field series, Dorothy Patent follows the scientists trying to put a stop to a gruesome disease before it's too late. Tasmanian devils are dying at an alarming rate from a type of tumor that appears to be contagious. What scientists are learning while researching the Tasmanian devil has potential to affect all animals, and even humans, as they learn more about how to prevent and hopefully eradicate certain genetic diseases. In the late 1990s, a fatal disease called Devil facial tumor disease began wiping out the Tasmanian devil population, killing nearly 90 per cent of the devils over the past 20 years. Why was the entire population getting the same disease? Was it contagious? Then geneticist Jenny Graves made a discovery that was hard to believe, but true: the tumors were cloning and multiplying between animals. If researchers cannot get to the bottom of this mystery, this fascinating mammal will soon be gone. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent takes readers on an unforgettable tour of the Tasmania to meet the scientists working to save the devil before it's too late. AGES: 10 to 12 AUTHOR: Dorothy Hinshaw Patent holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley. SELLING POINTS: • The well-known Tasmanian devil appeals to kids from its cartoon counterpart. Despite its notoriety as a crazy mammal with big teeth who wreaks havoc, real Tasmanian devils are actually more docile, not vicious, and family oriented. They are Australia's largest native predator still remaining. • Dorothy Patent has written the story as a science and travel journal, as she journeys from Australia to Tasmania and back again, sharing the places she visits and other animals she encounters along the way. • Numerous female scientists at the helm here, especially in the field of medicine/disease and genetics. • It's appealing to see epidemiology, genetics, and animal behavior come together in one story – and inside the "science presenting a mystery that needs to be solved" framework that works so well in the Scientist in the Field books.

Does the Tasmanian Tiger still roam the island state, parts of the Australian mainland, and the northern land mass of Irian Jaya-Papua New Guinea? Despite being hunted to extinction in the early part of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Tiger continues to stalk the imaginations of people the world over. What's more, hundreds of reports of the striped dog-like marsupial with the fearsome gaping jaw are made each year in Australia. In The Tasmanian Tiger: Extinct or Extant?, biologists, geneticists, naturalists, and academics explore the evidence for and against the continuing existence of Thylacinus cynocephalus.

In this fascinating history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place, Shakespeare effortlessly weaves the history of this unique island with a kaleidoscope of stories featuring a cast of unlikely characters from Errol Flynn to the King of Iceland, a village full of Chatwins and, inevitably, a family of Shakespeares. But what makes this more than a personal quest is Shakespeare's discovery that, despite the nineteen century purges, the Tasmanian Aborigines were not, as previously believed, entirely wiped out.