In early 1972, avid bushwalker and conservationist John Wanless travelled from Canberra with his six-year-old son, David, to lay eyes on Lake Pedder for the last time. Here, David shares his late father’s photographs and typewritten account, along with his own recollections, of that final, poignant pilgrimage over half a century ago. To accompany this story, David ascended Kunanyi with photographer Zoe Helene to make pictures of David today. 

Portraits of David Wanless by Zoe Helene. Story by Meg Bauer.

David: Dad loved anything outdoors. He was an avid and very hardy bushwalker, mountaineer, caver, skier, abseiler—all those sorts of things. 

David: He’d lived in Tasmania for a few years in his 20s in the 1950s, when he came down as a pathologist slash chemist working out of Launceston. Having come from the flat, dry lands of western NSW, he was completely blown away by Tasmania. Judging from his stories and his diaries, he seems to have spent every spare minute exploring Tasmania: caving through every cave he could find, climbing every mountain, walking through every bit of the map—and off the map. Well before there even were really good maps.

David: He just adored Tasmania, and repeatedly told us his time in Tasmania was the best time of his life. He only left because of family issues—he had to go back to look after his mum when his sister was killed in a road accident. 

He was always talking about Tasmania. He played a game when we were kids—I don't know quite how it came about—but he would chase me around the big kitchen table where we had most of our meals, or watch me running around the table, and sing: David’s going to Tasmania, David’s going to Tasmania. I think he programmed me!

David: Then when I was six, he brought me down to see Lake Pedder, which he adored and had walked to numerous times. It was in the process of being flooded, so the dam had been built.

I was a bit young to appreciate all of that, but Dad was coming down to say goodbye to Lake Pedder, and he brought me so that I could see it before it disappeared. And I have fantastic memories of that trip. 

David: So we went to Lake Pedder and he took me through miles of mud, because the track at that time was very muddy. We had to slog through the mud, which was as deep as I was some of the times! 

Dad double-tracked me in a fair bit of the way, meaning he would carry his rucksack, drop it off, come back and collect me, and carry me—and just do that over and over again, to get me in there.

David: He did describe at one point how he came back from having taken his pack the next stretch, to find me cowering in terror with a big currawong looking at me. Oh, he used to joke about the big currawong with beady eyes and beady beak!

David: But anyway, we got to the lake. And apparently, I raced out onto the beach and said, “oh, Daddy did you bring my bucket and spade? So I can—” and he said, “no, David…” [Laughs.] Something like: “you were heavy enough by yourself…”

David: Dad did a second degree in journalism at one point, so he was quite a good writer. That's the waters from the dam he’s talking about, coming up the river to flood the lake.

David: Dad wouldn't want to show emotion very much—he was a hardy outdoor bloke!—but yes, it was emotional for him. 

He referred to it and our other Tasmanian trip (to Cradle Mountain), many times, especially late in his life, and to his wonderful life in Tasmania.

David: Then I grew up, and just before my job at the Australian National University in Canberra finished in the early 90s, I became a full-time Wilderness Society volunteer for a  year.

During that period, I travelled around the country to as many different Wilderness Society branches as I could, helping them on computing and IT tasks, policy and planning, admin, campaign actions, all sorts of things. 

At the end of 1991, the Wilderness Society’s National Finance manager, Mara, rang me up and said, hey, our computing person in Hobart has just resigned at short notice. Can you come down for three months and help tide us over? I thought about it for a moment, then I picked up my little life—having never lived anywhere outside Canberra before—and came down to Tasmania. 

So I became the computing coordinator (we only had one computing person at the time). And thankfully, no one's ever noticed the three months is up.

David: Dad was very proud of all three of us Wanless children, and supported us in all our endeavours, but he was very supportive of my work with the Wilderness Society and for the environment in general. He was always sending me articles from the newspapers about environmental issues; he attended various Wilderness Society events over the years and he was a long-term member of, and donor to, the organisation.

Dad's photos, his stories and his love of Tasmania and the bush in general were a pivotal factor in my life, in my developing a love of the bush and nature in general, of bushwalking and skiing, and a love of Tasmania, in my moving to Tasmania and in working for the Wilderness Society.

So, it turned out that Dad’s song was right—I did go to Tasmania, and I'm still here.
 

In his nearly 40 years working for the Wilderness Society, David Wanless has been involved in countless campaign, IT and governance projects—from helping send the first ‘viral’ conservation image online (the World’s Tallest Christmas Tree in the Styx, Tasmania, featured in Issue 42); to building major integrations between our database systems; to being an activist on campaigns from Kakadu (Coronation Hill) to Tasmania’s forests (including Picton and the Styx). Important work like policy reform, or managing and upgrading our databases, often goes unseen by the public but is essential in keeping the organisation running smoothly. Thank you David!

For more on the efforts to rewild this lost glacial lake see lakepedder.org  

Huge appreciation to visual artist Zoe Helene for climbing Kunanyi / Mt Wellington with David to make these new photographs. 

Greater gliders: a secret life in the trees

Dr Ana Gracanin is a conservation biologist who has spent the last decade researching greater gliders—climbing, measuring and monitoring hundreds of hollow-bearing trees in the process. She’s authored and co-authored numerous studies on greater gliders’ behaviour and habitat use, contributing greatly to the scientific understanding of this threatened species, because "you can’t protect what you don’t know".

Photographs of Ana Gracanin by Sammy Hawker. Interview by Meg Bauer.

You’re a conservation biologist who specialises in greater gliders. What was the process, for you, of coming to focus on this particular species—what drew you to them?

The first time I ever saw a greater glider, over ten years ago now, I was an undergrad volunteer on spotlighting surveys. Through binoculars they looked almost unreal, with a gremlin-y face, but also like a fluffy Ewok or a Furby—and these huge round ears and absurdly long, fluffy bodies. 

What struck me most was how they moved: completely silent and incredibly graceful. I did not even know they existed at the time, and I became instantly obsessed. 

When I realised how little was actually known about them, that they were this enigma living high above us, I knew I wanted to spend my postgraduate research getting up there with them to try and understand their secret lives in the trees.

Why are greater gliders so important within their ecosystems?

Greater gliders rely on large, hollow-bearing trees for shelter, which form in old, mature forests. So, when you see greater gliders in an area, it’s generally a good sign the forest is healthy and structurally complex. 

A lot of research has shown just how closely they’re tied to old growth forest, which is why they’re considered important indicator species.

You’ve spent a lot of time up in tall trees, doing nocturnal fieldwork. Can you describe what that’s like, being high in the treetops of a forest at night?

Up in the canopy at night, the first thing I notice is the stillness, this deep calm and serenity. I will often stop partway up a tree, sit on a branch and take it all in. It's unreal when it's under a full moon: I look out over the forest, and it is bathed in the soft, silver glow of the moon. 

In the dark, you lose your sense of height very quickly. It does not feel like you are high at all—almost like the ground is just below you. It feels like you are suspended in an in-between world, and you feel completely removed from the human world.

You set up the world’s first greater glider livestream, capturing intimate and never-before-seen footage of a pair of these endangered animals in their den. What did you learn from this? Did any of the behaviour you captured surprise you?

The motivation was twofold. Scientifically, it was to gather the first detailed behavioural observations of greater gliders inside their hollows. Socially, it was to show the world what is happening behind the tree trunk walls of their homes. 

Most people do not even know greater gliders exist, and if you do not know a species exists, it is very hard to care about its loss. 

The livestream helped bridge that gap. Watching two glider parents raise a joey allowed people to connect emotionally in a way that had never really been possible before. 

What surprised me most was how much daily ritual there was. The constant grooming, the tenderness, the way they reinforced their bonds every day. Seeing them use their tails in a prehensile way to carry leaves into the hollow, and capturing not just maternal but also paternal care, was extraordinary—and some of the first evidence of paternal care in the species.

What’s driving their decline, in states like NSW and Victoria?

Key drivers of greater glider decline include habitat destruction from logging and land clearing, frequent and intense wildfires, and the compounding impacts of climate. 

Large losses of old growth and mature forests remove the food and hollows that greater gliders depend on. Although forests may regrow, the large hollows required by this species can take well over a century to form—far longer than a greater glider’s lifespan of up to 15 years. 

What needs to change for greater gliders to thrive?

Protecting this species requires conserving intact, mature forests, which includes ending native forest logging and safeguarding remaining old growth forests. 

Restoring hollows and habitat is also essential for reconnecting fragmented landscapes and sustaining viable populations. 

What do you wish more Australians understood about greater gliders, and the forests they live in?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that forests just grow back and everything will be fine. Greater gliders live short lives and move relatively very little, and if their forest is cleared, they usually have nowhere else to go. They cannot easily cross roads or farmland, and nearby habitat can be already occupied by other gliders with established territories. 

A study following clearfell logging by Tyndale-Biscoe and Smith in 1969 found that more than 90 percent of the greater glider population died following habitat destruction, with only a small number surviving in adjacent forest edges. 

While trees can regrow, the large hollow-bearing trees that gliders depend on can take hundreds of years to form. If we lose those trees, we can rapidly lose the species from that area. 

We need to protect old forests now, and allow younger forests to age and develop hollows, so these animals, and the hundreds of other species that rely on tree hollows, can persist for generations to come.

We thank photographer Sammy Hawker for making these portraits of Ana for Wilderness Journal.

From the archives

The Wilderness Society's archive has been 50 years in the making. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Society we are unearthing the energy and character of different periods of the organisation. In this issue we highlight the beautiful covers of late 1980s Wilderness News. Robin Tindale, based in Tasmania, designed these early publications and continues to volunteer with Wilderness Society. We asked her to describe what it was like working at the time.  

Words by Robin Tindale