Peter Tonelli

Peter has had a personal interest in Tasmanian birds for over 40 years, an Australian bird banding licence was granted to Peter in 1995 initially under National Parks Wildlife Service project – Distribution and Demographics of Raptors, a project covering all birds of Pray, a perceived decline of Swamp Harriers in particular soon became a personal interest, in the past 15 years Peter has personally banded over 150 individual birds and collated vital nest data, building up a plethora of visual information on the nesting habits of Swamp Harrier predominately in the Mersey Valley NW Tasmania noting ornithological behavioural changes, advising on-site field assistance with close communication with the farming fraternity, harvest contractors, agricultural agencies, specialty cropping industries. Education and protection of this vulnerable ground nesting Raptor is his priority.

Alison Dugand

At an early age Alison (Ali) was fascinated with nature, taking more notice of how things worked than most would, recognising that one thing cannot survive well without something else, and so this process was somehow linked to our own survival. The importance of a single species in the landscape can often go unnoticed, until such time as there are few remaining, and it is generally at this point that we then plan to do something about it, all too often it’s too late.
A chance meeting with Naturalist Peter Tonelli spawned an idea to investigate the impact of fast paced harvesting equipment on ground nesting Swamp Harriers in the Central Coast region of North West Tasmania, to gain an understanding of how they have adapted to nesting in various crops within current intensive farming regimes that is typical of this landscape. In the early days these cropping areas would have been swamps, so now with a much altered landscape, and with technological advancement that has resulted in fast moving machinery, nesting in a crop that is soon to be harvested places a breeding pair at risk.
Having grown up in a rural environment, with a background in natural resource management, and graduate in Ornithology through Charles Sturt University, Ali is keen to involve farmers in the research, after all, they know their patch intimately and are best placed to share their knowledge and insight. Working together, the overall aim is to develop simple methods that can be adopted by farmers to assist with the survival of chicks during nesting which is where Harriers are so vulnerable, without compromising production.