John Wamsley

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Dr John Wamsley (born 1938) is an Australian environmentalist. He was the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year for 2003. Wamsley is known for his attempt to set up a network of wildlife sanctuaries across Australia.[1]

Wamsely was born in Ourimbah, New South Wales in 1938. His passion for Australian wildlife was born when the seven year old Wamsley's family moved to a 67 hectare bushland block at Niagara Park. At age sixteen Wamsley became a trainee metallurgist with BHP. Dissatisfied with the job he became a labourer in BHP's open-hearth furnaces and worked a second job renovating run down houses. By age 23 Wamsley was a millionaire. Approximately two years later Wamsley entered the University of Newcastle, Australia. The thirty year old Wamsley graduated with a PhD in Mathematics and moved to Flinders University to lecture.[2]

June 1969 saw the purchase of Mylor, a degraded dairy farm that was to become Wamsley's first sanctuary, Warrawong. Wamsely eradicated all feral plants and animals from the sanctuary and erected a surrounding fence to preserve the sanctuary's feral free state.[2] Wamsley entered the public eye when he attended a tourism awards ceremony wearing a hat made from the pelt of a feral cat. The ensuing controversy lead to a change in the law, allowing feral cats to be legally killed.[3]

Warrawong was opened to the general public in 1985 with a view to generating enough money to set up more sanctuaries. A company, Earth Sanctuaries Limited, was started in 1988 with a forty year strategy to create a network of eighty sanctuaries, spanning all of Australia's habitats. The company was listed on the Australian stock exchange on 8 April 2000. The float was under subscribed leaving the company A$10 million short of funds and unable to complete its network of sanctuaries in the eastern states of Australia.[2] During the mid 2000's Earth Sanctuaries Limited was delisted from the Australian stock exchange.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ John Wamsley - Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year 2003. Minister for the Environment and Heritage Media Releases. Department of the Environment and Water Resources (2004-07-14). Retrieved on 2007-08-29.
  2. ^ a b c Radford, Leigh. "John Wamsley", Rural Legends, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on 2007-08-29. 
  3. ^ a b Adams, Prue. "Wamsley walks away from Earth Sanctuaries", Landline, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2005-03-27. Retrieved on 2007-08-29.