Some good news this April
In light of the current situation, we’ve been sharing some good news stories to help balance out the deluge of other news coming in from around the world (and our own COVID-19 related calls and emails). We’re going to keep bringing you some of this good news to help take your mind off the pandemic for a minute and hopefully spread a little bit of joy.
Prickles the sheep returns home to Dunalley farm after fleeing 2013 bushfires
Self-isolation may be difficult for most of us, but Prickles the sheep is an expert. When the 2013 Tasmanian bushfires hit, she fled from her Dunalley farm and only made her official return home earlier this month. As she hadn’t been sheared in all that time, she now looks like a “great big fluffy ball of wool.” Luckily, she is a barefaced merino which means she doesn’t grow wool on her face, for our city readers, allowing her to survive out in the bush.
Prickles managed well enough during her time away; she is very healthy and happy to be reunited with her old friends, albeit having to adjust to the turkeys and ducks on the farm too. Prickles will be shorn on 1 May and to enter the record books her fleece will have to weigh over 41.1kg. We’re intrigued to find out if she’ll make it!
First koalas rescued from bushfires returned to the wild
Many of the koalas rescued from bushfire affected areas over the summer have been released back into the wild. This includes 12 koalas that were rescued from the Kanangra-Boyd National Park in the southern Blue Mountains World Heritage area, which is especially significant as they are part of the most genetically diverse population of koalas in Australia. Additionally, 26 koalas from Port Macquarie Koala Hospital have been released back to their original habitats in Crowdy Bay and the Lake Innes Nature Reserve, with further koalas soon to be released in Taree, the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury area.
The habitats of these koalas have been closely assessed to ensure they’re suitable for the koalas’ return, with recent rainfall aiding this process and creating plenty of new growth for the koalas to eat. It’s important for koalas to be released in the same area they were rescued from and so some koalas will even be returned to the very tree they were rescued from!
Earliest known skull of Homo erectus unearthed by Australian-led team
An Australian-led team of researchers has discovered a two million-year-old fossil. It is the earliest known skull of Homo erectus and reveals that our ancestors existed up to 200,000 years earlier than was previously thought. The discovery occurred at Drimolen Main Quarry, north of Johannesburg in South Africa, and it is said the group that this human was a part of could be the origin of everyone alive today.
When found, the skull was a puzzle of over 150 individual fragments. It took five years to be reconstructed, dated and to identify that the skull was in fact human. The head of archaeology at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, Professor Herries, stated he “could not stress how rare it is” to find enough fragments to piece together an intact brain case, especially given that the skull belonged to someone who was aged between two and three when they died, making their skull especially thin and fragile.
We hope these stories provided you some warmth and joy! Stay tuned for next month’s good news stories.
Feel free to share any of your good news with us too.
