Land Management and Wildlife Conservation

In the video below Karno discusses the history of collaboration his elders had with Australia’s Scientific community, this video was shot by his friend Mike McKelvey and Karno implies in this video that this collaboration is still ongoing through his relationship with the cameraman (Mike).

Perhaps the best place to start with this story is with Mike, how he met Peggy, and then how Karno and his wife Christine met the both of them.

Mike McKelvey OAM

Mike McKelvey OAM (Order of Australia Medal) and Wilderness Photographer became a permanent resident of Kangaroo Island totally by accident. In the 1970s he was working with Rigby Publishers from Adelaide when he had an accident and needed a place to recuperate. The publisher asked what he would like to do while recuperating and suggested a sabbatical on Kangaroo Island. What neither publisher nor Mike foresaw was that he would fall in love with the island so much that he would make it his permanent home. Not long after he arrived on the island he set about photographing the landscape and the wildlife there which turned into one of the best tourism adverts for the island. The title of the book was of course “Kangaroo Island” and it inspired people from all over the world to come visit the island.

In 1979 Mike had an exhibition of his work at the Australian Consulate in Los Angeles California. Journalist Debbie Seaman visited the exhibition and published an article about it in the Los Angeles Times. Later Debbie described how Mike’s book inspired her to visit Kangaroo Island and laid the foundation her second visit with her Australian husband and children in 2002. If you read this article it’s not hard to see why Mike and Karno become such good friends, his knowledge of Wildlife and the Landscape of the island was incredible and made her family trip even more magical. Below is a link to Mike’s book and a link to Debbie’s Los Angeles Times newspaper article.

https://biblio.com.au/book/kangaroo-island-mckelvey-mike/d/562849044

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-29-tr-kangaroo29-story.html

 

Dr Peggy Rismiller (OAM)

Dr Peggy Rismiller (Order of Australia Medal) was born in Rural Ohio and received both her Masters and PhD in Biology in Germany, she is an environmental physiologist whose speciality is studying how animals interact with the ecosystems they call home.

Peggy came to Kangaroo Island in 1988 from Germany as a post doc to continue snake research that was begun by the retiring curator of Herpetology from the South Australian Museum. Peggy loved reptiles and Australia has larger and more diverse reptiles to study compared to Germany. At the same time she began long term life history field studies of echidnas and Rosenberg’s goanna.

Shortly after she arrived on the island she met Mike. They fell in love and she went to live and work at the Pelican Lagoon Research and Wildlife Centre that Mike had founded in 1974. More than three decades later she continues her life history studies of these unique Australian animals and is considered a world authority of the life of free ranging wild echidnas (their ancestors were on the planet with the dinosaurs), Rosenberg’s goanna (a reptile born into a greenhouse atmosphere and transitions into our oxygen rich atmosphere) and the live bearing Kangaroo Island tiger snake.

Today Peggy gives echidna rescue, rehabilitation and hand rearing workshops across Australia, internationally lectures at diverse venues and supervises undergraduate/graduate University students in Germany and Australia. She and Mike continue to work closely with volunteers who visit the island assisting with conservation and land management work.

Peggy’s love for reptiles continues a passion she shares with her partner Mike. They both share Karno’s love for the Kangaroo Island goanna. The Ramindjeri word for this goanna is Marni. Marni forms a very important part of the lore that makes up the Ramindjeri Dreaming, something that Mike and Peggy are aware of, and know quite well.

Her love for reptiles continues, a passion she shares with her partner Mike, they both share a love with Karno for the Goanna lizards of Kangaroo island. The Ramindjeri word for the Goanna is Marni, and Marni forms a very important part of the lore that makes up the Ramindjeri Dreaming, something that Mike and Peggy are aware of, and know the lore of quite well.

Karno’s work with Mike and Peggy

Uncle Karno Walker and his wife Aunty Christine first arrived on Kangaroo Island in 2006 where they setup a Bed & Breakfast near Murray Lagoon called Wulde Waiiri (Ramindjeri words for “Gateway to Star Heaven”).

One night, shortly after they had arrived on the island, they visited a local fish and chip shop to get some dinner, Karno and Christine overheard some customers that where already there that were speaking in an American accent. Karno jokingly said to Christine, because of their accent and appearance, “looks like we have got Bonnie and Clyde here”. The four of them soon struck up a conversation and Karno found out he had a lot more in common with them than he had first thought.

All four shared a very strong passion for the landscape of Kangaroo Island and the wildlife that lived there. From that love sprang a desire to learn as much as possible from each other. Karno taught Mike and Peggy the Lore of the Land and they in turn shared with Karno biological mysteries that scientific research had uncovered about the islands wildlife and ecosystems.

Not only did Karno teach them about Lore, he also taught them a lot about education, and his unique Ramindjeri way of how to teach others, some of those stories are in the short videos below.

He also taught some unique land conservation techniques to Mike, Peggy, and the conservation volunteers the three of them supervised together, perhaps the most important technique he taught was to never plant trees in a straight line, always plant them in a large circle. Planting trees this way allows for a much more diverse ecosystem to take root, fields will grow within those circles of trees with important plants for humans and animals such as Yam Daisies and other types of plants that cannot grow in a closed forest canopy.

Members of the Wirritjin Peggera:lin committee were lucky enough to catch up with Mike and Peggy at the 2024 Ramindjeri Mum:mo:wee and we redecorated these interviews below. Mike and Peggy were very close to Karno, and like many others that knew Karno well, they have some incredible stories to tell about him, because of this we highly recommend that you watch these videos

 


In the videos below we start with individual interview’s with Mike and Peggy followed by a third video where they are interviewed together.