DONATERED ALERT

Wildlife Wizards

March 29, 2019

We recently heard about some young Tasmanians taking things into their own ‘hands’ by doing their part to help conservation of Australian wildlife – including red handfish.

A keen and motivated wildlife warrior Danny Rumsby (grade 5) came up with an idea to make badges to raise awareness for endangered Australian species – and of course, got all of his friends to help out. They created the Wildlife Wizards Badges – to promote and raise funds for species in need and have created a website and Facebook page to help promote their work – which also contains information on each of the species.

We’re so excited to see young people take this initiative, so we thought we’d catch up with the team leader, Danny to find out more about what and why he’s helping conservation...

Danny - tell us about yourself!

I’m 10, and I go to South Hobart Primary School. I like surfing, fishing and snorkeling and I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up, so I can work with fish and coral reefs and help protect them.

How did you hear about handfish and what made you decide to help them?

My friend Arthur told me about the handfish when I came up with the idea for Wildlife Wizards Badges. We wanted to help the handfish project because the handfish are local to our area, and they look really cute, so people might want to help them.

Tell us about the Wildlife Wizards Badges - what they are and how you started it and who is involved?

I went to vacation care and there was a badge press which was really fun. I had the idea we could design badges to sell to support Australian wildlife conservation, and I invited some of my friends to help. Me, Arthur, Peter, Jem, Luca and Ben are the Wildlife Wizards, and my sister Eva. We made 300 badges and so far, we have raised over $600 for Australian wildlife projects including the Handfish Conservation Project.

How can people get their “hands” on a Wildlife Badge?

You can see them all on our website wildlifewizards.org - some are sold out already, but we plan to make some more. So far, we’ve sold them at school. We plan to sell some at Source Wholefoods at UTAS and the Skyline Garage [South Hobart].

Wishing Danny & team all the best - keep up the great work and keep working towards that marine biology degree!

(Images courtesy of Chloe Lucas)

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