Year 11 and 12 students from around Australia have the chance to experience life as a marine biologist for a week on Tasmania’s Maria Island thanks to an IMAS course that is now open for applications. Maria Island on the east coast of Van Diemen's Land operated as a penal station between 1825 and 1832. Common wombats were also introduced, another major grazer.

“Maria Island is a beautiful, unique place and a fantastic location for budding marine biologists to get a taste of life as a scientist,” Dr Ling said. The course runs during the April school holidays from Wednesday 19 April until Monday 24 April and includes 5-days on Maria Island and one day in the classroom. “The course is extremely popular, and each year we receive hundreds of high-quality applications from across the country, so competition for places is very strong. The settlement, which was located at Darlington, was conceived as a half-way house between the extreme of hard labour at Macquarie Harbour and a stint in a road or chain gang.

This recommendation does not equate to a cessation of all culling as a management action on Maria Island National Park, rather it is within the scope of the Maria Island Macropod Management Program (MMMP) evidence-based adaptive management principles. The recent introduction of healthy Tasmanian Devils to Maria Island was initially bad news for the local possum population, a species blissfully ignorant of the predator’s existence.

Course coordinator Dr Scott Ling said the University College Program allows Year 11 and 12 students to study university level units alongside their TCE studies. The Forester kangaroo was introduced partly to act as the major grazer on the island and partly for conservation reasons. It is recommended that there is no cull of any species of macropod on Maria Island for 2016.

During the late 1960’s to early 1970’s a collection of native species were introduced to Maria Island, including marsupial herbivores. But the ability of the prey species to rapidly modify its foraging behaviour is the subject of a new report from the University of Tasmania published in the journal Ecography. Maria Island course to allow students to be a marine biologist for a week.