Obituary Albert Russell (Bert) Main

2011·4.3 MB·English

by  Don Bradshaw

THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN
NATURALIST
Vol. 28 10th June 2011 No.l
OBITUARY
Albert Russell (Bert) Main
Born: 6 March 1919
Died: 3 December 2009
Bert Main (1919-2009) was
recognized both nationally
and internationally as one of
Australia’s leading zoologists and
a gifted naturalist. His research
and ecological teaching on a wide
variety of animals, including
frogs, reptiles, birds, insects and
marsupials laid the foundations
for three generations of graduate
students who were inspired by
his imagination and biological
insight. His foresight and energy as
an administrator on government
bodies also led to the creation of
some of Western Australia’s most
important National Parks and
Nature Reserves that are vital for
the preservation of Australia’s rich
biodiversity and form part of his
enduring legacy.
Bert Main died peacefully on 3
December 2009 after a period
Bert Main as Chair of the Environmental
of failing health. With his
Protection Authority (EPA) in WA in
passing, Australia has lost one of
1983.
Adapted with permission from S.D. Bradshaw, Historical Records of Australian Science, 22 (2011)
104-125.
1
its pioneer ecologists who went
on to translate his knowledge of
this country’s rich wildlife into
practical methods and means
for its long-term preservation.
He was appointed as a Lecturer
in Zoology at The University of
Western Australia (UWA) in 1952
on the recommendation of the
then Professor, Harry Waring,
prior to receiving his PhD on frog
systematics and evolution in 1956.
He was promoted to Reader in
1961 and awarded one of UWA’s
first Personal Chairs in 1967. Bert’s
primary research was on Australian
frogs and their evolution but he
was first and foremost a superb
naturalist; his knowledge of
the Australian flora and fauna
in its natural and geohistorical
setting was legion. This led him
to supervise over 30 postgraduate
students on organisms ranging
from blennioid fish, tortoises, Bert in jocular mood!
dragon lizards, marsupials,
mountain ducks, arthropods and
Barbara in 1999. His commitment
pitcher plants as well as the effect
to enthusing others about natural
of phenomena including fire on
history and ecology is reflected
the biota.
in the publication, in 1954, of
From his earliest days Bert believed two of the early WA Naturalists’
in taking science to the public. Club Handbooks (2,3), followed by
He was a member of the Western The Frogs of Southwestern Australia
Australian Naturalists’ Club and in 1965 (4) and a revised and
his first publication in 1947 (1) updated edition of Handbook
was on the artificial propagation No 4, A Guide for Naturalists, with
of the parasitic Christmas tree, Don Edward in 1968 (5). He also
Nuytsia floribunda. He was very convened with Dom Serventy an
active in Club affairs in the 1950s extensive appraisal of Kings Park
and was President from 1949-50 as an indigenous nature reserve
and 1963-55; Vice President from by WA Naturalists’ Club members
1955-56 and a Council Member that was published in 1957 and
from 1956-57. He was made an now provides an important early
Honorary Life member in 1957 and record of Perth’s most important
made a Joint Patron with his wife bushland remnant (6).
2
Bert was born on 6 March 1919 in
Perth and spent his childhood at
Caversham in the Swan valley,
an area that was then close to
undeveloped bushland. His father,
Alexander Russell Main, had been
gassed in the First World War and,
despite a back injury, maintained
a small vineyard in the Swan
Valley with the help of his mother,
Agnes (nee Mylam). Bert was the
eldest of three children, with his
sister Beth and brother Keith, and
credits his maternal grandfather,
Albert Mylam, with having given
him a love of the bush by taking
him regularly on long walks. The
vineyard was, however, sold and
Bert and Barbara Main in the Zoology
the family moved to Bassendean
Department of UWA in 1956
where Bert attended Midland State
School and took his Junior Exam
in 1934. His first job at the age of
Flight Sergeant and later a Warrant
15 was as a messenger boy in the
Officer. His early training as a
Department of Agriculture in East
navigator was in South Australia
Perth, rising to become an assistant
from where he was transferred
to a number of the officers, helping
to Wolverhampton in the UK
them with filing and, among other
to continue his training and
tasks, sorting seeds.
commenced flying operations over
His career with the armed forces Europe in 1944 as a navigator in
started at the age of 18 when he Lancaster bombers. His aeroplane
enrolled in the Citizens’ Military was shot down over Germany early
Force (CMF), better known then as in 1945 and he and the other crew
the ‘Reserve’ or ‘Militia’. members were able to parachute
Bert was marked for life, both from the burning craft. Bert
physically and mentally, by his strained his back on landing and
wartime experiences, which ended spent the next week scrounging
with him as an inmate in a German for food and attempting to get to
Prisoner of War (POW) camp. relative safety in Holland. Contrary
After the outbreak of war he to RAF instructions, he hid one
transferred from the CMF to the night in a farm haystack because
11th Infantry Battalion of the AIF of the intense cold. Aircrew
in February 1943. Bert remarked were told expressly not to seek
later that the mindless routine of refuge in haystacks as these were a
army life was not for him and he favourite target of strafing fighters.
enlisted in the RAAF and became a Unfortunately, the farmer on
3
maintained it was because he was
the only one who had a knife and
that ended any arguments!
On being repatriated, Bert first
spent time at a rehabilitation
hospital in Yanchep, recuperating
from a duodenal ulcer and debility
provoked by conditions in the
POW camp. He returned to his
old position with the Department
of Agriculture and matriculated
at night school from the City
Commercial College, being Dux of
his year in 1946. Along with many
other POWs, he benefited from the
Commonwealth Reconstruction
Training Scheme (CRTS)
established to assist returning
servicemen. He then enrolled n
1947 at The University of Western
Australia for a Science degree. This
was the last year of G. E. Nicholls’
tenure as Professor of Biology.
Bert in the field The following year, Harry Waring
arrived from the UK and was
appointed to the Foundation Chair
whose land he was, discovered him of Zoology at UWA.
the next morning and rendered
Bert was awarded a Fulbright
him to the German authorities.
Scholarship to study in the United
He was taken as prisoner to States in 1950 and left before he
Stalag VII/A (Kriegsgefangenen- had completed and submitted his
Mannschafts-Stammlager), a POW Honours thesis. He studied at the
camp that was located north of University of Chicago under Tom
the town of Moosburg in southern Park and Sewell Wright, the latter
Bavaria. Bert’s stay in the camp greatly influencing his thinking
was not long but one can gauge on genetics. He also met and was
the conditions from the fact that befriended by the ‘greats’ of ecology
his weight fell from his normal and evolution of the time, some of
12 stone (76 kg) to a little under 7 whom he studied under - George
stone (43 kg) on his release. In the Gaylord (GG) Simpson, Theodore
camp Bert managed to fashion a Dobzhansky (Doby), Warder
knife and spoon which he used to Clyde Alice, Alfred Emerson, Karl
apportion rations to the 14 inmates Schmidt and Orlando Park. On his
in his hut. Why Bert was given this return trip, Bert went via the UK
responsibility is unclear, but he and visited Charles Elton’s Bureau
4
John Kelsall, Bert Main and Dick Sadlier in a flight over the Abrolhos Islands
of Animal Population in Oxford had three children, Rebecca
where he also studied with Arthur (born 1956), Gilbert (1960) and
Cain and E.B. Ford, with whom Monica (1963). None has become
he was impressed by his ground¬ a professional zoologist, but all
breaking work on polymorphism. have a deep love of nature and
Bert returned to WA late in 1951 the environment that they owe to
and hurriedly put together and their parents.
submitted his Honours thesis, for Bert’s PhD thesis, submitted
which he was awarded First Class
in April 1955, was entitled;
Honours - graduating in 1952 and
“Some aspects of the evolution
then appointed to a Lectureship in
and speciation of the Western
Zoology under Harry Waring. Bert Australian fauna as illustrated
had met Barbara York as a first-year
by the genus Crinia (Anura,
student in Zoology in 1947 and Leptodactylidae)’’ and was a slim
they were married on 12 April 1952.
volume of some 87 pages. It is
Barbara went on to have her own noteworthy that he was already
distinguished career as a zoologist,
focused on the Australian
focusing on trapdoor spiders of
fauna, and frogs were merely
which she has become a world
being treated as a case study. He
authority, and also a creative writer deliberately chose frogs as his
of distinction^. Bert and Barbara
object of study because....
”J had formed the view that
^ See, for example Main, B.Y. Between Wodjil
because of the unprotected
and Tor Jacaranda Press, 1967
5
nature of their skin, frogs and merited his election as an
would be useful organisms Honorary Foreign Member of the
in evolutionary studies as it American Society of Icthyologists
was believed, at the time, that and Herpetologsts (ASIH) in 1975.
speciation in some of the biota One of Bert’s most important and
had been promoted by a great influential papers on amphibian
aridity in the geologically recent ecology and evolution appeared
past/m in 1958 with Murray Littlejohn
Bert’s research on the amphibian and Tony Lee in the international
fauna of Western Australia was journal, Evolution (9). The paper
groundbreaking. New species were attempted to resolve the paradox
discovered and described using of why there are so many more
the new methodology based on species of frogs in western than
male calls and culminated in a in eastern Australia, despite the
major review paper on the ecology, topographic monotony of the
systematics and evolution of WA landscape and the absence
Australian frogs (8). These papers of obvious barriers to gene flow
alone would have been enough such as rivers and mountains.
to cement his reputation as one of All conventional theories of
Australia’s leading herpetologists speciation at the time were based
Bert Main, Ernest Hodgkin, Harry Waring and Knut Schmidt-Nielsen next to the
Zoology Department’s DeSoto field vehicle in the late 1950s.
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on allopatric separation of gene zoology. Although Bert himself
pools by physical barriers, and was exposed to the Allee ‘school’
the WA situation flew in the of ecology during his period in the
face of this. In this paper the United States (11), he was firmly of
authors identified multiple species the opinion that ecology could not
in the genera Hyla, Neobatrachus, be taught, only discovered when
Heleioporus, Crinia and Pseudophryne one had some raw data in hand. He
with corresponding species pairs believed that slavishly following
in the eastern states and then a text led only to the imprinting
erected a novel hypothesis based of students with one or other of
on successive migrations of frog the competing ‘schools’ of ecology
species during wet (pluvial) periods current at that time (12).
of the Pleistocene. This hypothesis Bert’s extraordinary involvement
....’’envisaged Western Australia as a in the practical application of
peninsula from which the fauna of science to the problems of
south-eastern Australia is now isolated environmental management
by desert but into which components of in Western Australia was to
the south-eastern fauna could migrate commence in the late 1950s and
when the intervening country was less continue long after his retirement
arid than it is now.” (8). Bert’s very from UWA in 1983. His work
original hypothesis was inspired focusing on the protection of
by the early work with birds of wildlife commenced as a member
Serventy and Whittell (10) and of the state Fauna Protection
based on the series of ice ages in the Advisory Committee (FPAC) and
northern hemisphere that were developed as a member of the WA
translated into wet pluvial periods sub-committee of the National
in southern Australia, joining Parks Committee, established
eastern and western Australia by the Australian Academy of
across the barren desert area that Science in 1958. The report from
is now the Nullarbor. If one took this committee. National Parks and
the basic eastern species in any one Nature Reserves in Western Australia,
genus and multiplied by the three published by the Academy in
postulated migrations, one ended 1965, recommended the creation
up miraculously with the number of what are now WA’s best known
of species in the west! and most important national
Bert built up a stable of parks and nature reserves - Prince
postgraduate students at this time Regent Nature Reserve, Karajini
in the ‘60s and ‘70s - all working (Hamersley Range) National Park,
on aspects of marsupial ecology Great Victoria Desert Nature
and physiology. Graham Brown, Reserve, Nuytsland Nature Reserve
Shelley Barker, Bob Prince, Jack and Drysdale River National Park.
Kinnear, Bill Holsworth, Glen Storr, The FPAC was replaced by the WA
Tim Ealey, John Kelsall and John Wildlife Authority in 1968 and
Sampson - all of whom went on Bert became a founding member,
to have distinguished careers in continuing in this role until
7
the Authority was superseded was a direct response to this
under the Conservation and perceived need to establish
Land Management Act of WA in reserves for the protection of WA’s
1985. He was also a Foundation rapidly-diminishing wildlife. Very
Member of the Western Fisheries early on Bert saw islands with
Research Committee, established populations of marsupials, such
by the WA Government in 1959 as Rottnest and Barrow Island,
to regulate all commercial fisheries as ‘natural experiments’ from
in the State. Bert s role here was to which one could gauge the area
regularly review and evaluate all needed to establish reserves that
research proposals by staff of the would protect a full complement
then Department of Fisheries and of vertebrate and particularly,
Wildlife. marsupial, species (13,14).
Bert’s most important contribution Barrow Island, with an area of
though was undoubtedly approximately 50,000 acres (22,250
as a founding member of the ha), was taken as a templet for the
Environmental Protection minimum size for a reserve that
Authority (EPA) that was was capable of maintaining a full
established in 1972, becoming complement of marsupials (15).
its Deputy Chair in 1981, then Bert tackled the problem of
Chairman from 1982 until his managing remnants of native
retirement in 1985. One of the vegetation in the wheatbelt area
EPA’s first decisions was to set of WA in a series of thoughtful
up a Conservation Through papers based on his theory of
Reserves Committee (CTRC) that ecosystem evolution and function
ultimately resulted in the creation developed in relation to the
of numerous reserves, including nutrient cycle and the roles played
Rudall River, Peak Charles, by rare and abundant species.
d’Entrecasteaux, Shannon and Restoring what is one of the most
Millstream-Chichester National devastated ecosystems in Australia
Parks, Ningaloo Marine Park and was always going to be a big ask,
the enlargement of the Leeuwin- but Bert tackled it with his usual
Naturaliste National Park. Bert systematic approach. He reviewed
was also appointed President of the problems and suggested an
the National Parks Authority in approach based on the restoration
WA in 1980 and President of the of essential ecological services now
Perth Zoological Gardens Board lacking because of the loss of
from 1979-85. For several years biodiversity (16-18). He argued
from 1989 Bert also chaired the that rare species were particularly
Western Australian Greenhouse important in the wheat-belt area
Coordination Council and truly it because they now perform vital
can be said that nothing to do with ecological services once carried
the environment could happen in out by a multiplicity of other
WA without Bert’s involvement! species, long since gone - and
His involvement in Government this was Bert’s main argument
for their conservation (19-21). His many medals is also one from the
categorising nutrient response Caterpillar Club - for servicemen
modes following perturbations and women whose lives were saved
such as fire, flood, drought and the by parachutes - made of silk!
uprooting of trees was particularly
Bert Main was a most unusual and
insightful and helped define the highly gifted man. He had humble
ecological poverty of the area now
origins but his impact on three
being cropped solely for cereal
generations of students has been
plants (22).
enormous and his legacy is there
for all generations to see in the
Honours and Awards form of the numerous parks and
Bert was a Fulbright Scholar in reserves that he helped create. Bert
1950-51 and received a Carnegie did not suffer fools gladly, and
Travelling Fellowship in 1958. he set out early in life to change
He was elected a Fellow of the the environment in which he
Australian Academy of Science found himself. In this he has been
(AAS) in 1969 and shared the extraordinarily successful and left
Britannica Australia Award for us with the hope that the many
Science in 1970 with Harry Waring environmental errors of the past
*For their distinguished contributions are not irrevocable.
to the ecology and conservation of His to-be-remembered advice to
Australian marsupials.’ He was made young graduands in the midst
an Honorary Foreign Member of a mining boom in 1987, on
of the American Society of the occasion of his receiving an
Icthyologists and Herpetologsts Honorary Doctorate from UWA
(ASIH) in 1975 and in 1981, in was;
recognition of both his public
service and his scientific research, “For <we live in a world ruled by
he was made a Commander in the accountants and tally-keepers,
Civil Division of the Order of the for whom form-filling is the
British Empire. He was made an peak of intellectual endeavour.
Honorary Member of the Royal Such ciphers have no knowledge
Society of Western Australia in of history, not any concept of
1982 and their medallist in 1995 (7). how long it may be before pieces
He was awarded an Honorary DSc of information fall into place.
from The University of Western It will need good presentation
Australia (UWA) in 1987 and and outstanding advocacy to
received the Ecological Society of convince them that inquiry
Australia Medal in 1988. He was in the form of research must
made a Fellow of the Australian go on. That it is not possible
and New Zealand Association to endlessly quarry established
for the Advancement of Science knowledge and theories for the
(ANZAAS) in 1985 and received quick fix and rapid monetary
the von Mueller medal in Hobart, reward, an attitude which is
Tasmania, in 1990. Amongst Bert’s so prevalent today. Such
9
behaviour can be likened to a 6. Main, A.R. and Serventy,
mining company which does D.L. (1957) King’s Park as an
no exploration until the lode indigenous park; A natural
currently being exploited has history appraisal. West. Aust. Nat.
been exhausted” 6:25-53.
7. Main, A.R. (1995) The Royal
Society of Western Australia
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Medallist Lecture, 1995. The
1 am indebted to Barbara York study of nature - a seamless
Main for providing photographs tapestry. J. Roy. Soc. West. Aust. 78:
and for sharing many of the 91-98.
events of their rich scientific life
8. Main, A.R. (1968). Ecology,
together. A complete list of Bert
systematics and evolution of
Main’s publications and graduate
Australian frogs, pp. 37-86 in
students can be found in;
“Advances in Ecological Research”
BRADSHAW, S. D. (2011). Albert Vol 5 (Ed J.B. Cragg). Academic
Russell (‘Bert’) Main-. 1919-2009. Press; London.
Historical Records of Australian Science
9. Main, A.R., Lee, A.K. and
22:104-125.
Littlejohn, M.J. (1958). Evolution
in three genera of Australian
REFERENCES frogs. Evolution 12:224-233.
1. Main, A. (1947). Artificial 10. Serventy, D. L., Whittell, H. M.,
propagation of Nuytsia floribunda. (1951). Birds of Western Australia.
West. Aust. Nat. 1:25,31. Paterson Brokensha Pty Ltd,
Perth, Western Australia
2. Main, A.R. (1954). A Key to the
11. Alice, W. C., Emerson, A. E., Park,
Frogs of South-Western Australia.
Handbook No. 3. (Western O., Park, T., Schmidt, K. R, (1949).
Australian Naturalists Club; Principles of Animal Ecology. W.B.
Perth.) Saunders and Co., Philadelphia
12. Andrewartha, H. G., Birch, L.
3. Main, A.R. (1954). A Guide for
Naturalists. Handbook No. 4. C., (1954). The Distribution and
(Western Australian Naturalists Abundance of Animals. University
Club; Perth.) of Chicago Press, Chicago.
13. Main, A.R. (1961b). The
4. Main, A.R. (1965). Frogs of Southern
occurrence of Macropodidae
Western Australia. Handbook
on islands and its climatic and
No. 8. (Western Australian
Naturalists Club; Perth. ecological implications. J. Roy. Soc.
West. Aust. 44:84-89.
5. Main, A.R. and Edward, D.H.
14. Main, A.R. (1967). Islands as
(1968). A Guide for Naturalists.
2nd Edn, revised by D.H. Edward. natural laboratories. Aust. Nat.
Handbook No. 4. (Western Hist. 15:388-391.
Australian Naturalists Club; 15. Main, A.R. and Yadav, M. (1971).
Perth.) Conservation of macropods in
10