Carpenter Rocks resident Maureen Christie has been honoured in a ceremony at Government House.
Ms Christie was celebrated as one of 19 women on the 2021 South Australian Women’s Honour Roll.
She was acknowledged for her work as an environmental champion and community educator, receiving a certificate from the Governor Frances Adamson AC on behalf of the Minister for Human Services, Michelle Lensink, who was also present.
Ms Christie is a widely known and respected shorebird expert and has worked tirelessly for the environment and in community education as a volunteer full-time for over 26 years.
After retiring early from a successful career as a bookkeeper in 1994, she moved from Victoria to Carpenter Rocks with her husband Ian. There, she dedicated herself to service to the community and the environment.
Ms Christie started commenting on environmental management plan drafts, initiated a feral cat baiting program in known roosting sites of the red-listed Orange-bellied Parrot in the area and participated in the establishment of an Orange-bellied Parrot SA Working Group.
In 1995, Ms Christie became a founding member of Friends of Mount Gambier Area Parks, for which she acted as treasurer 1996-2001 and secretary 1997-2001. She also was a member of the Country Women’s Association and served as the president of its Tantanoola Branch for two years.
Since 2001, she has focussed on shorebird conservation, community education and research.
Ms Christie became involved in shorebird work in 1995 during a visit of the Victorian Wader Study Group (VWSG) to SA and started training in hands-on shorebird research. In 2001 she received her A-class bird banding authority and became the first woman in South Australia – and the second woman in all of Australia – to hold an endorsement for cannon-netting, which is required to trap, tag and release shorebirds for research.
Ms Christie has been leading or co-leading the shorebird fieldwork of the VWSG in South Australia ever since. This has included surveying and catching in the South East (determination of Sanderling and Ruddy Turnstone departure weights, deployment and retrieval of geolocators on Ruddy Turnstones to establish migration routes) and in the Thompson Beach area (Grey Plover satellite tracking), among other projects.
The shorebird work led by Ms Christie has resulted in numerous reports, peer-reviewed articles and newspaper items and one of her field work days was featured in the first chapter of Andrew Darby’s 2020 book “Flight lines”.
Ms Christie has also served on several committees such BirdLife SE from 2001-2016, VWSG since 2003/2004, Australian Wader Study Group (AWSG) since 2006/2007) and working groups such as SA Shorebird Alliance since 2018.
In 2005, she initiated the founding of Friends of Shorebirds SE and has served as the group’s secretary and treasurer ever since, leading weekly shorebird surveys for the group.
Despite the logistic challenges in COVID-19 times, teams under Ms Christie’s leadership succeeded in reaching their fieldwork goals in 2020/2021 such as deployment of 38 geolocators on Ruddy Turnstones to establish the birds’ migration routes.
