Menzies School of Health Research was a major sponsor and contributor to the 2009 NT Threatened Species Art and Photography Competition helping to raise awareness of the Northern Territory’s threatened species. 

Both Debbie Taylor-Thomson and Gabrielle Falls of Menzies were honoured to be part of the judging panel of the event, looking at over 140 entries – 40 of which were adults and the remainder created by school children in the NT.

Ms Falls was eager to participate because of her interest in local flora and fauna and photography. 

“Before attending, I thought it would be easy to decide the winner of each category, but when faced with the selection criteria and quality of artwork the decisions were much harder than anticipated,” said Ms Falls.  

“We had to judge pieces categorised into adults and children and then by various mediums against originality, educational value, aesthetics/composition and relevance to theme.”

The Best Overall Adult Artwork prize of $1000 was awarded to Alison Worsnop for her work Nature Notebook, a compilation of sketches and paintings of species not seen on her property since 1994 

“The artwork and themes were varied and beautiful and everyone had obviously gone to tremendous effort to prepare,” said Ms Falls.

Leanyer Primary School won the Best Overall School prize, with the third grade completing a banner of an ocean view with papier-mâché threatened animals, and the fourth grade class entering a series of banners entitled “Yesterday, today, tomorrow”. 

“These banners depicted a scenario with declining numbers of threatened species and increasing numbers of feral animals such as camels, foxes, cane toads, rabbits and feral cats.”  

“The kids section was as competitive as the adults” exclaimed Ms Taylor-Thomson who was a judge for the school and child section.

Ms Taylor-Thomson was impressed with the effort by Leanyer Primary School to integrate the theme “Threatened species, their habitats and threats in the NT” with an educational message about the impact of feral animals and will receive $500 worth of photographic equipment for their efforts.

The competition is held as part of National Threatened Species Day, September 7th, the day the last Tasmanian tiger died in captivity at Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Menzies Tropical Infectious Disease Unit sponsored the school’s prize whose works ranged from plasticine pythons to a life sized papier-mâché flatback turtle, drawings and paintings, and were judged on originality, educational value, relevance to theme and aesthetically pleasing aspects. 

Menzies was thrilled to part be of this event!