Guest Speaker – Dr Tony Start – Mistletoes of southern WA

Dr Antony (Tony) Start is a Research Associate at the Western Australian Herbarium, specialising in mistletoes, and a former Western Australia National Parks manager for the Pilbara Region. He is also a member of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (listing or delisting of threatened Species in WA).

Tony gained his PhD at the University of Aberdeen completing field work on nectarivorous bats in Malaysia. His first job in Australia was looking for Potoroos with the Dept of Fisheries and Wildlife and later moved to the  National Parks Authority as an Ecologist. He later moved to Karratha as manager National Parks in Northern WA.

His interest in mistletoes started as a youth in Kenya and was rekindled when he realised their potential as indicators of areas with mild fire histories.

Tony with Kevin Thiele have just published their book ‘Mistletoes of Western Australia and is now working on his new book ‘Mistletoes of Australia.’