Dr John Wamsley (born 1938) is an Australian environmentalist. He was the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year for 2003. Wamsley is known for his attempt to set up a network of wildlife sanctuaries across Australia.[1]
Wamsely was born in Ourimbah, New South Wales in 1938. His passion for Australian wildlife was born when the seven year old Wamsleys family moved to a 67 hectare bushland block at Niagara Park. At age sixteen Wamsley became a trainee metallurgist with BHP. Dissatisfied with the job he became a labourer in BHP's open-hearth furnaces and worked a second job renovating run down houses. By age 23 Wamsley was a millionaire. Approximately two years later Wamsley entered the University of Newcastle, Australia. The thirty year old Wamsley graduated with a PhD in Mathematics and moved to Flinders University to lecture.[2] His doctoral thesis from the University of Queensland, at only 70 pages, is among the shortest theses in the library.[3]
June 1969 saw the purchase of a dairy farm at Mylor, South Australia, that was to become Wamsley's first sanctuary, Warrawong. Wamsely eradicated all feral plants and animals from the sanctuary and erected a surrounding fence to preserve the sanctuary's feral free state.[2] Wamsley entered the public eye when he attended a tourism awards ceremony wearing a hat made from the pelt of a dead feral cat. The ensuing controversy led to a change in the law, allowing feral cats to be legally killed.[4]
Warrawong was opened to the general public in 1985 with a view to generating enough money to set up more sanctuaries. His second major project was Yookamurra Sanctuary in the South Australian mallee country. A company, Earth Sanctuaries Limited, was started in 1988 with a forty year strategy to create a network of eighty sanctuaries, spanning all of Australias habitats. The company was listed on the Australian stock exchange on 8 April 2000. The float was under-subscribed leaving the company A$10 million short of funds and unable to complete its network of sanctuaries in the eastern states of Australia.[2] During the mid-2000's Earth Sanctuaries Limited was delisted from the Australian stock exchange.[4]