Meet Wildcare Lighthouse Stations Fund Co-founder Craig Parsey
The WILDCARE Lighthouse Stations Fund supports the care and maintenance of the lighthouse stations on Bruny Island and around Tasmania.
Co-founder of the Fund, Craig Parsey grew up as a child in Lightstations around Tassie – Maatsuyker Island, Eddystone Pt, Low Head and Cape Bruny. (His first school was at Bruny). Here is the story of his motivation to preserve Tassie’s unique lightstations and surrounding environs …….
Craig at Lighthouse
My passion to maintain the lighthouses has grown over the past 10 years as I have seen them slowly decay. I recently attended the 2nd Tasmanian Lighthouse Conference which gave me a chance to meet and network with people with similar concerns. I met up with the AMS (Australian Maritime Systems) and the work they do to restore the lighthouses to their former glory is fantastic.
The Wildcare Lighthouse Stations Fund has been designed to help “Friends Of Groups” and other individuals that would like to maintain the buildings and surrounding environs of the stations. I would like to see the land within the stations free of non native animals, and to provide better tourist information in regards to rubbish disposal, staying on the formed tracks and using the amenities that are at the stations (rather than the bush) so we can keep these areas as the lighthouse keepers and there families would have 40 years ago.
Prisms and Craig
My goal is to operate Cape Bruny as a major tourism destination, educating visitors through interpretative tours about the early lightkeepers, flora, fauna and early indigenous life on South Bruny. We are already doing this to a lesser extent with our current Cape Bruny Lighthouse Tour and we are devoted to bringing this to the whole station…..
As a child at the Lightstations we had pets such as cats, dogs and rabbits. I can see now the problems that having these pets has caused and to help put a little back into the stations to eradicate rabbits and cats is more of a peace of mind thing for me.
Three generations of Parseys at Cape Bruny Lighthouse – from right, Tony Parsey (Lightkeeper & father), Craig and his sons, Flynn & Eddie Parsey