Transfigured Sea

In this episode of Wild Developments Studio, Lauren Connolly interviews biologist, environmental policy officer, and author Sally Ann Hunter. Sally shares her journey from literature to biology, inspired by David Attenborough, and discusses her passion for nature writing and marine conservation. She also explores the themes of her novel Transfigured Sea, using the ocean as a metaphor for personal transformation and healing.

Sally Ann Hunter Website

Wild Wisdom:

1. Be a Keen Observer: Take time to immerse yourself in nature. Whether you’re walking through a park or sitting by the beach, observe the small details – the leaves, the patterns of wildlife, the changes in the environment. Observation is the key to connecting with and protecting our world.
2. Reduce Your Plastic Footprint: Plastic waste is one of the biggest threats to the ocean. Reduce single-use plastics by bringing reusable bags and containers wherever you go, and be mindful of litter disposal to prevent it from ending up in waterways.
3. Support Sustainable Transport: Consider switching to electric vehicles or using public transportation to reduce your carbon footprint. Small changes in how we travel can have a large impact on reducing pollution and protecting ecosystems.

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Transcript

Mother Sea rejected me, did not wash me into shore, did not cast me away with seaweed and shells. 
She threw me with storm fury against jags and points and blades. 
Welcome to Wild Development Studio. 
Studio. Join us as we venture into the breathtaking realm of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. 
With captivating stories from the field and ideas to dive into the visual arts, 
we'll ignite your passion for conservation. 
Get ready to develop something wild. 
Welcome to Wild Developments. 
I'm your guide, Lauren, and today we are talking to Sally Ann. 
Hunter. She is a biologist and environmental policy officer. 
She has published a collection. 
A collection of poetry called The Structure of Light and a biography called You Can't Keep a Good Man Down, 
From Parkinson's to a New Life with Deep Brain Stimulation. 
A paper she wrote on the biography was read on ABC Radio's Occam's Razor and was a paper on living with solar power. 
She's completed a 10-month course called Manuscript Incubator, a Writer's Essay. 
A novel called Transfigured Sea, Nature Writing, was published in 2022,and another called Golden. 
Cups, Historical Fiction, is in the process of a publisher's revision. 
A number of her poems have been published in anthologies and online. 
She lives in Allardade Hills, where she gains inspiration for much of her nature writing. 
Sally, thank you so much for being here today. 
It's a great pleasure. 
Pleasure. So reading your background, I know you're an author, but you are also a biologist and environmental policy officer. 
Can you tell us about your background with that stuff before we start talking about your book? 
Yes, certainly. Well, I was happily studying English literature and how to write poetry and then I saw David Attenborough on TV with his program Life on Earth and he is a well -known naturalist and broadcaster in the UK and he is now well known in Australia as well I don't know if he's known in America but he does a lot of very good broadcasts about nature and he gets right in there with the animals and plants and uh and they don't mind him being there and it's wonderful and he really inspired me um so from that day on I wanted to study biology biology and of course when you study biology you learn a lot about all the animals and plants and the more you know about them the more you love them and the more you love them the more you want to care for them so that's why I studied environmental studies so I could learn how to to protect these lovely creatures in our world that I love so much. 
So how long have you been a biologist? 
Oh, my goodness. 
I was a mature age student, 30or 40years. 
I've been writing mainly the last 20years but i write about nature yeah and you're so i guess two separate questions one as a biologist who's been studying in that field for so long what are some changes that you've observed over those 40years are we getting better are we getting worse what are your thoughts uh well as far as the ocean goes we're definitely getting worse we have a wonderful coral reef in australia um on the it's adjacent to queensland it's called the great barrier reef and it used to be very colorful and wonderful to look at but now the coral has been bleaching and it's all turning white and it's a great disappointment for all the tourists who want to go and look at it. 
And it's a bad sign that the reef is dying actually and there are several reasons for that. 
That one is climate change, because the corals are so sensitive to the temperature of the water. 
If that increases, they can't handle it. 
And also with extra CO2 in the atmosphere, that makes the water more acidic and the corals can't handle that change in pH either. 
Of course then there's pollution and overfishing that overfishing is the worst problem what are some things that we can do to help combat some of these negative impacts we're having on our planet well that's a good question um i think we should try and reduce climate change range. 
We could drive electric cars. 
We could get public transport more often. 
Electric cars are getting cheaper and cheaper and more and more accessible and there are plenty of of charging stations in Australia now. 
But if you can't afford an electric car, public transport is the second best option. 
Also plastics pollution is the worst thing in the ocean as far as pollution goes. 
Now we all put our litter in the bin which seems to be the right thing to do but if you're out in nature observing wonderful trees and plants and birds and animals and then you go and put your rubbish in the bin as soon as you're gone some birds and animals will come along to that bin looking for food and they drag everything out of the rubbish bin and leave the plastics lying around on the ground. 
Then the wind blows the plastic, the rain washes it down into the creek. 
From the creek it goes to the river and from the river to the sea. 
So i think what we have to do is take our rubbish home find a secure rubbish bin with a heavy lid that the animals can't uh interfere with yeah that's good advice um i a lot of places in um by the mountains where they have bears they have lots of lids to keep the bigger animals out but. 
But where I'm at in Ohio, you know, we don't have lids on a lot of our trash cans. 
That is a really good point where it's just going to blow out or the animals are going to get into it. 
So from your background in biology, what inspired you to start nature writing? 
Oh, that was the ocean. 
I found this wonderful book by a man called Gilpin. 
He's acknowledged in the back of my book, Transfigured Sea, and he divided the ocean up into different kinds of ecosystems, 
and I used the same process, and he provided me with most of the information about the plants and animals. 
Animals um and that's what inspired me really and um the more I found out about these creatures the more I loved them and I loved writing the book that was something I noticed that was different in reading the description of your book than from a lot of other books I've seen on the ocean they usually talk about one aspect one habitat of the ocean and in your description you're talking about mangroves you're talking about the arctic ocean you're talking about you know the shore you got all these different habitats in the ocean i don't think people realize there's all these little like sub habitats within the the ocean yes yes that's right and. 
And with nature writing, you give as much attention to the natural environment as you would to any other main character in your novel. 
So in Transfigured Sea, there is a lot about the sea creatures because they're very important to the story. 
And you find that out especially at the end of the book. 
What was your favorite habitat to write about oh um well i do love a lot of them i loved writing about the deep where um it's totally dark and some of the creatures creatures have bioluminescence they create their own light in various different ways and so that's very fascinating it's a completely different area to any other ecosystem in the world but the one I think I loved the most was the estuary I found that quite poetic because it's not the sea and it's not the river. 
It's in between. 
And that seems to be where you find the spiritual, is out of the corner of your eye or in between the concrete things in the world. 
And there's beautiful birds in an estuary um we have sacred ibis herons egrets pelicans i could go on and on and it's just a fascinating wonderful place in the states uh there's the diamondback terrapin the type of turtle that's only found in those types of environments but I think that's it's pretty neat that it's it's such a small environment but there are different types of animals that really rely on that area that mixture of salt water and fresh water and the brackish water did you learn anything new while you were writing this spoke oh yes yes a lot um from gilpin's book um i didn't know what the fastest fish in the world was it's the sailfish they call it the cosmopolitan sailfish um but the short fin. 
Mako is also pretty fast and in Transfigured Sea I talk about them and I think I talk about the biggest fish which is probably the whale shark. 
It is is the weight of three elephants. 
Wow. 
And it's very long. 
And because it's so big, it's also very slow. 
It only moves about three miles an hour. 
And it's not dangerous to humans humans because it doesn't eat big things like us it has a sort of grill in its mouth and it filters the seawater and it just eats the plankton and any other tiny organic matter like that. 
And so it's not a threat to humans at all. 
They are one of my favorite sharks. 
They're absolutely beautiful. 
Have you had a chance to snorkel or scuba dive with them? 
No, I haven't. 
It'd be great, I should think. 
Yeah, they're just, it's hard to comprehend how big they are and how small we are when when you're next to them in in your book transfigured see it it's about a mother -daughter relationship too isn't it yes it is that's uh well on two levels um on one level the two women in the book laura and daphne fantasize that they are mother and daughter but as the book gets goes on past the first chapter um it's more about Laura's relationship with her own mother because there was a big problem there something happened which hurt Laura a lot and she's trying to come to terms with that throughout the book the sea is a place of change and so these women have come here for the purpose of self -development and they have no way of predicting the profound change which will come to them towards the end of the book i feel that it's a very fitting background for female relationships by the ocean because we're very moved by the the moon and so were the tides um so i thought that was a very interesting um i guess comparison to the two yes that's right um i think in mythology mythology. 
The sea is often seen as feminine, is often seen as a mother figure. 
And so this whole interplay of motherhood in the book is important. 
I think it's significant that it happens in the the sea yeah do you have any other nature writings in the work i don't well there's one that will be coming i'm going to look at the ecosystems on land in australia and do a book where we move around to the different ecosystems on dry land so as an outsider to Australia I've never been I've always wanted to go but Americans feel that I can't speak for all of us that there are a lot of creatures in Australia that are really dangerous how how is it in reality I don't think our creatures are dangerous. 
If you treat them well, if you're not aggressive to them, they'll be fine. 
Koalas are beautiful creatures, especially when you see them with their babies. 
They're so happy to have babies. 
I've got koalas in my garden at home and I love them. 
Them um kangaroos um i've fed them by hand they're beautiful they do get aggressive and fight other other kangaroos at times but i've never noticed that or been aware of it at all um overseas people people often think of our sharks and they are dangerous so you take precautions you swim between the flags and if there's any danger you get out of the water straight away we do have dangerous snakes and spiders but we have as we have specialists if a snake gets in your house you bring up a specialist and he'll come and get rid of it for you. 
We're not allowed to kill them or possums. 
Possums can be a bit of a nuisance but we're not allowed to kill them. 
We take them back to some natural environment. 
Very good. I find it funny like that's somebody's job is to go from home to home and and get snakes out of their house um i would not that doesn't happen very often i've never had a snake in my house i've never known anybody to have a snake in their house it's quite a rare occurrence but we've got it covered that's good that's good hey the box jellyfish is that as i think there was something with middle smith that he kind of introduced that to everybody it's a very venomous jellyfish that's not as big of a problem as people make it out to be is it i haven't heard it mentioned recently at all i know it can be a problem i don't think we have them in south australia where i live so so i'm not worried about it good and when you were an environmental policy officer what were some of the things that like your role when you were doing that i was writing water allocation plans for part of south australia called the air peninsula insular and um i was looking at groundwater and how that is used and making sure it wasn't used up too much to destroy the benefit of the groundwater the the ecosystem of the groundwater water that's very interesting and the australian wildfires are you guys still suffering from the the damages of that oh yes um that was very bad uh on kangaroo island which is not far from here and also some fires came quite close to where I live. 
Oh, wow. 
And so we have an evacuation policy. 
If the weather is deemed to be catastrophic, I go and visit my sister on the other side of town. 
I have a bag packed at all times, so I can just grab it quickly and leave. 
We do take wildfires very seriously. 
That's very scary. 
Is that something that you guys have always dealt with, or is that something new because of climate change? 
Oh, it's getting worse because of climate change, yes. 
Yeah. 
But, yes, it has always been there. 
Yeah. 
Well, I'm glad you have a plan. 
And I'm glad you were safe. 
That's very scary. 
We had some wildfires last year in Canada, and I live about six hours away in Ohio, 
and the skies were hazy from the Canadian wildfires. 
So, I mean, even being so far away, we were seeing some effects from that. 
I just, in nature is nature is pretty crazy yes i understand that the same thing happened in sydney there were fires out in the countryside and sydney was covered with this reddish haze and the smoke and was very present even in the city yeah but so getting back to my book transfigured city yeah yes i say in the book that the sea is a dream and it's a place of change and i also say that the city is a whisper of emotion and a memory of intuition. 
And it's the book is quite poetic and it also has poems in it every chapter has a poem at least one i thought i might read one today if that's all right absolutely um because i love the sea i love the different colors you can get in the ocean um but uh there are times when i don't like it sometimes when it's turbulent it reminds me of the turbulence inside inside me and i don't want to be faced with that so. 
So anyway, Laura steps from one rock to another. 
Then she gazes into a rock pool filled with moving water. 
And this is the poem. 
When waves break against rocks and seawater surging meets and washes and is frantic, 
not relenting. 
It threatens and calls and absorbs. 
It shows us our depth, drowning us with vulnerabilities, self -pity and tender exposures. 
Control dissolves self is swept away and framework lost so i very much see the ocean as something that dissolves your framework and i guess that's why it's a place of change you've got to dissolve one framework before you can build a new one yeah that's really beautiful i like that you've embraced kind of both hemispheres of your brain you've got the analytical part with biology and and poetry is more i feel artistic um and it sounds like you've blended the two beautifully in transfigured sea did you write all the poetry in the book yes i did yes very good and um there's another poem if you're interested which is about her laura's relationship with her mother but i've used the c as a metaphor for. 
There were very strong feelings involved. 
The poem is called Mother Sea. 
Mother Sea rejected me, did not wash me into shore, did not cast me away with seaweed and shells. 
Shells. She threw me with storm fury against jags and points and blades, 
lashed me repeatedly, picking me up and throwing me onto knife points. 
Shreds and tears became food for the teeth of sharks. 
Already masticated, my central self was gone. 
Threads of garment scattered in deeps under waves. 
Stinking without form under a weight of water fading. 
You really painted this picture of this pain delivered by the sea in the mom and that's yes it's powerful that's right yes laura was really hurt because her mother tried to stop her writing poetry and to Laura poetry was her whole being, 
was her whole reason for living and so she got very badly hurt. 
She didn't give up poetry and she worked on herself, relived the feelings as a form of catharsis to come to terms with them and in the end she forgave her mother which is quite a big achievement yeah what do you hope that people take away from your book Transfigured Sea? 
Uh well two things uh one is the love of nature and the sea creatures two is the spirituality which you'll find at the end of the book um and to know that that kind of thing is possible and does happen to ordinary people people um and i'll give you my uh website address which is sallyannhunter .com sallyannhunter is all one word there's no e on ann just sallyannhunter .com very good and i will be sure to tag that in this podcast show notes and in the blog um so that people can click right over and check out your website uh what would be your favorite place in nature uh that's easy i really love walking on the beach especially if i'm alone and you can almost taste the ocean from the wind blowing from the sea and the waves and the wind is bracing and it's just lovely. 
It's just a lovely feeling. 
Do you get nesting sea turtles in your part of the world? 
Uh i'm not aware of them okay there probably are some somewhere i don't know yeah yeah the beach is my favorite place too we had tropical storm debbie two weeks ago and i was in florida for that and the winds were only 35miles an hour which is still pretty pretty rough but. 
But the sand hurts so much at 35miles an hour hitting you when it's getting blown around like that. 
But yeah, the beach is so cool because it is ever -changing and you're always finding treasures and things like that. 
Absolutely, yes. 
So I think people will have a look at Transfigured Sea. 
I also I should say on my website I have a list of the dangers and threats to the ocean and I have a list of the things we can do to help protect the ocean so that is certainly worth looking at yeah do you have a favorite thing that you like to do to help protect the ocean oh um well the things i've already mentioned i suppose um driving an electric car and being careful with my litter not using plastic if i can help it i reuse plastic if i have to use a plastic bag i wash it and dry it and use it again in that's good so that limits the amount of plastic going to landfill yeah uh do you guys have recycling programs over there too yes we do we have different color rubbish bins really yes yellow is for recycling green is for compost and the local council composts all of that and then provides it back to us to use on our gardens and the blue rubbish bins are for ordinary landfill rubbish okay i like that you guys compost we have um like some straws and paper plates that are supposed to be compostable that people then just throw away in the trash because we don't have a compost when we're out and about and then it just it goes to waste anyway so that's really cool that you guys compost so yeah uh we're almost out of time before we go do you have one tip for someone that would like to connect or maybe reconnect with nature. 
Yes, well spend time with nature. 
Go out there and when you're out there walking or sitting in a beautiful area, 
observe. 
Observe the details of the trees or the flowers or the leaves or the litter from the trees on the ground the good litter the dead leaves and sticks and things observation is the key yeah absolutely that is great advice sally thank you so much for being on the show today thank you very much for having me it's been a great pleasure thank you and until next time get outside and see what develops thanks for joining wild development studio. 
We hope this exploration into the world of wildlife arts and adventure has sparked a desire to get outside and connect with something wild. 
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Until next time, keep connecting to the wild and see what develops. 
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