Giant Freshwater Crayfish Sculpture – Burnie

The subject deserves every kilogram. Astacopsis gouldi, the giant freshwater crayfish, lives only in the rivers of northern Tasmania. It can exceed five kilograms and eighty centimetres, takes decades to reach breeding size, and is now listed as endangered – threatened by habitat degradation, siltation from forestry and land clearing, and historically by collection. Fishing for them has been prohibited since 1998.

So the sculpture is not celebrating a local product. It is a monument to a threatened endemic animal that most Tasmanians have never seen, in the region that is its entire world range.

Mosaic is a good choice for a crustacean. A lobster or crayfish carapace is naturally segmented and plated, and tiled surfaces reproduce that far better than a smooth moulded shell would.

Burnie Park is the city's main public reserve, so the crayfish is free and open – which for an object of this weight and significance is the right arrangement.

It is the most ecologically serious Big Thing in Tasmania.