TEAM LEADERS

Flic

During my time here at Scotia I have been very impressed with the staff supporting the research being done. Flic, Amy and Leah have each operated a pit-fall survey team, and Jennifer has made it possible for Bonny to do the research on the mala. All four girls work in these hot dry conditions, and often it is hard work, and I have never once heard them complain or whinge. In fact they are always cheerful and ready to help each other out or give a hand to anyone with any other task which needs doing. This is isolated, tough country and while doing the work you tend to get covered in dust, but at all times these four leaders seem to be able to remain very feminine and lady-like. Yep, haven't seen them chew tobacco or spit once! They also have an extensive knowledge of the country, the fauna and the flora.

My team leader is Flic (Felicity). She grew up in Orbost, eastern Victoria. She has already completed a Bachelor Degree in Environmental Science and Honours at Deakin University. She studied the Masked and Sooty owls while working as a Park ranger in Bairnsdale. After a short spell at Tidbinbilla she gained a job at Scotia in 2008, first, as a Land Management Officer, and then as part of the ecology team. She is currently studying a Masters of Wildlife Management through Macquarie University. Flic says she loves what she does and does not see it as work but rather as a way of life. She takes pride in doing a job with such an important purpose.

Amy

Leah

The other two pit-fall survey teams were led by Leah and Amy. Leah grew up on a dairy farm at Mil-lel, a town near Mount Gambia in South Australia. She has a Ph.D for her work on the reintroduction of Tamar wallabies. Leah has been here for nearly two years as a Wildlife Ecologist. Amy is at Scotia doing an internship with the ecology team It is supposed to be for six months but she has been here for nine already. She has been working as an ecology consultant for the past 5 years in Brisbane after completing her Science Degree with honours. She enjoys the chance to work with endangered animals. Since being here she has gained a lot of experience handling snakes as her pitfall survey teams always leave the snakes to the team leader to deal with.

The telemetry team I have been working with is made-up with Jennifer and Bonny. Bonny comes from Armidale and is collecting the data on the mala as part of her degree. Jennifer is the team leader and works at Scotia. She began here about six and a half years ago as a Land Management Officer. Now she works as a Field Ecologist. Most of Jennifer's work is with telemetry and management of the numbat population at Scotia.

Jennifer

FERAL ANIMALS

A section of the feral free fence at Scotia.

Scotia Sanctuary is 65,000 ha in area. It contains 11 distinct ecosystems. It is home to 20 species of mammals, 145 species of birds, 47 species of reptiles and 2 species of amphibians, (and a number of volunteers). At least 44 of these species are on the threatened wildlife list; and there are 9 known threatened plant species. Currently there is 12,000 ha on the property which has been fenced off and is feral free. These feral free areas are vital for endangered wildlife populations to allow them to stabilise and begin to grow. The pressures put onto these populations by feral predators and introduced pests can mean the difference between extinction and survival of the species. For example, one of the last two remaining mainland populations of Mala in the wild were wiped out by a single fox. Of course, these fences can't keep out all predators, owls and birds of prey can still take some victims. 

Feral goats are a widespread pest in Australia

Two of the common feral pests found around Scotia are goats and feral cats. Goats are estimated to roam over more than a quarter of Australia and they are plentiful over a wide area here. They have a major effect on native vegetation, not only by overgrazing but also by the soil damage they cause. Goats can also disperse weeds by carrying seeds in their droppings. They also do considerable damage fouling waterholes. While goats are not a predator they do have a negative carry-over effect on native populations by disrupting and destroying the environment the native population rely upon for survival and by competing for the resources those animals need.

Feral cats, to my mind, pose the biggest threat to Australian wildlife. There are an estimated 12 to 18 million feral cats. An individual cat may kill between 1 and 15 lizards, birds or small mammals a night. If we calculate the total number of wildlife killed on a regular basis it is no wonder cats are credited with driving many species of native fauna into extinction. One study found that even individual domestic cats were killing around 50 birds a year. Another study found that in a surveyed test area cats were killing over half the bird population in a year and disrupting the production of young so that the bird population was relying on birds coming from outside that area to keep the population viable. It is not difficult to imagine the entire population of mala at Scotia being wiped out by feral cats if it wasn't for the feral free fence being in place. AWC continues to fence more areas with these fences and there is always plenty of work for volunteers erecting fences.

Rabbits used to be widespread and in plague proportions.

An interesting project is happening in southern Queensland where wild dogs are a problem to sheep graziers. In the past wild dogs have been shot, trapped or baited. A pack of dogs might kill up to 30 sheep in one attack, and some farmers were losing as many as 700 sheep in a season. To combat these dog attacks graziers are now putting wild donkeys in with the sheep. The donkeys bond with the mob and then protect them. The donkeys themselves are from feral stock in the Northern Territory where they are a pest and exist in their thousands. So far 128 donkeys have been transported to southern Queensland.

AWC

Martin Copley was a British financier and insurance underwriter who first visited Australia in 1966. In 1991 he purchased a property in Chidlow, Western Australia to be used for conservation purposes as it had a large area of natural bushland. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy traces its origins back to this purchase. Copley moved to Australia in 1994 and in 2001 the AWC became a public charitable organisation. It now owns 22 sanctuaries covering more than 2.6 million hectares around Australia. The organisation employs approximately 80 staff and manages more conservation land then any other government or non-government organisation in Australia.

The Nailtail Wallaby

Australian Wildlife Conservancy is actively protecting 300 ecosystems, 100 of which are throated, and 170 different threatened animal species. It continues its conservation work by acquiring land to establish sanctuaries for threatened species and ecosystems, by conducting conservation programs, such as the eradication of feral animals and the reintroduction of endangered species, conducting scientific research and undertaking public education promoting the awareness of problems facing Australia's wildlife.

Volunteer working for AWC at Scotia.

A significant part of AWCs work has been the Threatened Species Reintroduction program. Some 27 species of mammals only found in Australia have become extinct on the mainland; many more are in such a critical condition that they are nearing extinction. Some of these species have survived on offshore islands. This has allowed an opportunity to save these animals from total extinction by building up their population in a safe environment and then reintroducing them back to where they used to roam. AWC has a number of breeding programs in feral free areas and are set to reintroduce species such as: the Banded Hare-wallaby, Bilby, Bridled Nailtail Wallaby, Burrowing Bettong, Numbat and Shark Bay Mouse.

The Mala, being brought back from the brink of extinction.

In one of the most exciting projects AWC have taken on is the management of 150,000 hectacres of wilderness in the north-west Kimberley. This property has proved to be a "lost world". There are possibly 50 species of reptiles, mammals and birds which have survived here and nowhere else in Australia. At present scientists and ecologists are doing a 'stocktake' to discover how rich this area is.

                                                                                       

REPTILES

A snake in a funnel trap.

Australia has the most diverse collection of reptiles in the world. It has over 836 described species of reptiles, with many more still unnamed. It also has more reptiles species than birds species. A Complete Guide to the Reptiles of Australia says because there is so much diversity "no single person is ever likely to see all of our species in a lifetime". 

A Broad-banded Sand-swimmer (Eremiascincus richardsonii)

Reptiles are spread right across the continent from cool Alpine forests to tropical rainforests to coastal mangroves. However it is the arid zones which support the greatest diversity and concentration of reptiles. Spinifex, or porcupine grasses, cover vast tracts of land in central and western Australia. The protective foliage create a haven favoured by many species. It is said that "A square kilometre of Australian spinifex desert may support more species of reptiles than an area of comparable size anywhere else in the world". Interestingly nearly half of the reptile species are skinks. The most recent count says there are 389 species of skinks in Australia, this includes the well known Blue-tongue lizard.

A Dtella (Gehyra variegata)

Several times I have talked to people overseas and they say they would never visit Australia because of all the snakes and spiders we have (It was interesting that the last time I had this conversation I was in South Africa and we were monitoring lions in the wild!). This may be surprising when there are about 2500 species of snakes in the world but in Australia there are only 110 land snakes and 32 sea snakes. But not so surprising when you realise that of our snakes more than half of them are venomous, though not all of these venomous snakes have a poison that will kill, or even harm, humans. In the last 25 years there have been only 43 deaths from snake bite, and none of these have been in the last 10 years. There are more deaths in Australia from scuba diving accidents, lightning strikes, horse-riding accidents and, the worst of all, bee stings. Statistically India, South Africa and America are just some of the countries that are worse than Australia for deaths from snake bites.

Two views of the Ringed Brown Snake (Pseudonaja modest)

MALA

A mother and young mala.

Each night I have been assisting Jennifer and Bonny who are gathering information on the Mala. We do this by each sitting in a small tent and at designated times throughout the night taking readings on a number of mala which are wearing radio tracking collars. Since we are at different locations, spread around the area, the reading can be plotted to show exactly where each mala is feeding. 

Commonly known as ‘Mala’, the rufous hare-wallaby (Lagostrophus hirsutus) were once found in western and central Australia, usually in spinifex desert country. Two sub-species live on Dorre and Bernier Island off the Western Australia coast. The mainland numbers were decimated by foxes, feral cats and competition with rabbits and by the 1980s only two small groups remained. A single fox wiped out one of these groups and bushfires the other. Now the only mainland mala are in captivity. Since 1993 a team have been working to breed and reintroduce the mala to the wild.

A collared mala.

The only mainland mala are now 45 individuals at the Scotia Sanctuary, 15 in Alice Springs Desert Park, 214 in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (NT), 32 in Watarrka National Park (NT), and 26 in the Francois Peron National Park (WA), a total of only 332 individual mala.

The telemetry station

The mala are nocturnal and feed on grasses and seeds. During the day they live in scraps under spinifex grasses. The mala weighs about 1.2 to 1.3 kilos, though it is the female which is usually slightly larger than the male. Mala can breed up to three times a year in captivity,
    having one offspring per time.

SAD DEATH.

The camp was shaken today by the reported death of a worker at Ethabuka Station in western Queensland. The station is located in the north-eastern corner of the Simpson Desert. Twenty five year old, South African born Mauritz “Mo” Pieterse died last Monday after becoming stranded in the desert. He was a conservationist working for a similar organization to the one I am working with here and some of the people here not only knew him but had recently worked with him.

Major Mitchel Cockatoo.

Mauritz and a 30 year old co-worker, Josh Hayes, had set out in the morning to check bores on the station. When their Toyota Hilux had become bogged they set out to walk the 16 kilometres to their camp. However in the 45 degree heat they didn’t have enough water. When the pair didn’t return that night a search was mounted and they were found 10 kilometres from the station. Josh Hayes is still in Mount Isa hospital recovering from dehydration and heat exhaustion.

A Rainbow Bee-eater and a Dusky Swallow.

OUCH!

Sand goanna.

A new volunteer, Allira, from Newcastle, arrived this afternoon and joined our team. The next day was probably our busiest yet. We went out as normal and dismantled our traps. Then we went to a different part of the reserve and again set up in three different vegetation areas. The other two teams were doing the same. We arrived back at camp around 3.30 and then had to go out and do the rounds again at 5.30. The specimens caught in the traps have been light but there have been some interesting ones. These include Burton's Legless Lizard (Lialis burtonis) and a young Sand Goanna.

Burton's Legless Lizard.

When I opened one of the funnel traps the lizard in it managed to escape. It ran into a clump of spinifex grass. Not thinking I tried to grab it as we hadn't measured it yet. Both hands came up with hundreds of little prickles. Soon there were little spots of blood on both hands. They were very painful and it took some time to pick the bulk of them out. That night between telemetry sessions I had a small pair of tweezers and I sat patiently picking out thorns. The advice I have been given is to wait for the rest to fester and then pick them out with a needle. I now have a healthy respect for spinifex grass.

Clumps of spinifex grass.