In the Wild (1992) s01e14 Episode Script

(BIRDS TWEET AND CHIRP) Waterbirds and man have a long affinity of togetherness because both man and these birds depend on water for survival.
Waterbirds have a particular charm.
Some are useful, like ducks.
But for most people, there's just the pure pleasure of finding them and watching them.
(THEME MUSIC) This arid, scarred landscape surrounds the city of Mount Isa.
Beneath those bare hills are rich deposits of ore and where such riches occur men move in to exploit nature.
Mount Isa is in the dry part of north-west Queensland.
The city itself is a tiny speck on this horizon.
But the side implications, the ramifications of those 27,000 people are enormous on the countryside.
The first thing that man has to have is water and this was built in the early 1930s to provide water for the burgeoning city, the growing city of Mount Isa.
The impact of this is tremendous.
Most people immediately think, "Ah, drowned land," but there's more impact than that.
Down below the wall, down there, the wall not only acts as a barrier to the water coming down, but it also acts as a barrier to things coming up.
They can't climb the wall and so this is a serious barrier.
It also provides a very different environment because this wall is leaking and seeping and there's a constant trickle of water running out underneath.
That's given rise to a big reed bed which was never there before.
The only way to find out what is in there is to set up a mist net, beat it through and see if we can drive something out.
Oh-ho! (BIRDS CHIRP) (CHUCKLES) (CHIRRUPS) That's one of the birds.
Before man came here with his dams and pump stations and all of those sorts of things these didn't exist here.
And now the complete colony of this little fellow is called the reed-warbler.
You can hear them in the background there.
(CHIRPING) Beautiful little birds and they're restricted to these reed beds.
So some unthinking people might say, "Oh, man's doing a good job on the environment.
"He's adding a dimension, he's adding a new bird.
" But what this really means - the native animals in this area are desert-adapted, they're not used to water.
Whenever you create a water area like this the things that come in are the foreigners and they must pressurise the native life.
It's extremely interesting in this whole area there is no native original that makes full use of this water because they're all dry-country animals.
Well, we'll let you go, fella.
There.
In the late 1950s, the dam wall was raised by five feet to provide extra water for an increasing number of people in Mount Isa.
(BOAT MOTOR DRONES) The first effect was to raise the total water lever by five feet and this drowned all of the edge trees that were at that time growing on what was the edge of the water.
As a result, there is now a complete fringe of dead vegetation inside the lake which attracts certain animals to roost and to just exist and behind it is a new line of vegetation coming up on the new waterline.
Now, about three weeks ago after the rains were over, there was so much silt in this dam that the engineers opened the valve and flushed out an enormous amount of mud and silt and what happened was they dropped the water level.
Now you can see very clearly the water level as it was and the dropped water level - about three feet of water.
But because the rains had stopped, the creeks weren't running and no more water came in.
This is has led to a disastrous situation.
Because of the waterbirds and the other things that have come in here, building their nests as soon as the rains stop, this sudden drop in water level has caused the nests that were built at water edge to suddenly be three or four feet above the water.
That's quite disastrous because these nests are built specifically for the purpose of the young birds to be able to get in and out into safety and once that's gone, they're finished.
(MOTOR DRONES) I'll show you what I mean.
I'll have to cut this motor because even running like this, the noise is sending everything away.
(CUTS MOTOR) As soon as it's quiet and you're drifting, you start to see and hear things.
Pelicans, an egret fishing.
He uses quiet too.
The pelicans are up now.
Great, glorious, soaring flight.
Wheeling mass squadrons.
(CHICKS SQUAWK) Well, here's the first nest.
Even without seeing the birds, there's no worry as to whose nest it is.
That whitewashed effect is the shag or cormorant.
They have a lovely digestive system.
They eat their food and 20 minutes later, it comes through them.
In some parts of the world, that's guano - a very important product.
The naked heads are part of the nest hygiene situation.
Nest hygiene - where the birds come along, the adult birds come along to feed the young, the young put their head in the beak and gobble food, and if they didn't have naked skin their feathers would become matted and these little flies and things that hang around would blow them and they'd be in trouble.
There's a very high mortality rate in these.
This fellow is without a doubt the biggest and strongest.
He's a survivor.
He's a real survivor.
This bloke is a probable survivor.
This fellow, he's just so hot and tired and weak, all he's doing is panting to keep himself cool.
These are little black cormorants.
These, once they get bigger, their feathers develop a bit more.
You can see these are just coming out as pinfeathers.
Oh, come on.
Give over.
And once they start to lose this soft, beautiful down, they can then slide out of the nest, drop in the water and swim away.
Probably wondering what I'm doing.
Well, it's pretty obvious - netting.
But why? All of these waterbirds that live here, the thing that attracts them is not just the water.
Water on its own is nothing.
It's the things that live in it.
When the water first rises, you get these big flats built up.
They support weed and the weed in turn supports an enormous number of animals.
You probably think, "Poor old fella, he's getting old.
"Has to wear gumboots.
" There's a very good reason for it.
That's the reason - animals like that, snails.
These snails have a cycle of life which includes a parasite, a fluke animal.
It transfers between birds and snails and back to birds again.
But the fluke aren't very intelligent, and in their free-swimming stage, if a man happens to be in the water they'll get into his skin too.
The big problem with this disease is that it's very close to another disease called bilharzia in tropical parts of the world and the big fear in Australia is that bilharzia will be introduced to tropical areas like this.
(MOTOR DRONES) (MOTOR STOPS) These rocks are one of the characteristics of this sort of countryside - all different hardnesses and your soft rocks have eroded away long ago and the hard ones are left.
The formation has caused these flat cleavage sheets like books and as they sheet away, almost like slate, these flat rocks make beautiful hunting places and beautiful homes - hunting places for me, homes for animals.
And I don't have to go very far.
There's a burrow that looks good right there.
Probably a lizard.
Come on.
Ah, yes.
Ah, I see.
Let me see now.
(MUTTERS) These rocks jam in very tightly, which is what makes them very good.
Around there.
Now I'll get that bit of (SQUEALING) That's unexpected.
Ooh.
This is a rock rat - one of the really unknown native Australian mammals.
See, the problem with these things is they look like ordinary mice.
They've got the same sort of mousy ears and a mousy face and mousy whiskers.
They belong to the same group of animals.
Scientists call them the old endemics - native animals that have diversified away a little bit from the original rat and mouse stock.
One of the differences between these and native animals is the number of nipples the females have.
Now, this is a female and you can see there her swollen nipples, two on each side.
She's only got four.
There are none up under the armpits at all.
But in the introduced animals, they have at least six down there and either four or six up here.
So one of the advantages of being an introduced animal is you can outbreed these little native fellows by having double or even triple the number of young.
It's a fascinating thing - when these young are born, they're born in the normal way.
They're not a marsupial.
They don't have a pouch.
And the young attach themselves to teats and when the mother's out feeding and she gets a bit of a shock, she goes dashing through the grass and the little ones are hanging on, sort of bouncing along behind.
That's the way they hang on.
Later on when they get a bit older, they crawl up onto her back and get a good firm grip on the fur and you see this strange long animal dashing through the grass and it's really a mother with four or two babies attached.
Well, we better let you go, little one.
A pregnant mum deserves a lot of consideration.
We'll just rebuild this home we've wrecked.
Always put things back.
Then we put the rock back.
You're alright.
This is your homecoming.
Just relax.
Oh, oh, oh.
Ooh, ouch.
Do a good turn and smash your fingers up.
Now, there you go.
Righto, off you go.
That's it.
Nervous.
Yes, you're free.
Off you go.
Always let them go.
Look at them, enjoy them, but let them go to keep on living.
Now, this is a really good place.
It's right on the strandline, the water's fairly close and the rock has broken out and all the leaves are lying, covering the whole thing.
The dead leaves off the rivergum have come down and there's a nice, damp bed.
You can see the spider webs and things.
So underneath here, there could be anything.
Yes.
No.
Nothing.
Hmm.
It's amazing the number of times you do this and find nothing.
Nothing there.
Aha.
Come on, come on.
Come on.
That's something rather nice.
Beautiful fellow.
This is the banded skink.
He's seminocturnal.
That is, he comes out at night.
And before this country was flooded, the only place you would have found him would have been in deep caves or on springs or even out round windmills, but with this, of course, his advantage is water everywhere.
And you can tell he's had a good life - look at the fat tail.
He's really filled up with food.
He's lost his tail - something's got him, a water goanna or something like that - and from there down he's grown a new tail.
You can see the different colouring.
All in all, a beautiful animal.
Well, we'll let him go back again.
All of these animals are dependent on water, but the water effect stops very quickly.
Up on the ridges live the original desert inhabitants.
The water just makes it easier to get to them.
Aha! Python tracks, a cave with bat noises - two birds with one stone.
And in your naturalist's pack you carry all the necessary gear.
That's a mist net and I'm gonna slip that up now to keep the bats that show in the cave and we're in business.
These mist nets are very fine.
If you have trouble seeing it, you'll understand why they're called 'mist' nets.
And by spreading it across the mouth of the cave like this, any bats that fly will get tangled long enough for me to see what they are.
That's pretty good now.
Now, the last of the mist net.
Of course, I have to get on the inside, otherwise I'm trapped in it myself.
Ohh.
Ahh, yes.
There's the python tracks.
It's where he lives.
No doubt about that.
Aha.
Look at those fellows.
Little cave bats.
They don't like the light very much.
Right.
Yeah, this is the lair.
No doubt about that.
There's dingo been living here.
There's a dropping full of bones.
There's obviously a python living in here.
These great big droppings are python droppings.
And, of course, there are lots and lots of bats down here now, which means the python's not home.
His tracks are all across here.
These caves are fantastic places.
Let's see what else is up here.
Oh, that's the end of this one.
All there is is a whole lot of bats.
That's the way the mist net works.
Jeez, it's hot in that cave - fairly typical of these deep caves.
There's no air in them, very hot and stuffy.
The humidity is high and that's what the bats like.
This fellow's been caught up in the net.
Just very simply caught up.
See, he's not hurt.
Come on, little man.
(SQUEAKS) There we are.
And that's all there is to it.
Bats are beautiful animals.
They're mammals that are totally designed for flying.
Their front leg - 'cause this thing is a leg - the toes have changed into the supports for the wing.
And you can see the four fingers.
That wing is like that.
This is called a bentwing bat because the last tip of the longest finger folds up just like that.
When he's lying on the wall, he has it folded up like so.
He's also a short-tailed bat.
You can see he's got a big web of skin but the tail is hidden inside it.
When he goes flying through the air, he scoops down and either the wingtip or that tail web scoops up an insect and then he sort of does a somersault through the air as he's flying and eats the insect out of that tail web.
That's what it's used for, otherwise it gives him this enormous (SQUEAKS) Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Enormous teeth.
enormous wingspan.
Well, I know he's here somewhere.
There's skin, fresh tracks.
(CHUCKLES) Oh, yes.
Just keep it easy now.
Come on.
Oh, you lovely big man.
(CHUCKLES) Look at the size of it, will you? Oh, beautiful thing.
Come on.
Where you going? That rock's hot.
Hey, wow.
Yes.
Come on, back here.
Ohh, lovely man.
It's a brown rock python.
Isn't he beautiful? Now, who could ever say that was an ugly thing? A big, happy smile on his face.
Not very happy at the moment he's been caught.
A nice brown colour blends in with the rocks.
He's looking for things like bats or rock wallabies, birds.
Look how friendly he is.
A real cuddly fellow.
He's a bit battle-scarred.
I'd say he's probably been mixing it.
He's just about due to shed his skin again.
Snakes don't shed every year, as some people imagine.
They shed as they grow.
Their skin isn't as stretchy as our skin.
Ours sheds all the time in little flakes and pieces.
These fellows shed in one big lump.
His skin gets uncomfortable, so he starts at the nose, rolls it back and he just peels it off like a stocking, just rolls it down and peels it off.
Those coils which look so soft at the moment, when he's hunting, he just wraps them around and around and around and then just slowly tightens up and suffocates the thing he's eating.
He'd eat something the size of a rock wallaby or perhaps a dingo.
They love dingo pups, reckon they're glorious food.
Now, now, now, don't go over there yet.
I'm gonna let you go.
Isn't he beautiful? Look at the lovely way he moves over those rocks.
All of him.
There's a lot of him too.
And straight in under the crevices.
These brown rock pythons live here, they take shelter in the rocks and that way, they're able to keep the warmth.
Now, see, he's disappeared under there already.
Ohh, Lord.
It's one thing to catch them.
It's another thing to keep them.
Come on! (CHUCKLES) It's worse than eating spaghetti.
He's well and truly locked under too.
I don't think there's much hope of pulling this fellow out.
He's well and truly stuck in there.
We'll just let him go on at his own pace now.
All of him, that whole 12, 14 foot of snake I don't know how much there was.
is all getting stuck into a little tiny crevice there so small you wouldn't think a mouse would fit in it and yet he'll fit in very, very well.
Oh, well, where did I put There it is.
If you're wondering about an animal like that, a big snake - that was a python, it was harmless - but all snakes should be left alone, even the harmless ones.
Look at them, enjoy them, but leave them alone because some of them are really poisonous.
Once you get away from the water, it's back to the savanna with very little change to its original inhabitants.
Where are you? There you are.
Come on.
Ooh, come on.
Now, now, come on.
Don't bite.
(GRUNTS) (BREATHES HEAVILY) Catching rock wallabies is not as easy as it used to be.
You're not at all puffed, are you? Ain't he a beautiful animal? This is the fabulous little rock wallaby.
And don't think it's as easy as that to catch them.
This fellow's got a gammy leg, as you can see.
I saw him going across the rock, dragging it a little.
Alright, I'm not going to hurt you.
It's absolutely amazing - these animals that once upon a time lived all over Australia, were found right across, are now restricted to these rock islands like this one, just little hummocks of rock left in the plain.
All around, the cattle and sheep have trodden down the country, eaten it, foxes, cats have all worked their way and they've destroyed this little fellow and his habitat.
And believe it or not, there are still half-witted Australians who go out and shoot animals like this.
I can't imagine anything more sick than going to destroy an animal like this, not for eating - for so-called sport.