In the Wild (1992) s01e20 Episode Script

(FLIES BUZZ, BIRDS CAW) The Australian desert is a matter of balance between the dead and the living.
Nothing is wasted.
To the observer, these everyday tragedies are part of the pattern of existence here in the desert.
Since the coming of the white man, these tragedies have increased and changed because white man has brought a completely new dimension into the daily life of the desert.
Plains such as this offered no natural barrier to the flocks of the early settlers, nor to the other animals that were introduced with them.
And they spread out across the country, particularly in South Australia, a State that had least of all natural barriers.
These newcomers posed new problems to the daily battle of existence.
This is a prime example of the lengths to which desert life will go to persist.
A seed lodged in a tiny crack in the rock.
And because it was in the rock and nothing grazed it off, this native willow grew out of it.
And as it grew, it expanded, forced the rock apart fraction by fraction.
Each time it did, more material - leaf and soil - went down until the rock was sprung completely apart like that.
So here the tree is persisting, having fulfilled its purpose of growing and modifying its environment to suit its own needs.
(LAUGHS) Some little fellows here starting to do the same thing.
They haven't got a hope.
These people didn't have a hope either.
They were misled right from the beginning.
The early reports of this country said it was a rich, green, lush country capable of carrying lots of stock, good rivers.
And men from England and other countries with a concept of "There is land, let's use it," came out here and settled.
They were the pioneers.
They had all the guts in the world but what they lacked was knowledge.
Because the good seasons that they came out here on were the exceptional ones, because the normal condition of this country is a drought condition.
And so the stock came in and they grazed the country out.
When the rains come again, there'll be a false richness here.
But the plants that come again are limited in number.
They've been changed by the persistent grazing.
It's a grim and disastrous scenario of death and destruction in this outback country.
But it's true right through this arid land.
We've only just learned we can't apply the things that we use on the other side of the world, in England and Europe - they're not valid here.
It's a new story.
Two-thirds of Australia is desert, with very different rules.
This desolate landscape is a result of overgrazing.
The only green things are the tenuous corridors of creeks and rivers, dry most of the time, which join up the landscape.
They're very welcome relief to stock.
But in their very use of them, by battering and depleting them through grazing and erosion of banks and shady areas, they're damaged even further.
Each flood that comes through washes more of the riverbed away and lets the desert invade these creek lines.
These rock faces are like the apartment houses of this desert environment.
The rivers are the roadways, the communication corridors.
But this is the refuge area, this is where the invaders can't get.
Like that plant up on top, for example, which is growing right out on the crevice, and it can't be grazed.
And so, despite its harsh environment, it's surviving where these plants out on the flat are being eaten off.
This plant survives because it's poisonous.
It's camel poison and it's a toxic plant.
This little one is a real survivor.
It's a fern.
Millions of years ago, all of this country was cool and wet.
In those days, ferns grew prolifically here.
And as the country dried out and the climate changed, bit by bit, the ferns died out until we have this sole survivor living in the heart of the desert.
Aha.
Oh, yeah.
Now, that's a beautiful animal - the spiny-tailed skink.
And he is a survivor in these rock areas.
And his tail is so spiky, when he pushes himself into a rock crevice, all that sticks out is that spiky tail.
And that way, anything trying to grab him can only grab the spikes.
And if all else fails, the scales actually peel off those spikes, so he's quite protected.
He's a little insectivorous animal and so he's able to survive for long periods of time in this area.
Beautiful animal.
Ah, well, let him go up on the rock.
There you go, little man.
There.
Ah, there's something else too.
Look at this.
It's the skull of a kangaroo, brought up here by a hawk or an eagle.
The ants are finishing it off.
Very fresh - you can still see the oil and grease in it.
The way the teeth are coming through indicate this was an animal just coming into maturity when it got killed either by drought, perhaps somebody shot it, might have been a road accident, and an eagle or a hawk, or might have even been a cat Pretty sure it'd be an eagle because you can see the droppings around here where the bird has sat and ate, and then abandoned it.
These little islands of rock are very important refuges, particularly here in South Australia where man and his works are the real enemy.
The wildlife, natural things, learn to live with the pressures of nature - the physical and the environmental pressures.
But this new invader - man and flocks, cats, rabbits, foxes - still have to be learnt to live with.
(BIRDS CHIRP) Those fellows are here for a drink.
This windmill is providing water which normally is locked away - it's water that's underground.
And man in his ingenuity of using the country has released it.
It's late afternoon, birds are coming in for a final drink.
Ah, the hunters are coming in too.
Look at that.
Ooh, look at that.
A fox.
Introduced animal.
He's hunting.
He knows he wouldn't get anything out here in the open, so he's just sticking to the edge of the vegetation.
Yeah, he's got something.
What is it? Grasshopper or something small, because I can't see it properly.
He's coming around.
By golly, he's moving, trotting along very purposefully.
There, off he goes into the bush.
He's one of these hunters that utilises these sources.
And this is the problem - when all of the resources are in one place and a predator like a fox or a cat moves in, anything that's here has to come in, it has to drink or die, the predator knows it, so it takes care of it.
And that's why these little nuclei are Normally the core of survival, they can also be the centre of destruction.
Still, a beautiful place.
And this time of the day, apart from first thing in the morning, is probably the best time.
Flies are gone, the heat's gone, the wind's dropped, it's quiet, beautiful.
Birds are having their last little call.
And all around there's a drinking thing.
Because the day things are closing down and the night things are just beginning.
Now, there's red kangaroos.
Red's a misnomer - you get blue ones too, and there's lost of arguments among bush people about that.
They'll come in right on into the night, drinking.
Well, we'd better let them get their drink.
(STARTS ENGINE) (BIRDS CHIRP AGITATEDLY) Oh, that's nice.
Doesn't look terribly hot today but it is.
This is true desert conditions.
This whole area is a claypan.
And when these occasional thunderstorms come through - they just last about an hour or so - the rain falls down and the claypans fill up.
These are the fine clays gathered from the whole surrounding country, which has come down in this depression.
And when these rains come over, they just bring new life to the desert because these claypans have a secret.
One of their secrets is it's good water - because it's muddy, you know it's good to drink.
If it was salty water, it would be clear.
That's one of the secrets.
That's a survival secret.
But the other secret is a wildlife secret.
Yeah.
That's the thing I'm talking about.
A totally water-adapted animal - the shield shrimp, one of the marvellous life forms in this desert country.
Now, these things lay their eggs, and when the pools dry up, the eggs go down to the bottom, in the mud, and dry up in the mud, so they become part of the dust.
And the moment the rains come again, the eggs dissolve and out come the shield shrimps.
And it's like a rain of animals - water, and suddenly these little blokes.
There you go.
But the water life is just the beginning of this miracle of the desert.
There's different sorts of wild flowers that come to bloom in maybe one week from the rain to the finish - they're in bloom and seeded.
Life is fast and quick.
Beautiful things - little daisies and all sorts of lovely flowers here.
And of course, the insects come to them and the birds come to them, and this whole wonderful cycle of life begins because one thunderstorm came through this area.
The whole desert changes with water.
But unless you really get down to observing the infinite details, you can miss the subtlety of this landscape.
Ants, for example, as the rain penetrates, bring up the wet sand and increase their holes.
So do other insects, like this beetle and this scorpion with his oval hole.
Ah, there's an interesting-Iooking hole.
About finger-size.
But these rings of dirt around it indicate that some animal, last night when the ground was wet and it was raining, brought wet dirt out of the hole.
You can see from the size of the lump of dirt compared to my finger, it's a fairly solid lump.
The fact there's no cover over the hole indicates it's not a funnel-web or a trapdoor spider.
The clumps of dirt indicate it's got to be an animal that can actually pick up two handfuls of dirt.
Well, that's what it seems to be, anyway.
In fact, I know what it is.
Let's have a look.
Aha! Look at that.
It's a tree cricket.
Beautiful animal.
It's one of the amazing things of the desert - this delicate, fine animal can survive in this country.
It's a female.
And you can tell it's a female by this long sting, which isn't really a sting - it's an egg layer.
And that being pushed down in the sand, she's laying eggs in this wet sand because the rain is a trigger.
And this animal is triggered to know there'll be regrowth in the very near future.
And so these eggs will hatch out to feed on the regrowth.
Well, we've wrecked your home, so I'd better make it again.
Instant homemaking.
Down you go.
There you go.
These things are so fragile that the wind and the sun will kill them.
They're nocturnal animals, they'll dry right out.
So by putting that animal back in there, I've given it a chance to manoeuvre and survive.
I've destroyed its home, I've recreated it.
(LAUGHS) Very simple tools.
That doesn't look like much, does it? But what a phenomena.
That's a very, very special desert frog, a little fat fellow that lives in this sandhill country.
When the rains come, he comes out, sucks up all the water he can, and that's where he gets his very fat, bulgy body.
Notice the way he walks instead of hopping.
He can hop, and hops very well.
But he walks as well.
Come out of my sleeve! There.
Look at this back foot.
It is a very efficient shovel that he uses to get down in the sandhill.
Because the remarkable thing about this animal is not that he gathers the water and holds it, but when the rains stop and the moisture goes out of the top of the dune, he starts to go down and down and down as much as 6 feet into the sandhill.
6 feet down, he rests until the next rain sends the signal down by moisture that it's time to come up and feed and breed again.
When they do breed, the females carry the eggs in their body, and quite often the tadpoles go right through their tadpole stage inside the egg.
And so what comes out are eggs that turn virtually into little frogs straightaway for the speed of utilising water.
The Aboriginals knew about this frog, and when they were walking through this country, they'd dig them up, get the frog and (SLURPS) get a drink.
Bad luck for the frog but good for the Aboriginal.
I don't do that to him, though - I got plenty of water.
So we'll put him back.
Back in your hole, sport.
There you are.
Now, bit of sand over him.
There you are.
Let's see what else we can find.
(PANTS) Some people complain I have dirty fingernails.
That's the reason.
When you start digging around for these animals that live in sandhills, sometimes they're quite extensive.
Now, this began by finding a hole about that round, and it went straight down in the ground, just like somebody had pushed a piece of pipe down.
Nothing in that.
It turned at right angles and came out here and around under me.
But there's a tunnel going on that way.
Somewhere between here and there and another tonne of sand is the animal that owns the hole.
Ah, talking won't get it done.
There's one down here.
Little blighter's trying to dig back in again.
There's a little side tunnel runs off here.
It's a little blind tunnel and they've gone down into that.
There's at least one but there's another one just ducked out again.
It's an animal called Notomys.
It's a native rodent.
Usually called a kangaroo rat.
There's a lot of amazing things about this animal.
It's another one of these delightfully delicate animals, absolutely.
Great big ears, great big eyes, huge whiskers, of course, when it's down the tunnel, so it can feel its way along.
Great jumping legs, and they hop, oh, quite considerable strides - some 12 to 18 inches in a bound, when they're in a hurry.
Beautiful things.
All around these sandhill tops, they feed at night.
They know it absolutely.
It's their territory.
And the moment there's a strange sound, they rush back along their track.
And, you know, their hole is like this.
And they come running back and they get to about here, and they go boom! straight down the hole.
They don't leave tracks around the edge of the hole so any animal tracking them by smell or by visual tracking can't find them.
It's a superb thing.
The Easter bunny.
What a gift to Australia that was.
Those teeth are constantly growing.
And a rabbit constantly eats, partly to fill his belly, partly to keep his teeth ground down.
When the drought is on here and there's no normal green food, they start this business - it's called ringbarking.
They eat the bark to get the green sappy layer.
And where they go right around the tree, the sap can't reach the tree and so the tree dies.
Now, that's a dead one.
They've dug down to get it from the roots and they've gone up as far as they can reach there.
That one over there is only partly done.
There's still a strip of live bark keeping the tree alive, but they've dug the roots out.
In the wattle bushes here, they actually climb up the trees and eat the bark up in the trees, twice or three times the height of a rabbit.
Sometimes they have a ghastly accident and fall down and get caught in a forked stick and die in the tree.
It's a terrible thing.
Even though they're terrible animals in their end product on the land, it's cruelty in itself is a terrible thing.
Down on the flat where the beautiful lilies grow - and there's some superb lilies grow in this desert country - they dig down and expose the bulbs because the bulbs secrete moisture, and the rabbits eat some of that to keep their moisture up.
In a good year, this country would support, oh, maybe 60 rabbits to the acre.
But rabbits can't count.
And when you get a good year, they just breed up and there might be 600 rabbits in an acre.
And when the crunch comes and the grass disappears, the rabbits die.
There's more of them than the land will support.
It's a bitter lesson but we can learn from the rabbits in this desert.
Early in the morning, you get out before the wind blows, follow tracks, and you find animals as delicate, beautiful as this little knob-tailed gecko.
His tracks coming across the sand lead to his burrow.
And he's, perhaps, the epitome of the desert.
Beautiful, fragile and cryptic - all the things the desert is.
Fragile in that the least impact will cause it to change or destroy.
Beautiful in so many ways.
And it's cryptic - you need to know it to understand it, to learn about it to appreciate just how wonderful it is.
All over Australia, scientists and naturalists are working to protect our heritage in the form of the desert.
But all of their work is nothing unless ordinary people believe it's worth saving.
So all I can say is keep caring - it's the only world you've got.
(THEME MUSIC)