In the Wild (1992) s01e21 Episode Script

Down here in Tasmania, I've heard it said that this is a country apart - a place that's different.
But it's not, because to the biologist, to the scientist, to the naturalist, wherever you look, there is the evidence that Tasmania is undoubtedly a part of Australia.
This long spit of land going north is part of the old land bridge that once went and connected Tasmania to Australia.
And down that bridge came plants and animals and people.
And then the bridge was closed.
These areas became island sanctuaries - places without competition from outside.
But if that competition comes, the islands become terrible traps with no escape for their inhabitants.
These sand hills were used by the Tasmanian Aboriginals who lived off and with the land.
Evidence of their occupation is still to be found, if you're observant.
These are the sort of things I'm talking about - stone tools, crude but effective sharp cutting edges and hammer boulders.
As the wind blows out these sand dunes, it exposes these ancient history books.
On this floor, there could be anything - Aboriginal tools, prehistoric animals Now, some of these prehistoric animals were pretty big.
There's one there that's enormous.
It is big, isn't it? It's not prehistoric, but it's just about extinct, because this is an animal that was exploited.
It wasn't managed.
The biggest animal that ever lived in the world - the blue whale.
This is its skull buried in the sand hill.
That round part is the part that joins the neck.
That section is the roof of the mouth.
So the skull comes back under the sand about to here.
And all of that is the skull of the biggest animal that we have almost totally destroyed.
Tasmanians regard the rest of Australia as a place apart.
Their mainland, Tasmania, and the other, smaller islands left by the land bridge are all very important reservoirs of specialised wildlife.
These reservoirs have the same stock as the Australian mainland wildlife, but through the passage of time and climate and isolation, they've developed their own specialised forms that were safe in their islands.
That is, safe until the white man came.
That's something that not very many living people have seen, unless you happen to live on Flinders Island.
That's a potoroo.
In the early days of Australia, there were a lot around, but today, they've just about vanished (CLEARS THROAT) mainly because, I think, of the foxes on the mainland.
Pots are a little bit big for cats, but the foxes can really get into them.
And all through the swamps in south-western Australia and south-eastern Australia, they've been hunted out and eaten out by these introduced animals.
Probably there wouldn't be more than a few thousand of these left alive in the world.
One of the problems about these sort of animals is that they don't do any damage and they're not much use.
And so there's not a lot of attention paid to them.
If an animal is an economic pest, then scientists study it to control it.
If it is of value to eat or as a sporting animal, then it's studied so you can increase it and maintain it.
But really, it's animals like this that are intrinsically valuable for their own sake, because they're Australians, that need as much protection as those things that man can make use of.
We're gonna take him back, because he's too valuable to release - take him back into a sanctuary area where he can be studied a little bit so we can do something about the preservation of them.
See him bite that bag? Wow.
This fur doesn't mean he's been hurt.
This is part of their protective characteristic.
They're very aggressive, territorial animals and they fight like crazy.
And this fur comes out literally at the drop of a hat.
So as soon as some other animal grabs them, the fur just sheds away and off they go.
Well, off we go.
The potoroo can still persist in bushland but the story of most of the islands is man use.
This is valuable pasture land and has been cleared with only the mountains remaining untouched.
Man's effects are visible wherever you look, although sometimes they're very subtle.
These thistles blend with the landscape, but they're an introduced weed.
You never know what you might find in these changed environments.
(GOBBLES) The nervous behaviour of these domestic animals gone wild indicate there are some young somewhere.
(GOBBLES) It's pretty hard to believe that something as soft and innocent-Iooking as this could possibly be a danger to the wildlife of this country.
He's so young and innocent, is the right word, that he's easy game for cats, foxes, birds of prey, all those things.
But there are no foxes - they're the most effective ground predators.
And this is an ordinary barnyard turkey - an American turkey brought out here as a game bird or a table bird, for eggs and for meat.
And in this scrub country, they've moved out into the bush and they're in the process of becoming wild.
Now, I can get quite close to the adults of this pair of bird, but this one and its offspring are gonna become progressively wilder.
And perhaps, in the next few generations, wild turkeys - this sort of wild turkey - will be a real threat to our native wild turkey.
Nevertheless, I'm gonna let him go just the same.
(CHIRPS) There you go.
Go on.
"Where's me mum?" (CHIRPS) (GOBBLES) Ahh, there she is.
That's better.
(BIRDS SQUAWK IN DISTANCE) The most interesting birds in this area, though, are the Cape Barren geese.
Many people come to the island just to see them.
They're listed in the world records as a rare and endangered species.
The Australian and the Tasmanian governments spend a lot of money each year preserving these birds.
And in the process, they've evolved a completely new concept of wildlife conservation in Australia.
This is a sanctuary - not for cattle, but for Cape Barren geese, and the two things are incompatible, or so it seems.
They both eat the same food - the grass, the pasture.
So the people who live here, the landholders and landowners, don't like them.
This piece of land is privately owned land.
And so it's a leased sanctuary.
The landowner is paid money for the purpose of letting the geese graze on this land.
And yet at the same time, at certain seasons, hunters can come in and shoot them.
The art of wildlife management is to maintain numbers at a constant viable level.
If they overrun this, then the excess has to be cut down.
And this explains the paradox of hunting a protected species.
(GRUNTS) (GROANS) This is the biggest of the lizards that lives in Tasmania - a beautiful animal.
Just like his same species on the mainland - you can see where his name comes from - a blue-tongue.
A beautiful animal.
Little short, stubby feet and a short tail.
Lots of people say, "Oh, I saw a death adder.
" It's not a death adder at all.
Very friendly, happy beast.
Apart from that, this one's a lady.
She's a little bit fat.
Inside there, there are probably two young ones ready to be born - they're born alive.
And once they're born, she leaves them - there's no care for the young at all.
That's probably what she's doing around these rocks - looking for a place to have her young and leave them in a safe place for the winter, 'cause winter's coming on now.
Used to be good tucker for the Aboriginals in the old days.
But now, since there are no Aboriginals here, nobody worries these.
A few get run over on the roads, but mostly, they've increased tremendously.
And the only thing that really keeps them in check (HISSES) is the cold weather.
Oh, alright! (HISSES) That hissing sound is a bluff exhalation.
They fill themselves up with air and go "Haaaa", which means, you know, "I'm a snake.
"I'm pretending to be a snake, so leave me alone.
" Well, we'll leave you alone, then.
There you go.
Go crawl up the rock.
Right, off we go.
Quite good climbers, really.
See the way the ribs flatten out as soon as she gets on the rock, pick up the extra heat? The dark colours help her to pick up the heat.
On an island like Flinders, where there is tremendous variation from cleared land to rugged mountains, there's habitat for many different sorts of animals.
Of course, there's always some idiot that won't use the proper place.
C'mon.
Oh There you are.
There you are.
Well, here's a good possie for you.
Isn't that a beautiful animal? That's the hairy echidna - the one that's found in Tasmania.
Beautiful thing.
Look at that face - all shy and tucked up.
Great muff of spines right around.
And perhaps the most important immediate difference is the fur that comes out to the length of the spines.
Underneath that fur, there are just the same number of spines there are on the mainland Australian animal.
There's another pretty significant difference too, and that's this back foot.
See, like every animal - every mammal - who gets fleas and lice, he has to scratch between the spines.
Now, you try scratching between spines.
You'd prickle yourself! And that's what these claws are for, these very specialised back claws.
The mainland one has only got the first toe with the elongated nail.
This fellow, as you can see, has got two toes with the elongated nail.
Beautiful animal.
One of the most primitive animals in the world - an egg-laying monotreme.
This and the platypus are unique - they're the only two.
And they're animals that have survived over the millions of years from when they first evolved to now, and they've survived because they're designed for living.
Their food and their protection, their escape mechanisms, have been so good they've never had to change the model.
It's never been updated.
This animal is identical to the animal that lived perhaps 10,000 years ago, perhaps a million years ago.
Yeah, no good on roads - get run over.
Back here in the bush for you.
There you go.
This rocky island with its tiny shack hardly looks to be a place of major importance in terms of conservation.
But it's one of the most significant places in Australian conservation and environmental studies.
(GRUNTS) You probably wonder what I'm delving into burrows for, for birds.
This is a very specialised bird.
This is the mutton-bird - the very famous mutton-bird of Bass Strait.
And it was probably the first of the biological surveys that was accurately carried out in Australia.
When the first settlers came here into this part of the world, this bird and its chicks yielded oil and feathers and meat.
And so a big industry built up on mutton-birding.
And at the same time, people came to these islands and wanted to build sheep stations in particular.
And gradually, the mutton-bird started to decline.
And the mutton-birders were very upset, and they complained, and everybody started having a big argument, because again we have the problem of two dissimilar land uses.
And the government of Tasmania and the CSIRO set up this research station.
It's on a tiny little island called Fisher Island.
It's in this place that Dr Serventy began his work 27 years ago.
And his work, really, was very simple.
Down each burrow, when the birds came in the nest, he caught them.
And on their legs, he put the band.
Each band has a number on and each bird has its own card-index system.
Now, 27 years later, we can tell that this lady has only had two husbands in her life.
She got divorced in about 1958 and she started with a new husband.
She is still coming back to this same burrow.
And the whole life story of the mutton-bird is known - how they leave here, they fly right up the coast of Australia, right up into the Northern Hemisphere into the Aleutian Island area, down the west coast of America, across the Pacific, and arrive back here in November on the same day every year.
The end result is that we have the sheep industry on some islands, we have the mutton-bird industry on other islands, but we still have, from conservationists, the same numbers of birds that were here when Flinders first came through here and wrote in his journal that he'd passed flocks of birds that lasted for four hours - great, massive flocks of birds migrating.
And they are still here today, the mutton-birds of Bass Strait.
And they set the pattern for the behaviour of all ow! biological survey work in Australia.
Well, I'll put you back.
Come on.
There you go.
(CHUCKLES) That shows how beautifully they can dig.
A little bit of dirt got filled back into the burrow.
Because of the sea barrier and the legislation and the knowledge, the mutton-bird is safe as a species.
But for most Australian wildlife, we know NOTHING.
And until the research can be done, none can be regarded as safe.
The most important of all the sanctuaries was Tasmania itself.
And here the island became a trap as the white man and his animals moved in.
The wildlife started to diminish, forests were cut out as the land was cleared, and the dead trees stood as mute testimony to what might have been.
And then public conscience created national parks and sanctuaries, and this land is now a place for wildlife preservation.
(FROGS AND BIRDS CALL) This is the magic time of day - sun's gone, it's twilight.
All the day animals are going to bed.
Little bit of quarrelling from the plovers as they settle their place for the night in a safe spot.
Frog calling.
But the night animals haven't started to move.
It's so peaceful! Listen to it - you can feel it! (FROG CALLS GENTLY) (PLOVER SQUAWKS SOFTLY) (WHISPERS) Beautiful.
And that great field over there and the hill behind it - bare, nothing living.
And yet tonight, I'm coming back here, because all the signs, all the traces, say that this is alive with animals.
Wait till we come back and see, because that's where the excitement is.
There's the first one - a pademelon wallaby.
Bennett's kangaroo.
(CHUCKLES) And a wombat - a lovely beast.
Where's he gone? Ah, sneaking off in the grass! Ooh! 'Bye! The first thing you see when you're spotlighting are animals' eyes.
They reflect back the light.
As the animal turns into the light, you see the reflection.
Hello, little one.
These are wild possums.
(CHUCKLES) There's no other place to go.
And this fellow is probably wondering what on earth it's all about.
Possums were disadvantaged by the clearing of the land, because the trees they lived in disappeared.
So they live in rabbit or wombat burrows.
But at night-time, they climb the trees to feed on blossom and insects.
This is the lowest one on the tree, and he's off, back to safety, now.
But up above, there's dozens of others.
These Tasmanian possums are larger and darker and their fur is much thicker than their mainland relatives.
Ah, yes! A beautiful animal! Really a lovely thing.
Don't worry, little man! Don't be frightened! For those who don't know, that's a wombat - a half-grown one.
She just ran off and left him.
This is a little boy.
He's not really worried about anything.
They're beautiful animals.
Come on, simmer down.
Yeah! Little shoe-button noses, tiny little eyes.
That's all part of their design for living.
Those small ears, small eyes - that's so they can go down their burrows without getting their eyes and their ears full of sand.
And a most ridiculous tail.
You wouldn't believe it, but even that's part of the design for living too, 'cause a tail that size means that when you're down the burrow, and something's come after you and you've got your backside tucked up, there's no tail to get hold of - you've got no Achilles heel, or in this case, a wombat's tail.
There is one, but it's so small it doesn't matter.
Alright, little man.
Off you go and find your mum.
There you are! There you are! Ohh, there.
There you go! Now, that's the way wild animals can be, because that animal has never seen or felt a human before, and so is completely unafraid.
Because there are laws in Tasmania protecting, because there are rangers who make sure those laws are upheld, that animal is not worried about people.
It's a nice way to be.
Some people may query the use of animals like this.
They can only be seen at night, so why spend money and time saving them? The very fact they exist is enough reason.
Animals don't need our approval for their right to live.