Survival in the Kimberley
Crocodiles and birds. That’s just about the only animals you’ll see in Kakadu and surrounds. Oh, and the donkeys, camels, horses, cats, pigs, cows, foxes, and cane toads. You know, the animals that really aren’t supposed to be there but unfortunately are, in their millions.
Australia should be ashamed. I know I am. I can feel a rant coming on and that could get me into trouble. I’m doing my best to contain it, for now. I fear it will come back a little bit later.
Atticus Fleming isn’t a movie star or an MI6 spy or a crack military advisor in so-and-so’s ‘war on terror’. But he is waging a war. It’s a war that involves cute little native critters who are dying in their millions every day. They are critters with names like the Golden Backed Tree Rat, the Golden Bandicoot, the Northern Quoll, the Western Chestnut Mouse and the Scaly-tailed possum. I’ll bet you’ve never heard of most of these. The Golden Bandicoot perhaps, but you’re about to hear a whole lot more.
Atticus is a lawyer by trade and a fearless, cunning and charming wildlife warrior by choice. This choice has pitted him against some of the country’s biggest landowners, all tangled up in some of the world’s longest and thickest red tape.
But he has some powerful and wealthy allies who are helping him restore the Kimberley back to what it should be.
I’d never never been to the Kimberley; never never been to Kakadu either. I also never never knew how little is being done to protect some of Australia’s most threatened species.
Atticus is taking us to the Artesian Range not far inland from the wild Kimberley coast. Our only way in is by helicopter flown by our trusty pilot, Butch, who’s been doing his bit for the Kimberley by culling donkeys for the WA Government. What strikes first is the scenery and how this impossible beauty could exist to the north of our big brown country.
It doesn’t feel like Australia. It doesn’t feel like 2012. As we float between the giant gorges and ridiculously high rock formations one can’t help but think, where the bloody hell am I?! There are no roads, stock routes or water troughs, just sky and space and peace that’s only interrupted by the scurry of a Northern Quoll or the soft rhythmic patter of a Rock Wallaby in flight.
White fellas don’t quite belong here and I almost feel as though I’m intruding. This place gets along just fine without us meddling two-footers and I hope and pray it stays that way. It will if Atticus has anything to do with it.
The Artesian Range is an 1800 square kilometre haven for the last of the aforementioned critters and is blissfully free of hoof and human. Atticus and some heavy hitting mates put their hard-earned together and formed the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. They went about buying up large tracts of pastoral land in these parts, with one goal: to save the native wildlife.
It’s here that I was lucky enough to see these cute critters close up. These are animals I should know more about but because they’ve fast been dying out over the last 50 years, I don’t. To hold a Golden Bandicoot in your hands is a moment to truly cherish, but it warms and breaks your heart at the same time.
Atticus and his team of scientists are gathering crucial intelligence on the reasons behind this native animal genocide. They’re trapping some of these animals and studying their habits and habitats. If you have a pet cat it might be hard to imagine that a cat very like your own is the biggest killer of our furry little friends. These wild cats are gorging themselves every night on a banquet of Bilbies, Bandicoots and whatever else can’t fight them off.
Successive governments have allowed feral invaders like cats to multiply while small native animals die. Atticus and his team have taken it upon themselves to even the ledger and as I was to find out, it’s very hard work.
After spending almost a week in the Garden of Artesian, our next stop would deliver a cold hard lesson in preservation (or lack thereof). Kakadu is one of Australia’s biggest tourism earners. It’s Crocodile Dundee, red dirt, big skies and dreaming. There are more camera flashes in one day than grains of sand on Bondi Beach but I’m almost embarrassed to say, it’s not as picture perfect as it should be.
Tourists are paying top dollar to see ‘pristine’ wilderness in the heart of Australia. They pay with money. Small native animals pay with their lives. Somewhere along the line someone forgot to stop and ask ‘where are all the animals’? I’m not blaming individuals here. I’m blaming a culture that, for so many years, had conservation written way down the bottom of the list.
Atticus and his team are making the last stand. Most of Northern Australia is beyond saving but the fight for the Kimberley is winnable. The more we know about these animals, the more we care and the more we can help. Sure, crocodiles and birds are great, but Northern Quolls, Monjons and Scaly-tail Possums are just as good, if not better. Am I ranting again? Sorry. Someone has to.
Follow Alex on Twitter @alextcullen
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