The land that time forgot
ALEX CULLEN: We're here where few venture to explore a place you've never heard of - the Artesian Range in the Kimberley. Coming into the Artesian Range really is like going back in time.
ATTICUS FLEMING: I mean, you're coming into a place that is the Australia of 200 years ago. The sun sets, the animals come out. There are lots of small mammals everywhere. That's was Australia was like when Europeans arrived. That's what Australia should be like in the future.
ALEX CULLEN: On the north-west fringe of Australia, it's perhaps the last refuge for many of our endangered native animals. What's kept them safe is its unique topography -steep river gorges crisscrosses by rocky gullies and rainforest – perfect cover from predators.
ATTICUS FLEMING: The walls of the gorges are just cloaked in this rainforest and that's fantastic for the little animals. This is where they are making a last stand. You know, they're not found anywhere else in the country. For some of them, they used to be found right across the north, they've contracted now and are only found in this little stretch of the Kimberley coast. Look at that. Isn't it absolutely amazing?
ALEX CULLEN: This is how Australia used to be. Even Kakadu has succumbed. They'll never, never tell you this in the tourist brochures but in the last 15 years, Kakadu has seen a catastrophic decline in its small native mammals - 75% of them, gone. Some species, like the golden bandicoot and the golden-backed tree rat have completely disappeared. This is a World Heritage area, it's a national treasure but behind the postcard facade, it's a national disgrace.
ATTICUS FLEMING: In northern Australia, we're losing our wildlife. It's a tide of extinctions, really, that is starting in Cape York, coming right across northern Australia, through the Top End and it's reached the Kimberley. So if you look to the horizon, that's essentially where that tide of extinctions has come to. Beyond that point, it's pretty hard wor to try and find a small mammal but behind us in the Artesian Range, they're still abundant.
ALEX CULLEN: Atticus Fleming heads up the world's biggest private Conservation Empire. When the Australian Wildlife Conservancy heard that this land was for sale, they entered into a partnership with a generous benefactor to acquire it and protect it. But to really explore this haven, you can't do it from the air. The Charnley River is our way in.
ATTICUS FLEMING: 1,800 square kilometres, Alex, of towering escarpments and gorges and rainforest gullies. You can see why we call it a 'Lost World'. It's one of the few places in Australia, the Artesian Range, where we've had no extinctions in the last 200 years so it's a bit like a land time forgot and there've been very few people in here.
SARAH LEGGE: You come here and in one evening, just around your camp, you're tripping over quolls, there's bandicoots fossicking around in the undergrowth, tree rats galloping above you along the branches. That's what Northern Australia used to be like, right the way across from here through to Queensland and it's not anymore and this is the last place that's still like that.
ALEX CULLEN: After the property was bought early last year, scientist Sarah Legge and her colleague, Kathryn Tuft, began measuring the extraordinary abundance of wildlife here. To really witness this, you have to go out after dark. So Kath, where are we headed?
KATHRYN TUFT: One of these refuges for all those special animals we've been talking about.
ALEX CULLEN: Do you feel like you're being watched? I do.
KATHRYN TUFT: Yes, I do.
ALEX CULLEN: This is just amazing.Look at that rock.
KATHRYN TUFT: Whoa! There's a rock wallaby up there.
ALEX CULLEN: A rock wallaby?
KATHRYN TUFT: Yep.
ALEX CULLEN: Where?
KATHRYN TUFT: Can you see - it's not moving, it's got a little bit of a tail sticking up right in the centre of my beam. There - you might pick up its eye shine.
ALEX CULLEN: Oh, look at him!
KATHRYN TUFT: There's a whole heap of tiny little frogs. You might be able to see their eyes shine just on this ledge here. Tiny little fellows.
ALEX CULLEN: One, two, three, four, There you go!...four, five!
ALEX CULLEN: The scientists know the small mammals are here in big numbers but to find out how many and how many species there are, they need to set traps. What bait are we using?
SARAH LEGGE: The basic bait is always rolled oats and peanut butter. The peanut butter's really fragrant so it attracts mammals from a long distance. So, have a smell.
ALEX CULLEN: Oh, it smells good.
SARAH LEGGE: You tempted?
ALEX CULLEN: I'm hungry! It's making me very hungry. Can I have one?
SARAH LEGGE: Might find you in the trap tomorrow!
ALEX CULLEN: You just might! Next morning, the bait has done its job. What have we got?
KATHRYN TUFT: It's a huge bandicoot. Look at that! He's a monster.
ALEX CULLEN: Hello, Mr Bandicoot.
KATHRYN TUFT: That's great.
KATHRYN TUFT: He's a fully adult male ready to go.
ALEX CULLEN: This one's a northern brown bandicoot...
KATHRYN TUFT: Hello, buddy.
KATHRYN TUFT: He looks like a western chestnut mouse.
ALEX CULLEN: Let's have a look. Hello, Westy Chesty.
SARAH LEGGE: Most of my working life, the past 15 years has been in northern Australia and I've become very used to working in woodlands where everything looks basically fine...
SARAH LEGGE: but there are no mammals, it's an empty landscape.
ALEX CULLEN: Measuring that? Sure thing.
KATHRYN TUFT: So, across ways.
ALEX CULLEN: Without this refuge, what would happen?
SARAH LEGGE: Well, we'd lose another six species of mammal, possibly even up to eight but six is a conservative number. This one's probably my favourite, the northern quoll and she's also a predator, so she'll attack things almost the same size as her, so, very feisty animal. And used to be common right across Northern Australia but has all but gone from everywhere east from here.
ATTICUS FLEMING: So we've got a narrow window. If we act now, we can save species like the golden bandicoot and the northern quoll.
ALEX CULLEN:This land needs fire to regenerate, but the careful tradition of Aboriginal fire-lighting has long gone which means fires often become firestorms in the height of summer. That leaves small creatures with nowhere to hide from predators.
SARAH LEGGE: What we're trying to do is control the fires so that they're burning at a time of year when they're much less intense.
ALEX CULLEN:The AWC's scientists have found they can stop the wildfires by lighting smaller burns early in the dry season.
SARAH LEGGE: The way we light the fires is I've got these capsules here that have got Condy's crystals in them and into those capsules, I am injecting some concentrated radiator fluid. That sets up a chemical reaction and the capsule ignites in about a minute. We'll drop about 50,000 of these in the burning season.
ALEX CULLEN: The difference between a good fire and a bad fire is the difference between life and death for Australia's small mammals. When a fire destroys all their cover, they are simply easy pickings.
SARAH LEGGE: Cats are just sitting at the edge and just picking off the native animals as they come out of the fire scar into the unburnt vegetation.
ALEX CULLEN: Feral cats have formed an unholy alliance with wildfire.
SARAH LEGGE: What our research is telling us that when there's a really large fire that leaves a really big and thorough fire scar footprint, it looks like feral cats are coming up to the edge of that fire scar and hunting along the edge. One of things we're trying to do with this fire program is create fire scars that the cats don't like so much.
ALEX CULLEN: Too little is known about feral cat behavior so on the outskirt of the Artesian Range, the AWC has tagged 23 cats with cameras and GPS transmitters. They track their every move and learn as much as possible about their destructive behaviour. And today, Brangle the cat hunter, is gonna catch one. On the chase is Hugh McGregor, cat researcher.
HUGH MCGREGOR: It's really close now.
ALEX CULLEN: When Hugh's picked up the cat's signal...
HUGH MCGREGOR: I think the cat's in that direction!
ALEX CULLEN: So beautiful from the air, but this is rough terrain.
HUGH MCGREGOR: Can you hold the aerial?
ALEX CULLEN: Sure, mate.Have we got the cat?
HUGH MCGREGOR: Yep.
SARAH LEGGE: Good girl, Brangle, come here.
ALEX CULLEN: Where's the cat, where's the cat?
HUGH MCGREGOR: Ready...oh, bugger.
SARAH LEGGE: Brangle, come on!
HUGH MCGREGOR: Be careful on those rocks!
ALEX CULLEN: There it is, there it is, there it is!
SARAH LEGGE: Good girl!
ALEX CULLEN: Oh, it's tough work this cat catching.
HUGH MCGREGOR: One of the most epic chases I've had yet.
ALEX CULLEN: Is it really?
HUGH MCGREGOR: Yeah!
ALEX CULLEN: The cat is sedated...
HUGH MCGREGOR: He'll be asleep for about half an hour.
ALEX CULLEN: ...while the GPS collar is checked and its data recorded and reset. The contents of other cats reveal the extent of their killing.
HUGH MCGREGOR: Birds, quails, mice, yeah, reptiles, yeah so I assume this cat will be no different - would have had a nice feed last night.
ALEX CULLEN: And out for some breakfast this morning?
HUGH MCGREGOR: Yes, yeah. So the other thing about cats is that even if they've had their fill, they'll still kill any animal they come across.
SARAH LEGGE: This is a very average meal for one cat in one night, so if you think about the fact that there are at least 2 million cats across northern Australia, each eating what have we got here - seven native animals, so that's a minimum estimate of 14 million native animals being eaten every night by feral cats.
ALEX CULLEN: 14 million every night?
SARAH LEGGE: It is astonishing.
ALEX CULLEN: I came here not knowing what to expect. What I found was heart-warming and heart-wrenching. Australia has the choice - it's here that we have the opportunity to win the fight against mammal extinction or this will be an opportunity lost.
ATTICUS FLEMING: Now is the time to act. We just have to turn back that tide of extinction and the only way we can do that is to be getting people out on the ground, getting the fire management right, getting the feral animal control right and getting the science right. And these landscapes like we've got at the Artesian Range and the animals that you've seen here, they're part of what makes Australia uniquely Australian. They're not found anywhere else in the world. This is ours, it's ours to protect and we should be inspired to do something about it.
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