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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:36,268 --> 00:00:41,672 Australia, a huge island that has drifted by itself for 45 million years, 2 00:00:41,941 --> 00:00:44,239 is a strange assortment of landscapes. 3 00:00:46,312 --> 00:00:50,976 Until just a few generations ago, they were lightly trodden by people. 4 00:00:58,924 --> 00:01:04,692 This land, with all its curious wildlife, was utterly unknown to western eyes. 5 00:01:23,282 --> 00:01:25,250 But a little over two hundred years ago, 6 00:01:25,417 --> 00:01:27,146 the British came to this island continent... 7 00:01:29,955 --> 00:01:31,388 and declared it theirs. 8 00:01:38,130 --> 00:01:38,653 At first 9 00:01:38,831 --> 00:01:42,927 it was just a place to dump criminals, 16,000 kilometres from home. 10 00:01:43,402 --> 00:01:45,165 But this distant British outpost 11 00:01:45,337 --> 00:01:48,864 would soon become a land of opportunity for those that followed. 12 00:01:52,311 --> 00:01:54,438 Now there's a population of twenty million, 13 00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:57,877 living in some of the most modern, desirable cities in the world. 14 00:01:58,651 --> 00:02:02,678 A whole nation has grown up fast in a land of sun and space. 15 00:02:19,805 --> 00:02:24,401 But how has the big old landscape coped with this rapid transformation? 16 00:02:27,246 --> 00:02:31,512 And now there are so many people here, what has happened to the wildlife? 17 00:02:44,029 --> 00:02:47,931 Australia's most famous animals have had to come to terms with changes. 18 00:02:48,767 --> 00:02:50,667 A koala is a creature of habit 19 00:02:51,003 --> 00:02:54,837 and will doggedly follow the route it knows between favourite feeding trees. 20 00:02:55,007 --> 00:02:58,704 If there is a road in the way, it will simply stroll across. 21 00:03:00,612 --> 00:03:02,045 Koalas are good climbers, 22 00:03:02,381 --> 00:03:05,077 so even if there's a fence between it and a good feed, 23 00:03:05,284 --> 00:03:06,717 it needn't be an obstacle. 24 00:03:14,727 --> 00:03:17,389 If a koala knows there's something to eat on the other side, 25 00:03:17,629 --> 00:03:20,223 it will just clamber across until it gets there. 26 00:03:21,233 --> 00:03:24,361 It's slow, but you have to give it full marks for style. 27 00:03:37,649 --> 00:03:39,640 That's all very well in quiet areas. 28 00:03:40,185 --> 00:03:44,178 But in Australia, wildlife and humans often want the same real estate. 29 00:03:45,824 --> 00:03:47,189 When cities grow too fast, 30 00:03:47,359 --> 00:03:49,953 and trees disappear under the spread of suburbia, 31 00:03:50,262 --> 00:03:52,492 koalas don't change their habits. 32 00:04:00,806 --> 00:04:04,298 They hang on in there, still following their familiar routes. 33 00:04:09,882 --> 00:04:11,782 As long as there are just enough trees left, 34 00:04:12,084 --> 00:04:15,383 koalas will stay around the most unlikely places. 35 00:04:23,762 --> 00:04:25,787 Every time a koala comes to the ground, 36 00:04:26,065 --> 00:04:29,193 it has to take its chances against the hazards of urban living. 37 00:04:30,536 --> 00:04:33,528 But Australian animals have evolved for millions of years in a tricky, 38 00:04:33,705 --> 00:04:34,933 changeable environment, 39 00:04:35,374 --> 00:04:39,367 and even in the face of city sprawl, the toughest survive. 40 00:04:43,115 --> 00:04:47,211 Australia's native wildlife has suddenly been faced with a whole new world. 41 00:04:48,287 --> 00:04:50,983 But sometimes it's the animals that benefit. 42 00:05:07,806 --> 00:05:11,207 Kangaroos eat grass - and in this town near Melbourne, 43 00:05:11,376 --> 00:05:15,142 where a golf course has been built alongside patches of natural bushland, 44 00:05:15,581 --> 00:05:18,209 the local grey kangaroos have hit the jackpot. 45 00:05:21,553 --> 00:05:23,453 In a dry old country like Australia, 46 00:05:23,689 --> 00:05:25,884 all this fresh, green, well-watered grass 47 00:05:26,058 --> 00:05:28,356 is like a banquet for these lucky roos. 48 00:05:28,527 --> 00:05:30,995 It's a vast improvement on what they'd usually get. 49 00:05:41,573 --> 00:05:44,337 These are shy animals normally - but not here. 50 00:05:44,877 --> 00:05:46,936 There may be five hundred kangaroos here, 51 00:05:47,179 --> 00:05:50,239 and some have lived all their lives on the greens among the golfers - 52 00:05:50,482 --> 00:05:54,145 eating grass, raising their families, relaxing in the shade of the trees, 53 00:05:54,386 --> 00:05:57,355 and generally behaving exactly as they would in the bush. 54 00:06:16,175 --> 00:06:19,042 In fact, it's the golfers who have to play around them. 55 00:06:19,978 --> 00:06:23,971 And an audience of kangaroos is enough to put anyone off their stroke. 56 00:06:33,825 --> 00:06:37,158 A rubbish dump might seem a less salubrious place to dine out, 57 00:06:37,529 --> 00:06:39,724 but this one, a few miles from Brisbane, 58 00:06:39,998 --> 00:06:42,967 has become a fast food stop for sacred ibises, 59 00:06:43,435 --> 00:06:45,835 and they thrive in great numbers as a result. 60 00:06:46,438 --> 00:06:47,996 They travel in from nearby swamps, 61 00:06:48,173 --> 00:06:51,939 where they roost, arriving bang on time when the dumpsters unload. 62 00:07:11,763 --> 00:07:13,128 It's a reliable meal - 63 00:07:13,532 --> 00:07:16,558 while they would naturally dig about for crayfish and mussels, 64 00:07:16,768 --> 00:07:19,362 here they can take their pick of gourmet throwouts. 65 00:07:19,905 --> 00:07:23,341 Urban living has its advantages, if you've got the nerve. 66 00:07:40,692 --> 00:07:42,956 And the minute the dump closes at the end of the day, 67 00:07:43,262 --> 00:07:47,631 the birds all disappear, regular as clockwork, back to their swamp. 68 00:07:56,875 --> 00:08:00,504 More than three-quarters of Australia's population lives on the coast, 69 00:08:00,779 --> 00:08:02,144 and so that's where the relationship 70 00:08:02,314 --> 00:08:04,578 between people and wildlife is most obvious. 71 00:08:05,050 --> 00:08:07,883 But the human effect hasn't confined itself to the cities. 72 00:08:10,689 --> 00:08:12,782 Beyond the coast is a whole new world, 73 00:08:13,191 --> 00:08:15,489 and within fifty years of British settlement, 74 00:08:15,661 --> 00:08:18,630 some brave souls had taken on the challenge of living inland. 75 00:08:22,668 --> 00:08:26,866 The contrast between city and outback living couldn't be stronger. 76 00:08:42,020 --> 00:08:45,046 This is the most unpredictable desert in the world. 77 00:08:45,557 --> 00:08:46,922 In Australia's interior, 78 00:08:47,092 --> 00:08:51,495 the temperature can swing from 46 degrees Centigrade to minus 8. 79 00:08:51,930 --> 00:08:55,798 Some years 20cm of rain may fall in a single day, 80 00:08:56,335 --> 00:08:59,862 and in other years, there may hardly be enough to wet the ground. 81 00:09:09,781 --> 00:09:11,976 Australia's soils are dry and impoverished - 82 00:09:12,150 --> 00:09:14,675 on average the poorest in the world. 83 00:09:15,153 --> 00:09:16,586 It's a hard place to farm, 84 00:09:16,888 --> 00:09:20,881 and yet now there are 18 million sheep here, and 30 million cows - 85 00:09:21,093 --> 00:09:22,617 more than there are people. 86 00:09:27,065 --> 00:09:29,226 One of the toughest challenges was the lack of water. 87 00:09:29,601 --> 00:09:31,899 But people discovered that there was water here - 88 00:09:32,304 --> 00:09:36,104 gigantic pools, millions of years old, deep underground. 89 00:09:36,942 --> 00:09:39,740 Pioneering farmers struggled to bring it to the surface, 90 00:09:40,178 --> 00:09:43,739 so that their sheep and cattle would never be far from a reliable supply. 91 00:09:46,785 --> 00:09:51,688 And for the native wildlife, these man-made oases became very attractive. 92 00:09:53,425 --> 00:09:57,657 These animals have had millions of years to adapt to the times when no rain falls. 93 00:09:57,929 --> 00:10:00,625 And suddenly, here was plenty of water. 94 00:10:04,035 --> 00:10:06,902 In the old days, emus and kangaroos would have stayed 95 00:10:07,072 --> 00:10:11,270 close to whatever natural water they could find in this arid landscape. 96 00:10:15,414 --> 00:10:18,008 When droughts were long, many would have died. 97 00:10:19,718 --> 00:10:21,811 But nowadays, with all this water on tap, 98 00:10:21,987 --> 00:10:25,252 no animal need be more than 10 kilometres away from a drink. 99 00:10:25,590 --> 00:10:30,027 And alongside the cattle, the natives have thrived as never before. 100 00:10:36,168 --> 00:10:40,127 Now, there may be 10 million red kangaroos in Australia's arid lands. 101 00:11:04,262 --> 00:11:05,957 It seems that wherever people have struggled 102 00:11:06,131 --> 00:11:07,860 to wrestle a living from the land, 103 00:11:08,133 --> 00:11:11,660 the native wildlife is ready to help itself to the proceeds. 104 00:11:15,907 --> 00:11:18,740 For native birds that have evolved on a diet of seeds, 105 00:11:18,910 --> 00:11:21,708 what better place to feed than a wheat store? 106 00:11:25,784 --> 00:11:29,914 Little corellas flock to storage bunkers in gangs thousands strong, 107 00:11:30,222 --> 00:11:33,487 turning up in greatest numbers just when the harvest is brought in. 108 00:11:38,363 --> 00:11:41,093 They're not put off at all by the heavy tarpaulin covers - 109 00:11:41,333 --> 00:11:44,166 these parrots simply rip through them and eat their fill. 110 00:11:46,004 --> 00:11:47,403 Their beaks never stop growing 111 00:11:47,572 --> 00:11:50,541 and these intelligent birds use them like tin openers. 112 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:58,538 And being highly sociable, they go around in big numbers. 113 00:12:13,899 --> 00:12:16,697 It's pretty hard to stop this avian smash-and-grab. 114 00:12:21,506 --> 00:12:23,974 Farmers try to scare them off by firing shots... 115 00:12:28,813 --> 00:12:31,577 ...but all they do is fly round and land again. 116 00:12:38,223 --> 00:12:41,021 They will finally disappear en masse to their roosts - 117 00:12:41,293 --> 00:12:43,056 but they'll be back again tomorrow. 118 00:12:44,663 --> 00:12:46,563 Parrots have been up to tricks like these ever 119 00:12:46,731 --> 00:12:49,165 since the first settlers began growing crops, 120 00:12:49,401 --> 00:12:50,629 two centuries ago. 121 00:12:51,169 --> 00:12:54,468 But not all Australia's native wildlife is quite so resilient. 122 00:12:59,911 --> 00:13:03,540 There have been many changes since the British first planted their flag here, 123 00:13:04,049 --> 00:13:08,008 and some have had an impact that those early colonists could not have foreseen. 124 00:13:16,027 --> 00:13:18,518 At first, the land they found had seemed like Eden. 125 00:13:20,231 --> 00:13:23,598 But viewed through homesick eyes, it needed a few changes. 126 00:13:23,969 --> 00:13:26,233 The countryside needed taming. 127 00:13:26,705 --> 00:13:30,402 All those messy trees needed clearing, to make room for farms. 128 00:13:30,909 --> 00:13:34,743 And the place would surely benefit from some superior animals. 129 00:13:38,383 --> 00:13:43,343 And so those early colonists set about turning Australia into a little England. 130 00:13:48,460 --> 00:13:51,896 Bit by bit, here was Surrey on the other side of the world - 131 00:13:52,263 --> 00:13:55,494 faintly familiar, but not quite the same. 132 00:14:00,839 --> 00:14:05,503 And the native animals were coming face to face with strangers. 133 00:14:11,483 --> 00:14:12,507 For fifty million years 134 00:14:12,684 --> 00:14:15,812 this continent had nurtured its own private set of wildlife - 135 00:14:16,488 --> 00:14:19,286 and now it was beginning to fill up with a parade of animals 136 00:14:19,457 --> 00:14:21,152 that didn't belong here at all. 137 00:14:25,897 --> 00:14:29,628 And some foreign invaders began to cause serious problems. 138 00:14:31,336 --> 00:14:33,429 When the earliest British colonists arrived, 139 00:14:33,672 --> 00:14:35,936 they brought with them domestic animals from home, 140 00:14:36,174 --> 00:14:37,641 but they didn't keep them fenced. 141 00:14:37,976 --> 00:14:40,911 Plenty wandered off, and the toughest prospered. 142 00:14:44,182 --> 00:14:47,674 Nowadays, wild pigs, descendants from those early porkers, 143 00:14:47,886 --> 00:14:51,549 are rampaging through some of Australia's most pristine landscapes. 144 00:15:00,965 --> 00:15:02,694 Pigs need water to keep cool, 145 00:15:03,168 --> 00:15:05,659 and wetlands are where they do their worst damage. 146 00:15:06,237 --> 00:15:08,762 With their sharp feet and incessant wallowing, 147 00:15:09,074 --> 00:15:10,336 they destroy vegetation and 148 00:15:10,508 --> 00:15:14,035 damage waterholes far better suited to more delicate feet. 149 00:15:30,895 --> 00:15:32,362 They will eat virtually anything, 150 00:15:32,597 --> 00:15:36,260 and are especially partial to the eggs of native waterbirds and reptiles. 151 00:15:36,768 --> 00:15:38,292 They spread nasty diseases, 152 00:15:38,470 --> 00:15:40,802 and with a population that can double in a year, 153 00:15:41,106 --> 00:15:42,573 there are now millions of them. 154 00:15:48,246 --> 00:15:50,111 But pigs were just the beginning. 155 00:15:50,482 --> 00:15:52,973 And some incomers have a shameful history. 156 00:15:58,189 --> 00:16:01,158 1858 - rabbits are brought from England 157 00:16:01,326 --> 00:16:03,419 to give the colonists something to shoot at. 158 00:16:03,795 --> 00:16:06,025 They begin to multiply alarmingly fast - 159 00:16:06,197 --> 00:16:09,633 one farmer has 36 million on his property alone. 160 00:16:10,068 --> 00:16:13,868 They eat all the grass, and push small native animals out of their homes. 161 00:16:14,072 --> 00:16:16,063 And they're still not under control. 162 00:16:19,310 --> 00:16:23,110 1840 - camels are brought from Asia as beasts of burden, 163 00:16:23,314 --> 00:16:25,441 but later abandoned in favour of lorries. 164 00:16:26,985 --> 00:16:29,681 Half a million descendants now roam the outback, 165 00:16:29,921 --> 00:16:32,583 too many for a drought-prone land to support. 166 00:16:35,093 --> 00:16:38,756 1935 - the South American cane toad, 167 00:16:38,930 --> 00:16:42,457 poisonous species, is brought in to eat pest beetles. 168 00:16:42,767 --> 00:16:47,170 The plan fails, but the toads themselves thrive out of control, 169 00:16:47,572 --> 00:16:49,904 poisoning native animals that try to eat them. 170 00:16:54,445 --> 00:16:57,380 Even the most innocent seeming foreigners can be trouble. 171 00:17:01,653 --> 00:17:05,714 In 1822, settlers brought their European honeybees to Australia, 172 00:17:06,090 --> 00:17:08,251 and put their hives where the most flowers grew. 173 00:17:09,060 --> 00:17:10,789 They could then produce abundant honey. 174 00:17:11,196 --> 00:17:14,324 But it was bad news for the bees that lived there already. 175 00:17:17,001 --> 00:17:19,162 In the tropical rainforest of the northeast, 176 00:17:19,470 --> 00:17:21,802 the native bees feed on pollen and nectar, 177 00:17:21,973 --> 00:17:26,205 and some of the flowers need to be vibrated, to release their pollen reward. 178 00:17:26,744 --> 00:17:30,043 It's a relationship that has grown up over millions of years. 179 00:17:34,686 --> 00:17:38,281 But European honeybees can't do this buzz pollination - 180 00:17:38,523 --> 00:17:40,889 they just can't shake their bodies in the right way. 181 00:17:41,459 --> 00:17:43,654 Their method is to steal the pollen 182 00:17:43,828 --> 00:17:46,194 that the native bees have just set on the flowers. 183 00:17:51,703 --> 00:17:54,171 And they have even more aggressive tactics. 184 00:18:00,778 --> 00:18:04,441 They beat up the native bees, stealing the pollen from their backs, 185 00:18:04,616 --> 00:18:06,709 and driving them away from the flowers. 186 00:18:19,297 --> 00:18:20,662 Without proper pollination, 187 00:18:20,832 --> 00:18:24,666 the flowers, and the native animals that rely on them, are at risk. 188 00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:31,538 But of all the invaders that came from the Old Country, 189 00:18:31,809 --> 00:18:34,437 there is one that has really outdone the rest. 190 00:18:57,035 --> 00:18:59,663 Foxes were deliberately brought to Australia from England 191 00:18:59,837 --> 00:19:01,737 a hundred and fifty years ago, 192 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:06,340 so that homesick British gentlemen could hunt, just as they'd always done. 193 00:19:16,754 --> 00:19:20,155 But those foxes that didn't get caught, started to thrive. 194 00:19:25,897 --> 00:19:27,728 From an original few dozen released, 195 00:19:28,032 --> 00:19:30,432 there are now millions of foxes in Australia. 196 00:19:30,835 --> 00:19:35,636 Superbly adaptable, they have spread almost everywhere, even in deserts. 197 00:19:38,076 --> 00:19:41,603 Two hundred years ago, Australia was full of strange little animals, 198 00:19:42,013 --> 00:19:45,449 all flourishing in a landscape where there were few big predators. 199 00:19:50,755 --> 00:19:53,952 But now they all became the perfect, fox-sized meal. 200 00:20:21,786 --> 00:20:24,380 They had no idea how to react to this new enemy. 201 00:20:24,956 --> 00:20:26,947 And suddenly they began to vanish. 202 00:20:32,730 --> 00:20:34,254 A disaster had begun. 203 00:20:34,632 --> 00:20:37,999 Australia's native animals were being hit from all sides. 204 00:20:38,770 --> 00:20:40,829 They were being devoured by new predators. 205 00:20:41,039 --> 00:20:44,167 Their food was being eaten by foreigners with bigger appetites. 206 00:20:44,609 --> 00:20:49,239 And their habitat was being taken from them, so that the land could be farmed. 207 00:20:52,917 --> 00:20:56,318 Many native animals, once numerous, quietly disappeared. 208 00:20:56,988 --> 00:20:58,353 And they're still going now. 209 00:21:01,826 --> 00:21:03,157 Since the British arrived, 210 00:21:03,361 --> 00:21:07,127 54 species of mammals, birds and frogs have gone. 211 00:21:07,498 --> 00:21:12,094 In the desert, almost half of all the mammal species have become extinct. 212 00:21:12,603 --> 00:21:15,936 This shocking decline has no parallel anywhere else in the world. 213 00:21:19,510 --> 00:21:21,740 Australia's most famous extinct animal 214 00:21:21,913 --> 00:21:24,245 managed to hang on for a while in Tasmania. 215 00:21:24,715 --> 00:21:28,674 The Tasmanian tiger was one of Australia's few big carnivores, 216 00:21:29,387 --> 00:21:31,878 but it had been driven from the mainland by dingoes, 217 00:21:32,056 --> 00:21:35,924 and the remainder killed by farmers who accused it of taking sheep. 218 00:21:37,829 --> 00:21:39,421 In 1936, 219 00:21:39,730 --> 00:21:42,290 the year it was finally given official protection, 220 00:21:42,567 --> 00:21:45,695 the last one died in a Tasmanian Zoo. 221 00:21:57,782 --> 00:21:59,409 But although the picture looks grim, 222 00:21:59,684 --> 00:22:01,481 things are not always what they seem. 223 00:22:02,186 --> 00:22:05,246 In the far southwest corner of Australia there once lived a small, 224 00:22:05,423 --> 00:22:08,187 pointy-nosed marsupial called Gilbert's potoroo. 225 00:22:08,659 --> 00:22:10,593 It hadn't been seen for over a hundred years, 226 00:22:10,761 --> 00:22:14,925 and was presumed to be long extinct, the victim of the usual troubles. 227 00:22:19,470 --> 00:22:22,371 Then, in 1994, one was spotted. 228 00:22:30,114 --> 00:22:32,981 It wasn't lost after all - only hiding. 229 00:22:35,453 --> 00:22:38,820 Although it's the size of a rabbit, it eats almost nothing but fungi, 230 00:22:38,990 --> 00:22:40,855 which it digs for in deep undergrowth. 231 00:22:41,592 --> 00:22:45,460 And it only comes out at night. No wonder it was hard to spot. 232 00:23:00,912 --> 00:23:04,040 There may be fewer than forty of them left in the whole of Australia - 233 00:23:04,482 --> 00:23:07,315 in fact it may be Australia's rarest mammal, 234 00:23:07,618 --> 00:23:09,449 and it needs intensive protection. 235 00:23:11,956 --> 00:23:13,218 But it's not extinct. 236 00:23:13,558 --> 00:23:14,388 And it goes to show 237 00:23:14,559 --> 00:23:18,120 that Australian wildlife is easy to lose in such a big place. 238 00:23:27,538 --> 00:23:30,405 What else might there be hiding out there in the vastness? 239 00:23:32,410 --> 00:23:33,741 There's a search going on to find 240 00:23:33,911 --> 00:23:36,505 Australia's most legendary and obscure bird - 241 00:23:36,948 --> 00:23:39,781 a little green parrot that looks like a fat budgie. 242 00:23:43,921 --> 00:23:47,618 It was named the night parrot, because it's probably nocturnal. 243 00:23:47,825 --> 00:23:52,421 It's said to run around the spinifex grassland of Australia's dry interior, 244 00:23:52,663 --> 00:23:55,291 but it hadn't been seen for eighty years. 245 00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,897 Everyone assumed the night parrot was just another museum piece. 246 00:24:12,583 --> 00:24:14,244 But then, in 1990, 247 00:24:14,485 --> 00:24:17,886 one was found in Queensland, squashed at the side of the road. 248 00:24:18,422 --> 00:24:21,186 Here was evidence that there might still be night parrots running 249 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,328 about out there, somewhere in the darkness. 250 00:24:26,664 --> 00:24:29,997 There were campaigns to make sure that anyone who spotted one in the vast, 251 00:24:30,167 --> 00:24:32,692 lonely landscape would know what it was. 252 00:24:34,272 --> 00:24:38,641 Long-distance road-train drivers were even shown pictures of what to look out for. 253 00:24:45,683 --> 00:24:50,120 And then came a report that a live one had been seen in a remote cattle station, 254 00:24:50,288 --> 00:24:53,689 called Newhaven, right in the centre of Australia. 255 00:24:58,963 --> 00:25:02,797 The farm owner, Alex Coppock, is convinced of what he saw. 256 00:25:03,868 --> 00:25:07,395 Around his cattle trough, drinking with the other thirsty birds, 257 00:25:07,571 --> 00:25:10,870 were two unfamiliar birds he'd never seen before. 258 00:25:14,879 --> 00:25:16,403 They were definitely parrots, 259 00:25:16,681 --> 00:25:18,308 but not the usual ones. 260 00:25:27,024 --> 00:25:29,686 Alex has lived and farmed here for 40 years, 261 00:25:29,994 --> 00:25:32,428 and he knows the birds of the outback pretty well. 262 00:25:33,331 --> 00:25:36,425 These strangers certainly weren't budgies, or ringnecks. 263 00:25:37,335 --> 00:25:40,463 They were little fat birds, and had very short tails, 264 00:25:40,638 --> 00:25:42,765 and oddly marked green feathers. 265 00:25:43,808 --> 00:25:46,436 Checking what he'd seen against old illustrations, 266 00:25:46,811 --> 00:25:48,278 Alex was sure that the birds 267 00:25:48,446 --> 00:25:51,279 at his trough really were night parrots. 268 00:25:56,153 --> 00:25:58,018 If the night parrot does still exist, 269 00:25:58,189 --> 00:26:00,214 this is the kind of place where it would live, 270 00:26:00,591 --> 00:26:04,527 with spinifex clumps to hide it during the day, and plenty of water. 271 00:26:10,601 --> 00:26:15,971 It's the Holy Grail for ornithologists, none more devoted than Richard Jordan. 272 00:26:18,909 --> 00:26:19,841 He looks in the places 273 00:26:20,010 --> 00:26:21,443 that seem most promising, 274 00:26:21,612 --> 00:26:23,842 in the hopes of flushing the secretive little birds 275 00:26:24,014 --> 00:26:25,413 from their hiding place. 276 00:26:28,052 --> 00:26:29,610 But there's not a glimpse. 277 00:26:40,097 --> 00:26:42,258 It may be Australia's least known bird, 278 00:26:42,733 --> 00:26:45,759 but it seems that it was a sitting target for foreign predators, 279 00:26:46,270 --> 00:26:48,966 and it couldn't cope with changes brought by farming. 280 00:26:58,282 --> 00:26:59,613 The search goes on. 281 00:27:00,151 --> 00:27:02,415 Even old bird's nests are checked, 282 00:27:02,586 --> 00:27:05,919 in case a fragment of night parrot feather has been woven in. 283 00:27:06,724 --> 00:27:08,214 Even this would be evidence. 284 00:27:09,393 --> 00:27:13,489 But in 13 years of searching Richard has found nothing. 285 00:27:15,266 --> 00:27:17,257 Nightfall is the time to watch. 286 00:27:18,702 --> 00:27:21,398 This is when these secretive birds would come to drink, 287 00:27:21,639 --> 00:27:22,537 with all the other birds 288 00:27:22,706 --> 00:27:25,971 that rely on these remote waterholes in the middle of the desert. 289 00:27:27,011 --> 00:27:29,445 But it is, to say the least, unlikely. 290 00:27:30,748 --> 00:27:32,978 Many people claim to have seen the night parrot, 291 00:27:33,150 --> 00:27:35,118 but so far, none can prove it. 292 00:27:35,753 --> 00:27:37,778 The only solid evidence there's been, 293 00:27:37,955 --> 00:27:42,688 was that one squashed bird found in Queensland, and the search goes on. 294 00:27:52,236 --> 00:27:53,635 This is a huge country, 295 00:27:54,171 --> 00:27:57,038 and the most vulnerable animals tend to be the most cryptic. 296 00:27:57,641 --> 00:28:00,405 So how do you find out if they even still exist, 297 00:28:00,978 --> 00:28:02,878 let alone help them survive? 298 00:28:04,248 --> 00:28:06,842 Ask the people who know the land better than anyone. 299 00:28:07,218 --> 00:28:10,745 Australia has been inhabited for 60,000 years. 300 00:28:14,291 --> 00:28:15,519 Until the British landed, 301 00:28:15,793 --> 00:28:17,954 there were maybe half a million people, 302 00:28:18,195 --> 00:28:20,459 in a place three-quarters the size of Europe. 303 00:28:21,365 --> 00:28:23,390 But they lived across the whole continent, 304 00:28:23,634 --> 00:28:25,761 and they knew the wildlife intimately. 305 00:28:27,705 --> 00:28:30,105 Aborigines had long been managing the landscape. 306 00:28:30,274 --> 00:28:32,902 They regularly burned it, to clear the way for hunting, 307 00:28:33,077 --> 00:28:35,011 and to encourage fresh plants to grow. 308 00:28:35,546 --> 00:28:38,982 The native wildlife had become tuned in to this new regime. 309 00:28:41,852 --> 00:28:46,050 When white people came, the Aboriginal population dwindled to barely a quarter. 310 00:28:46,390 --> 00:28:48,585 But their skills didn't vanish entirely. 311 00:28:51,862 --> 00:28:53,523 And now, all over Australia, 312 00:28:53,797 --> 00:28:56,459 they are helping with the rediscovery of lost animals. 313 00:29:05,509 --> 00:29:08,774 A lizard called the great desert skink had been missing for decades. 314 00:29:09,146 --> 00:29:12,604 Western scientists had only found twenty in almost a century. 315 00:29:13,417 --> 00:29:15,977 But when Aboriginal landowners helped the search, 316 00:29:16,220 --> 00:29:20,316 the skinks began to reappear, always on Aboriginal land. 317 00:29:20,925 --> 00:29:24,053 In Uluru, the locals called it tjakura 318 00:29:36,373 --> 00:29:39,501 Now traditional owners, like Norman Jackeleri and scientists, 319 00:29:39,677 --> 00:29:41,338 like Steve McAlpin, 320 00:29:41,612 --> 00:29:44,206 pool their skills in the continuing search. 321 00:29:57,995 --> 00:30:01,396 Norman knows this area intimately, it's his home. 322 00:30:03,467 --> 00:30:06,163 As a young child he was taught to recognise signs 323 00:30:06,337 --> 00:30:08,862 and follow animal tracks by his grandparents. 324 00:30:15,446 --> 00:30:18,882 As a scientist, Steve relies on Norman's special knowledge, 325 00:30:19,116 --> 00:30:21,880 that has only come from a lifetime spent in the bush. 326 00:30:25,189 --> 00:30:28,124 But now, they are teaching each other the skills needed to find 327 00:30:28,292 --> 00:30:30,260 and study these elusive animals. 328 00:30:40,838 --> 00:30:41,634 What's that one? 329 00:30:41,839 --> 00:30:42,362 Fox 330 00:30:42,539 --> 00:30:44,097 So, there's a fox come through here, 331 00:30:44,274 --> 00:30:46,139 so they're probably hunting for that tjakura, I reckon. 332 00:30:48,746 --> 00:30:52,273 There are predators here, foxes are a problem, 333 00:30:53,384 --> 00:30:55,682 but this was definitely skink country. 334 00:30:56,186 --> 00:30:59,644 It seemed that western science had been looking in the wrong places, 335 00:30:59,890 --> 00:31:00,982 all those years. 336 00:31:14,138 --> 00:31:15,230 Tjakura. 337 00:31:15,406 --> 00:31:17,101 Oh yeah, a beauty. 338 00:31:22,646 --> 00:31:23,772 It's a beauty, isn't it? 339 00:31:27,718 --> 00:31:30,243 ...lt's an animal that Norman is quite familiar with. 340 00:31:32,256 --> 00:31:33,917 190... 341 00:31:55,746 --> 00:31:58,237 So the skinks had always been here after all, 342 00:31:58,515 --> 00:32:00,608 and the local people knew their behaviour well. 343 00:32:02,619 --> 00:32:06,214 They knew that they came out at night from their big family burrows in the sand 344 00:32:06,490 --> 00:32:08,981 to feed on desert plants and hunt for insects, 345 00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:11,289 leaving their distinctive tracks. 346 00:32:34,985 --> 00:32:36,850 But something else became apparent. 347 00:32:37,454 --> 00:32:39,445 In order for the lizards to thrive, 348 00:32:39,757 --> 00:32:42,351 the land must be burned in the traditional way. 349 00:32:44,828 --> 00:32:48,958 It may seem drastic, but this has been going on here for thousands of years. 350 00:32:49,333 --> 00:32:51,426 The skinks need habitat like this, 351 00:32:51,602 --> 00:32:54,503 selectively burned to provide just the right amount of cover 352 00:32:54,671 --> 00:32:56,832 and fresh new growth on which they feed. 353 00:33:00,277 --> 00:33:02,142 But even with such intensive care, 354 00:33:02,312 --> 00:33:04,940 while all those foreign predators roam at large, 355 00:33:05,115 --> 00:33:07,208 the mainland is still a dangerous place 356 00:33:07,384 --> 00:33:09,181 for much of Australia's wildlife. 357 00:33:17,795 --> 00:33:22,129 It seems unfair, but the only safe place is on an island. 358 00:33:28,238 --> 00:33:32,572 Luckily Australia is surrounded with thousands of islands, large and small. 359 00:33:32,943 --> 00:33:34,570 Without these natural refuges, 360 00:33:34,745 --> 00:33:39,808 a further nine mammal species would be extinct in the jaws of mainland predators. 361 00:33:46,690 --> 00:33:50,353 Barrow Island, 80 km off the northwest coast of Australia, 362 00:33:50,527 --> 00:33:53,690 has been separated from the mainland for 7000 years. 363 00:33:54,097 --> 00:33:57,294 No introduced animals have had a chance to get here and trash the place, 364 00:33:57,467 --> 00:34:00,163 and the difference it makes is enormous. 365 00:34:08,178 --> 00:34:10,408 Here the natives can really relax. 366 00:34:11,014 --> 00:34:13,278 There is such a wealth of wildlife on Barrow, 367 00:34:13,517 --> 00:34:16,418 that it was made a nature reserve a hundred years ago. 368 00:34:24,061 --> 00:34:26,154 But there's a further twist to the tale. 369 00:34:30,534 --> 00:34:32,866 Oil was found here in 1954, 370 00:34:33,036 --> 00:34:35,231 in amounts too valuable to ignore. 371 00:34:35,672 --> 00:34:39,403 This top class nature reserve became a major oilfield. 372 00:34:39,776 --> 00:34:42,506 Five hundred wells sprang up across the island. 373 00:34:43,146 --> 00:34:45,080 What would become of all the wildlife? 374 00:34:57,828 --> 00:34:59,489 It seems they're doing pretty well! 375 00:35:01,431 --> 00:35:03,763 The kangaroos that live here are called euros, 376 00:35:04,001 --> 00:35:06,765 and they thrive in the spinifex among the pipework. 377 00:35:07,738 --> 00:35:08,966 They're not at all shy, 378 00:35:09,206 --> 00:35:11,003 and they'll even use the mechanical structures 379 00:35:11,174 --> 00:35:14,007 as shelter from the blistering heat of the summer sun. 380 00:35:27,324 --> 00:35:28,723 In this extraordinary place, 381 00:35:28,892 --> 00:35:31,827 giants cruise around the oil tanks quite unfazed. 382 00:35:33,997 --> 00:35:38,798 Perenties are Australia's biggest lizards, and this perentie is after something. 383 00:35:54,851 --> 00:35:58,150 On this desert island, where fresh water is in short supply, 384 00:35:58,322 --> 00:36:00,688 a dripping air conditioner is a luxury. 385 00:36:03,293 --> 00:36:05,318 It's not easy to get a drink round here. 386 00:36:14,171 --> 00:36:17,265 Rules are strict about how the wildlife is treated on Barrow - 387 00:36:17,908 --> 00:36:21,537 no animals can be brought to the island, and nothing can be taken away. 388 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,116 And some are doing even better here than they would on the mainland. 389 00:36:30,887 --> 00:36:33,014 At night, when the oilmen have their supper, 390 00:36:33,190 --> 00:36:37,650 strange nocturnal creatures emerge, lured out by the smell of the barbie. 391 00:36:41,732 --> 00:36:43,495 This is a golden bandicoot. 392 00:36:43,967 --> 00:36:45,628 It used to be common on the mainland, 393 00:36:45,902 --> 00:36:48,735 but introduced predators virtually wiped it out. 394 00:36:53,877 --> 00:36:56,243 Nowadays it's almost only found on islands, 395 00:36:56,613 --> 00:37:00,709 but there may be fifty thousand of them living it up on Barrow alone. 396 00:37:10,994 --> 00:37:12,825 And this is a burrowing bettong, 397 00:37:13,163 --> 00:37:15,927 a tiny kangaroo that spends its days underground. 398 00:37:20,203 --> 00:37:22,865 In fact, it's the world's only burrowing kangaroo, 399 00:37:23,106 --> 00:37:24,971 and it comes out at night to feed. 400 00:37:27,644 --> 00:37:32,377 It too hangs by a thread on the mainland, but here it's safe. 401 00:37:33,583 --> 00:37:35,881 To watch these animals fearlessly looking for scraps, 402 00:37:36,053 --> 00:37:39,716 it's easy to see how effortlessly a predator could pick them off. 403 00:37:41,491 --> 00:37:42,515 But not here. 404 00:37:52,335 --> 00:37:57,398 Australia's largest, most famous island is also a wonderland of lost wildlife. 405 00:37:58,708 --> 00:38:01,700 Tasmania too has long been free of dingoes and foxes, 406 00:38:02,012 --> 00:38:04,776 and it's a last sanctuary for some remarkable animals. 407 00:38:18,061 --> 00:38:22,225 This is the only place in the world where Tasmanian devils still live wild. 408 00:38:22,532 --> 00:38:24,523 They've long been gone from the mainland, 409 00:38:24,768 --> 00:38:27,669 but here they thrive as they've always done, 410 00:38:27,904 --> 00:38:32,273 living in tangled forests and screaming at each other over scraps of carrion. 411 00:39:00,737 --> 00:39:02,728 There are other oddities in the darkness - 412 00:39:02,939 --> 00:39:06,705 strange spotted cat-like animals, called tiger quolls. 413 00:39:07,244 --> 00:39:09,144 They too are rare elsewhere. 414 00:39:12,949 --> 00:39:15,645 But Tasmania is no remote wilderness. 415 00:39:16,119 --> 00:39:17,211 It's full of people, 416 00:39:17,454 --> 00:39:22,653 and the wildlife has to take its chances alongside towns, roads, and farms. 417 00:39:27,264 --> 00:39:31,462 This is a busy sheep farm, but it too has some surprises. 418 00:39:32,002 --> 00:39:34,630 At night, when all the farm workers have gone home, 419 00:39:34,971 --> 00:39:37,496 strange things start happening in the shed. 420 00:39:54,858 --> 00:39:58,123 A Tasmanian devil has been sheltering under the floorboards. 421 00:40:13,410 --> 00:40:16,402 And a tiger quoll has made her home in the roof. 422 00:40:26,156 --> 00:40:28,181 The quoll is raising her babies here, 423 00:40:28,458 --> 00:40:32,189 and leaves them up in the rafters while she comes down to find something to eat. 424 00:40:35,265 --> 00:40:37,631 She and the devils wander round the shed at night, 425 00:40:37,901 --> 00:40:40,028 looking for food left by the farm workers. 426 00:40:41,938 --> 00:40:43,235 Quolls are carnivores, 427 00:40:43,607 --> 00:40:46,633 and she'd kill live prey with a bite to the back of the neck. 428 00:40:47,210 --> 00:40:50,236 But sometimes it's easier to break into a lunch box. 429 00:41:05,495 --> 00:41:10,091 Tasmanian devils too like to scavenge, but it's not always quite that easy. 430 00:41:33,323 --> 00:41:34,620 Devils will be devils, 431 00:41:34,791 --> 00:41:37,692 and always ready for a bit of a punch-up over a scrap. 432 00:41:38,094 --> 00:41:40,153 But mostly it's just a lot of noise. 433 00:41:54,811 --> 00:41:57,939 People and wildlife have become entangled with each other. 434 00:41:58,615 --> 00:42:02,449 Even in the heart of the busiest cities, they are forced to live together. 435 00:42:30,814 --> 00:42:35,274 The night sky of Melbourne is filled every night with thousands of enormous bats. 436 00:42:36,019 --> 00:42:40,149 Grey-headed flying foxes, native Australians, are struggling in the wild, 437 00:42:40,623 --> 00:42:43,786 because so much of their natural forest habitat is being cleared. 438 00:42:44,227 --> 00:42:47,355 Here in town, they find everything they need. 439 00:42:52,802 --> 00:42:55,635 Just a flight away, there are orchards full of fruit, 440 00:42:55,872 --> 00:42:58,466 exactly what these fruit bats love best. 441 00:43:01,578 --> 00:43:03,375 And they have some exasperating habits. 442 00:43:03,580 --> 00:43:06,981 The bats may take just one bite, and then sample the next, 443 00:43:07,150 --> 00:43:10,711 like a picky child, leaving a trail of half-eaten fruit 444 00:43:10,887 --> 00:43:12,878 and some very annoyed farmers. 445 00:43:31,674 --> 00:43:35,041 At dawn they fly the 40 kilometres or so back to town, 446 00:43:35,345 --> 00:43:37,711 following the course of the river and the roads. 447 00:43:38,114 --> 00:43:40,048 They're heading back to roost for the day. 448 00:43:52,595 --> 00:43:54,187 And this is where they chose. 449 00:43:54,564 --> 00:43:59,399 Nearly 30 thousands bats took up residence in a piece of imitation rainforest, 450 00:43:59,736 --> 00:44:02,227 in Melbourne's elegant Botanic Gardens. 451 00:44:14,584 --> 00:44:18,020 Here in the garden it's a few degrees warmer than the surrounding area, 452 00:44:18,254 --> 00:44:21,519 and with so much food nearby it suits them very nicely. 453 00:44:30,133 --> 00:44:33,034 But this number of bats has become too much for the trees. 454 00:44:33,770 --> 00:44:36,364 Many of the plants here are rare and fragile, 455 00:44:36,539 --> 00:44:39,940 and none of them can stand the wear and tear of so many hefty animals, 456 00:44:40,210 --> 00:44:41,973 some of which can weigh a kilogram. 457 00:44:54,958 --> 00:44:56,118 So here's a dilemma - 458 00:44:56,359 --> 00:44:59,328 a Botanic garden that wants to preserve its precious trees, 459 00:44:59,562 --> 00:45:01,996 and a native bat that's on the endangered list. 460 00:45:02,866 --> 00:45:05,266 There are ongoing efforts to persuade the bats to leave 461 00:45:05,435 --> 00:45:08,836 and settle somewhere else, where they'll cause less havoc. 462 00:45:24,254 --> 00:45:28,953 There's a strange love-hate relationship between Australia's wildlife and people. 463 00:45:29,325 --> 00:45:31,987 Australian animals are diverse and peculiar, 464 00:45:32,362 --> 00:45:35,024 and while some have declined in the face of human changes, 465 00:45:35,431 --> 00:45:38,594 others have thrived and are doing better than ever. 466 00:45:45,341 --> 00:45:46,672 But for better or for worse, 467 00:45:46,910 --> 00:45:49,743 there are few places in the world where they are quite so familiar. 468 00:46:02,792 --> 00:46:06,193 And in spite of the sophistication of the Australian way of life, 469 00:46:06,496 --> 00:46:09,431 people still yearn to have contact with wildlife. 470 00:46:10,066 --> 00:46:12,728 In a land where almost everyone lives in towns, 471 00:46:13,036 --> 00:46:16,369 thousands of visitors pay to watch a spectacle like this. 472 00:46:18,441 --> 00:46:20,909 Every day, hundreds of rainbow lorikeets 473 00:46:21,077 --> 00:46:23,011 fly in over the suburbs near Brisbane 474 00:46:23,179 --> 00:46:24,441 to one particular park. 475 00:46:30,386 --> 00:46:32,149 These are completely wild birds, 476 00:46:32,455 --> 00:46:34,582 only visiting to take advantage of the fact 477 00:46:34,757 --> 00:46:36,281 that people want to see them up close. 478 00:47:10,326 --> 00:47:12,988 When they've finished their free meal of artificial nectar, 479 00:47:13,162 --> 00:47:15,596 the parrots will disappear again to their roosts. 480 00:47:16,265 --> 00:47:18,256 No-one is quite sure where they all go. 481 00:47:18,635 --> 00:47:22,935 Humans encourage them, and they're exploiting human generosity. 482 00:47:25,375 --> 00:47:29,778 The first European settlers had such little regard for the native wildlife 483 00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:32,570 that they brought blackbirds and nightingales from England, 484 00:47:32,749 --> 00:47:34,580 to make the place feel more like home. 485 00:47:35,485 --> 00:47:37,214 Now, two hundred years later, 486 00:47:37,387 --> 00:47:39,855 there's a growing appreciation for the remarkable 487 00:47:40,023 --> 00:47:42,821 nature of the landscape and its animals. 488 00:47:46,262 --> 00:47:49,561 Australia's people and native wildlife are bound together, 489 00:47:49,932 --> 00:47:51,229 and there's no going back. 490 00:47:51,901 --> 00:47:54,665 In some places the land has changed beyond recognition, 491 00:47:55,004 --> 00:47:58,167 and dozens of unique animal species will never be seen again. 492 00:47:58,908 --> 00:47:59,966 But despite everything, 493 00:48:00,343 --> 00:48:04,040 an incredible wealth of strange, tenacious animals is still here. 494 00:48:07,517 --> 00:48:08,779 Wildlife remains, 495 00:48:08,985 --> 00:48:10,509 even in the heart of cities, 496 00:48:10,820 --> 00:48:12,947 and wilderness is never far away. 497 00:48:13,723 --> 00:48:18,023 Modern Australia is still a wild and special place. 44393

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