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Australia, a huge island that has
drifted by itself for 45 million years,

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is a strange assortment of landscapes.

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Until just a few generations ago,
they were lightly trodden by people.

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This land, with all its curious wildlife,
was utterly unknown to western eyes.

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But a little over two hundred years ago,

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the British came to
this island continent...

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and declared it theirs.

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At first

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it was just a place to dump criminals,
16,000 kilometres from home.

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But this distant British outpost

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would soon become a land of
opportunity for those that followed.

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Now there's a population
of twenty million,

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living in some of the most modern,
desirable cities in the world.

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A whole nation has grown up fast
in a land of sun and space.

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But how has the big old landscape
coped with this rapid transformation?

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And now there are so many people here,
what has happened to the wildlife?

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Australia's most famous animals have
had to come to terms with changes.

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A koala is a creature of habit

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and will doggedly follow the route
it knows between favourite feeding trees.

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If there is a road in the way,
it will simply stroll across.

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Koalas are good climbers,

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so even if there's a fence
between it and a good feed,

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it needn't be an obstacle.

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If a koala knows there's something
to eat on the other side,

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it will just clamber across
until it gets there.

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It's slow, but you have to
give it full marks for style.

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That's all very well in quiet areas.

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But in Australia, wildlife and humans
often want the same real estate.

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When cities grow too fast,

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and trees disappear under
the spread of suburbia,

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koalas don't change their habits.

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They hang on in there,
still following their familiar routes.

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As long as there are
just enough trees left,

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koalas will stay around
the most unlikely places.

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Every time a koala comes to the ground,

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it has to take its chances against
the hazards of urban living.

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But Australian animals have evolved
for millions of years in a tricky,

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changeable environment,

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and even in the face of city sprawl,
the toughest survive.

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Australia's native wildlife has suddenly
been faced with a whole new world.

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But sometimes it's
the animals that benefit.

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Kangaroos eat grass -
and in this town near Melbourne,

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where a golf course has been built
alongside patches of natural bushland,

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the local grey kangaroos
have hit the jackpot.

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In a dry old country like Australia,

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all this fresh, green, well-watered grass

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is like a banquet for these lucky roos.

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It's a vast improvement on
what they'd usually get.

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These are shy animals normally -
but not here.

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There may be five hundred kangaroos here,

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and some have lived all their lives
on the greens among the golfers -

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eating grass, raising their families,
relaxing in the shade of the trees,

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and generally behaving exactly
as they would in the bush.

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In fact, it's the golfers
who have to play around them.

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And an audience of kangaroos is enough
to put anyone off their stroke.

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A rubbish dump might seem
a less salubrious place to dine out,

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but this one, a few miles from Brisbane,

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has become a fast food
stop for sacred ibises,

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and they thrive in great
numbers as a result.

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They travel in from nearby swamps,

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where they roost, arriving bang
on time when the dumpsters unload.

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It's a reliable meal -

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while they would naturally dig
about for crayfish and mussels,

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here they can take their
pick of gourmet throwouts.

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Urban living has its advantages,
if you've got the nerve.

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And the minute the dump closes
at the end of the day,

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the birds all disappear, regular as
clockwork, back to their swamp.

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More than three-quarters of Australia's
population lives on the coast,

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and so that's where the relationship

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between people and
wildlife is most obvious.

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But the human effect hasn't
confined itself to the cities.

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Beyond the coast is a whole new world,

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and within fifty years
of British settlement,

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some brave souls had taken on
the challenge of living inland.

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The contrast between city and
outback living couldn't be stronger.

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This is the most unpredictable
desert in the world.

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In Australia's interior,

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the temperature can swing from
46 degrees Centigrade to minus 8.

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Some years 20cm of rain
may fall in a single day,

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and in other years, there may hardly
be enough to wet the ground.

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Australia's soils are
dry and impoverished -

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on average the poorest in the world.

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It's a hard place to farm,

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and yet now there are 18 million
sheep here, and 30 million cows -

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more than there are people.

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One of the toughest challenges
was the lack of water.

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But people discovered that
there was water here -

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gigantic pools, millions of years old,
deep underground.

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Pioneering farmers struggled
to bring it to the surface,

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so that their sheep and cattle would
never be far from a reliable supply.

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And for the native wildlife, these
man-made oases became very attractive.

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These animals have had millions of years
to adapt to the times when no rain falls.

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And suddenly, here was plenty of water.

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In the old days, emus and
kangaroos would have stayed

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close to whatever natural water
they could find in this arid landscape.

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When droughts were long,
many would have died.

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But nowadays, with all this water on tap,

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no animal need be more than
10 kilometres away from a drink.

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And alongside the cattle,
the natives have thrived as never before.

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Now, there may be 10 million red kangaroos
in Australia's arid lands.

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It seems that wherever
people have struggled

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to wrestle a living from the land,

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the native wildlife is ready
to help itself to the proceeds.

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For native birds that have
evolved on a diet of seeds,

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what better place to feed
than a wheat store?

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Little corellas flock to storage
bunkers in gangs thousands strong,

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turning up in greatest numbers just
when the harvest is brought in.

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They're not put off at all by
the heavy tarpaulin covers -

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these parrots simply rip
through them and eat their fill.

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Their beaks never stop growing

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and these intelligent birds
use them like tin openers.

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And being highly sociable,
they go around in big numbers.

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It's pretty hard to stop
this avian smash-and-grab.

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Farmers try to scare them
off by firing shots...

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...but all they do is fly
round and land again.

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They will finally disappear
en masse to their roosts -

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but they'll be back again tomorrow.

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Parrots have been up
to tricks like these ever

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since the first settlers
began growing crops,

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two centuries ago.

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But not all Australia's native
wildlife is quite so resilient.

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There have been many changes since
the British first planted their flag here,

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and some have had an impact that those
early colonists could not have foreseen.

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At first, the land they found
had seemed like Eden.

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But viewed through homesick eyes,
it needed a few changes.

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The countryside needed taming.

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All those messy trees needed clearing,
to make room for farms.

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And the place would surely benefit
from some superior animals.

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And so those early colonists set about
turning Australia into a little England.

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Bit by bit, here was Surrey
on the other side of the world -

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faintly familiar, but not quite the same.

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And the native animals were coming
face to face with strangers.

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For fifty million years

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this continent had nurtured
its own private set of wildlife -

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and now it was beginning to fill up
with a parade of animals

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that didn't belong here at all.

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And some foreign invaders began
to cause serious problems.

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When the earliest
British colonists arrived,

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they brought with them
domestic animals from home,

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but they didn't keep them fenced.

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Plenty wandered off,
and the toughest prospered.

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Nowadays, wild pigs,
descendants from those early porkers,

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are rampaging through some of
Australia's most pristine landscapes.

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Pigs need water to keep cool,

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and wetlands are where
they do their worst damage.

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With their sharp feet
and incessant wallowing,

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they destroy vegetation and

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damage waterholes far better
suited to more delicate feet.

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They will eat virtually anything,

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and are especially partial to the eggs
of native waterbirds and reptiles.

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They spread nasty diseases,

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and with a population
that can double in a year,

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there are now millions of them.

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But pigs were just the beginning.

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And some incomers have a shameful history.

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1858 - rabbits are brought from England

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to give the colonists
something to shoot at.

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They begin to multiply alarmingly fast -

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one farmer has 36 million
on his property alone.

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They eat all the grass, and push small
native animals out of their homes.

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And they're still not under control.

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1840 - camels are brought
from Asia as beasts of burden,

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but later abandoned in favour of lorries.

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Half a million descendants
now roam the outback,

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too many for
a drought-prone land to support.

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1935 - the South American cane toad,

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poisonous species,
is brought in to eat pest beetles.

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The plan fails, but the toads
themselves thrive out of control,

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poisoning native animals
that try to eat them.

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Even the most innocent seeming
foreigners can be trouble.

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In 1822, settlers brought their
European honeybees to Australia,

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and put their hives
where the most flowers grew.

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They could then produce abundant honey.

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But it was bad news for the bees
that lived there already.

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In the tropical
rainforest of the northeast,

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the native bees feed on pollen and nectar,

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and some of the flowers need to be
vibrated, to release their pollen reward.

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It's a relationship that has
grown up over millions of years.

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But European honeybees
can't do this buzz pollination -

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they just can't shake
their bodies in the right way.

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Their method is to steal the pollen

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that the native bees have
just set on the flowers.

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And they have even
more aggressive tactics.

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They beat up the native bees,
stealing the pollen from their backs,

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and driving them away from the flowers.

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Without proper pollination,

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the flowers, and the native animals
that rely on them, are at risk.

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But of all the invaders that
came from the Old Country,

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there is one that
has really outdone the rest.

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Foxes were deliberately brought
to Australia from England

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a hundred and fifty years ago,

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so that homesick British gentlemen
could hunt, just as they'd always done.

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But those foxes that didn't get caught,
started to thrive.

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From an original few dozen released,

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there are now millions
of foxes in Australia.

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Superbly adaptable, they have spread
almost everywhere, even in deserts.

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Two hundred years ago, Australia
was full of strange little animals,

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all flourishing in a landscape
where there were few big predators.

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But now they all became the perfect,
fox-sized meal.

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They had no idea how to react
to this new enemy.

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And suddenly they began to vanish.

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A disaster had begun.

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Australia's native animals
were being hit from all sides.

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They were being devoured by new predators.

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Their food was being eaten by
foreigners with bigger appetites.

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And their habitat was being taken from
them, so that the land could be farmed.

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Many native animals,
once numerous, quietly disappeared.

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And they're still going now.

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Since the British arrived,

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54 species of mammals,
birds and frogs have gone.

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In the desert, almost half of all the
mammal species have become extinct.

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This shocking decline has no parallel
anywhere else in the world.

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Australia's most famous extinct animal

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managed to hang on
for a while in Tasmania.

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The Tasmanian tiger was one of
Australia's few big carnivores,

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but it had been driven from
the mainland by dingoes,

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and the remainder killed by farmers
who accused it of taking sheep.

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In 1936,

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the year it was finally
given official protection,

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the last one died in a Tasmanian Zoo.

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But although the picture looks grim,

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things are not always what they seem.

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In the far southwest corner of
Australia there once lived a small,

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pointy-nosed marsupial
called Gilbert's potoroo.

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It hadn't been seen for
over a hundred years,

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and was presumed to be long extinct,
the victim of the usual troubles.

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Then, in 1994, one was spotted.

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It wasn't lost after all - only hiding.

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Although it's the size of a rabbit,
it eats almost nothing but fungi,

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which it digs for in deep undergrowth.

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And it only comes out at night.
No wonder it was hard to spot.

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There may be fewer than forty of them
left in the whole of Australia -

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in fact it may be
Australia's rarest mammal,

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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.