Welcome to Mt Rothwell, the frontline in the fight against extinction

Updated

A private owner, an electrified fence and no feral foxes or cats. Mt Rothwell is proving that Australia's critically endangered animals can thrive in the wild — they just need a helping hand.

A brown, spotted marsupial darts across the gravel path, causing Annette Rypalski and the two dingoes she's patting to look up.

It's an eastern quoll.

"They're extinct on the mainland," Ms Rypalski says casually.

"I found one living in the couch once."

Mt Rothwell, on the northern outskirts of Geelong, is a kind of modern day Noah's Ark — an oasis for native animals facing imminent extinction.

It's based on a simple philosophy: remove the predators and the natives will thrive.

The 473 hectare site is surrounded by a tall, electrified fence, "making it look like Jurassic Park", Ms Rypalski remarks.

More than a decade ago, every fox and cat inside the perimeter was tracked and removed. Now, this privately owned reserve is having a major impact on endangered species.

Pioneering the feral-proof fence

Mt Rothwell has the world's most successful captive breeding program for the eastern quoll — an animal that only exists in the wild, in declining numbers, in Tasmania.

It's also home to 80 per cent of mainland Australia's eastern barred bandicoots — the only stable, self-sustaining population.

What Mt Rothwell has shown is that when introduced predators are eliminated, these endangered species can flourish.

"These animals, they know what they are doing, they just need to be supplied with the ideal conditions," Ms Rypalski said.

"And the ideal conditions would be removing the threats, and that's really it.

"Actually, I don't know why more people aren't doing this."

But as with most conservation problems, the answer is usually money — and the lack of it.

Mt Rothwell is rare because it's privately owned.

The site's pioneer, John Wamsley, was renowned for turning a feral cat into a hat and wearing it to Parliament but the legacy he left at Mt Rothwell is less well-known.

"He pioneered the feral-proof fence, as it is," Ms Rypalski said.

"It was an extreme action back in the day."

When Dr Wamsley's tourism-focused venture failed financially and the site was put up for sale in 2004, staff and volunteers feared the worst.

"We honestly thought it was going to be subdivided and sold off for real estate and these animals would be gone," Ms Rypalski said.

But a new private investor, Nigel Sharp, stepped in to save it.

Utopia, if not for the rabbits

With low overheads, a dedicated volunteer network and just 2,000 paid visitors a year, Mt Rothwell has become a modest and self-sustaining venture, boosted by occasional government grants for special projects.

It is home to species like rufous bettongs, long nosed potoroos, southern brown bandicoots, southern brush-tailed rock wallabies, eastern barred bandicoots, eastern quolls, feathertail gliders and bush stone-curlews.

Aside from a handful of animals kept in captivity for short periods of time, they are left to roam free, acquiring traits that will be essential to ensuring their species' survival.

Sixteen types of bird of prey are found in the area and the eastern and spot-tailed quolls can also prey on other natives.

It means all the animals released or born at Mt Rothwell are exposed to environmental forces, including drought, seasonal floods, storms and occasional fires.

This instils behaviours that will be critical to one day establishing wild populations.

They build nests, gather food and generally survive in the wild, with some assistance from Melbourne University researchers who ensure smaller populations retain genetic diversity.

It's almost a conservation utopia — but even Mt Rothwell can't get rid of the rabbits.

Their numbers got as low as 12 almost a decade ago, but when the drought broke the population exploded to around 17,000.

"For many of those years it was just a dust bowl," Ms Rypalski said.

"Then when the rain came and the vegetation went past our knees the rabbits just exploded.

"We lost full control."

With the help of canine rabbit trackers, those numbers are now back down to around 2,500.

And even though rabbits can't prey on native species, their large warrens destroy the grasses natives rely on to build nests and hide from predators.

The fox outsmarting the next big venture

Mt Rothwell is now part of biodiversity not-for-profit Odonata's network.

A few hours south-west of Geelong is Odonata's newest venture, Tiverton, which will soon supersede Mt Rothwell to become Victoria's largest feral predator-free conservation reserve.

They say 'soon', because they're still waiting on one critical milestone: the capture of one cunning female fox who has eluded them for two years.

"She knows every trick in the book," Ms Rypalski laughs.

"She knows us better than we know ourselves."

Tiverton will be run primarily as a sheep farm, with an 18-kilometre, $600,000 fence to keep natives safe inside.

Merino sheep will be cell-grazed and moved on to a new paddock before the grass gets too low, leaving natives like bandicoots free to roam all 900 hectares.

"Nobody has ever integrated sheep with a big fence, no pests and endangered species, not that I know of anyway," Ms Rypalski said.

"Sheep, being hard-hooved animals, they'll compact the soil and then bandicoots will come running through and soften it up behind them so it's win-win."

[Image: Eastern barred bandicoot]

While the initial set-up costs were high, if successful this new model could inspire other farmers and philanthropists to try it.

"The issue with a lot of conservation programs is they rely on ongoing funding and I think that's exhausting for philanthropists and other funding bodies because they will give to a project to establish it but every year, if they don't put money into it, it falls over," Ms Rypalski said.

"What we're trying to promote is that we can set up a model that takes some initial investment and funding, but once the model's set up it should fund itself."

'A lot of pressure on our shoulders'

Ms Rypalski admits the idea of a fence is "outdated".

In an ideal world pests would be eradicated from the mainland.

But in the meantime, she said, it's essential that more species aren't "wiped off the face of the earth".

A network of fenced properties would allow Mt Rothwell to secure its own population and then share its animals with other sites.

"What currently happens at Mt Rothwell is populations boom when conditions are great and then they crash when conditions fail," Ms Rypalski said.

Right now, there's always the fear that a fire or a breach of the ageing Mt Rothwell fence would spell disaster for populations that have taken so long to build up.

"Our urgent goal is to set up a new population so if anything were to happen to this population we've got our eggs in other baskets," she said.

For now, the small team will continue to work towards safeguarding these precious species for the benefit of a nation that often pays them no attention.

The work these staff and volunteers do will have huge ramifications on the loss or survival of these species.

And that's an unfair burden that doesn't go unnoticed.

"It's nerve-wracking," Ms Rypalski said.

"It's a lot of pressure on our shoulders.

"We're private, we're not heavily resourced and it's a lot of responsibility."

Photos: Nicole Mills, Mt Rothwell

Mt Rothwell's fence is already 10 years past its original lifespan and is constantly at risk of breaches. The sanctuary's most pressing need is to find $500,000 to replace it.

Topics: environment, environmental-impact, animals, conservation, melbourne-3000, little-river-3211, geelong-3220, vic

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