I’m often surprised by the genuine amazement displayed by international tourists when it comes to our endemic wildlife. Over and again I hear the phrases, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that?’, or one of my personal favourites, ‘The wildlife here is crazy weird.’ I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to take that last one as a compliment and feel proud of the animals we have here in Australia.
Of all the places I have lived across the country, however, Kangaroo Valley is the one place that has all the ‘draw card’ animals that tourists love to see; koala, platypus, kangaroo & wallaby, echidna and wombat. I love seeing the excitement when one of these six are seen for the first time, because it always reminds me, that yes, these animals are pretty great.
Yet here’s the thing. It isn’t just the tourists that rarely see these animals. Perhaps you’ll be less than surprised to know that many people who are born and bred in our cities don’t encounter the wildlife we do here. Some can go their entire lives without seeing even one of these beautiful creatures in the wild. So, when we have boys arrive on campus that have literally not had a wildlife encounter outside of the zoo parks, it isn’t all that surprising.
One afternoon last term, I was quietly sitting by a foraging echidna when a group of boys joined me. ‘What is it, Miss?’ one of them asked me. And so we talked about the echidna, its lifestyle, habitat, diet, its quirks and I found their fascination genuinely touching. One of the greatest privileges we have here at Glengarry is to offer electives on a Thursday afternoon. One such elective is Environmental Discovery, led by the Head of Campus. It gives the boys an opportunity to learn about the animals living wild on the property (kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, echidnas, owls, lyrebirds & others, reptiles and bats to name a few), whether they are nocturnal or diurnal (active in the day), if they are a solo animal or live in groups, how they raise their young, and other facets of their intricate lives. The education involves them learning to recognise track marks, identify different scat (or poop), how to determine if a burrow is in use or abandoned and what are the genuine threats to these creatures, in particular foxes, wild cats and wild dogs. They use camera traps to capture images of local wildlife, then view the data. The optimal outcome of this elective is for the boys to gain knowledge of KV wildlife, but to feel a genuine connection to them. After all, the more we learn about something, the more we care, and the more we care, the more likely we are to protect it.
“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.” – Sir David Attenborough 5/11/2020.