Dr John Woinarski – Video Transcript
1. What do you research?
I look at the environment of the Northern Territory; trying to understand where the
wildlife is; how many plants and animals there are; what are the Threatened Species
in the Northern Territory; and why they are in trouble. I guess essentially trying to
figger out how we can best conserve our nature and all the animals and plants that
we should be looking after.
2. Is everything OK in Northern Australia?
Sadly, it is not as good as what perhaps we assumed it is. If we look at the
landscapes they look in tact; the bush stretches on here forever. But if you look, if
you study it scientifically, if you actually try and understand how it is working then it’s
really not the case.
Central Australia – the desert country around Alice Springs – has had the worst
extinction of mammals in the world. Eighteen species of native mammals have been
gone forever, just in the last 100 years. There is nowhere else on the planet that has
had that severe an extinction rate. And if you look at the landscapes, they look as if
they are normal but obviously something is wrong there. Something has obviously
deeply upset the equilibrium of plants and animals. That has happened in our lifetime
and our parents’ lifetime. It’s a terrible thing to think that no-one will ever see things
like the Lesser Bilby, the Stick-nest Rat, some of the small wallabies that have now
gone forever. These things have been around for millions of years and just in the last
few generations we have lost them.
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Savanna Walkabout > Research Tracks > Meet the Researchers> Dr John Woinarski
http://www.environorth.org.au/learn/savanna_walkabout/rt_mtr01.html
Page 1
3. What are your concerns for biodiversity in Northern Australia?
I guess I don’t want to see the same thing happen in the Top End around Darwin, in
northern Australia. The signs at the moment are a bit worrying. Clearly, we are
demonstrating that things like possums, brushtail possums, which are one of the
most common animals in New Zealand that occur in most of the city parks in
southern Australia are in real trouble in the bush in northern Australia. Tree rats are
in a lot of trouble; bandicoots are in trouble; they are not occurring where they used
to be.
One particular favourite of mine, a thing called the brush-tailed phascogale which is a
cat-like thing about that big - beautiful grey silky fur. A hundred years ago; the early
biologists said around Katherine that on almost every moonlight night you’d see this
animal scurrying along in the treetops. And we’ve been working maybe for two
decades here, really fastidiously spotlighting. We’ve seen about five.
So, clearly things like that are really in trouble in northern Australia. And part of the
purpose of what I do, one of the driving factors, is trying to understand what is going
wrong with these species. Just to make sure that we don’t lose those species, while
we, as a far more responsible people than a few generations ago, in terms of
environment, are trying to look after them. We’ve really got an objective here – a
mission - to make sure that my children and my children’s children have the same
sort of animals in the Top End that delight us now.
4. What is the worst case of mammal decline in the North?
The phascogale has really done badly, but unfortunately there are a couple of cases
that are even worse. The golden-backed tree rat which is a really large tree-living
rodent, one of the biggest in Australia is known in the Northern Territory from only
three specimens in the last 40 years. It is probably extinct in the Top End.
Another really bad case is the golden bandicoot which is a small bandicoot, smaller
than the common bandicoot around here. And it, 100-200 years ago, had a
distribution over almost all of Australia. It was really common and a really good
design. It was occurring in deserts, occurring in forests, occurring in heathlands, all
sorts of different environments and really prospering. And then remarkably over 100
years it vanished from almost all of its range.
In the Northern Territory it was known from south of Alice Springs right through up to
Darwin; stone plateau of Arnhem Land, everywhere. And now it seems to be
restricted to just one island off Arnhem Land – only one island – it is an extraordinary
rapid loss for what was obviously an ecologically-sensible designed animal. And this
thing has almost disappeared before we know it. We were lucky that we found it on
this one island and can do some things there to save it.
What factors are causing it to decline? What factors are causing it to go extinct?
Maybe it’s cats, feral cats, maybe it’s changed fire regimes, maybe somehow or other
we’ve changed the environment, through introducing cattle or buffalo, maybe it’s
disease. At the moment we don’t really know what the problems for these species
are.
_____________________________________________________________________
Savanna Walkabout > Research Tracks > Meet the Researchers> Dr John Woinarski
http://www.environorth.org.au/learn/savanna_walkabout/rt_mtr01.html
Page 2
5. How do you collect data?
Studying animals can be a bit tricky. There are different ways of approaching it.
We do a lot of regional wildlife surveys; we go to an area, large area, and use a lot of
different techniques to try to understand what animals are where; what environments
they live in, how common they are.
So, for mammals, that typically involves a lot of trapping, live trapping, so we let the
animals go once we’ve pulled them. Spotlighting at night, for much of the night. We
catch bats for example with mist nets and things called harp traps and for birds we
use binoculars, playback calls and stuff like that.
6. How do you understand the animals?
In the Northern Territory we are also lucky that in many of our remote areas
Aboriginal people still know an awful lot about the environment. And wherever
possible we are working with Aboriginal people, to try to document that knowledge, to
exchange knowledge and together work out what animals occur in a particular area
and how they are fairing.
If we are trying to understand particular factors that might affect animals, we can
design studies looking at different fire regimes and what animals respond well or
poorly to particular fires or types of fires. The same with things like forestry or mining;
we can see what is particularly affected by those sorts of environmental
manipulations. Once you have got that knowledge then you can make sure that those
species are properly looked after in how you are managing the environment.
7. Why should we conserve biodiversity in Australia’s tropical
savannas?
If you look at I guess what’s happening in other tropical areas in the rest of the world
where human population density is really high, and increasing rapidly, where forests
are being chopped down at accelerating rates and where probably global climate
change will start to really kick in. Then it is not unreasonable in 20-50 years hence,
most extensive tropical environments in the world that persist, will be in northern
Australia. So we really have an important legacy that we have got to protect here.
And I guess the more everybody understands that legacy, the more we’ll understand
and care for it.
8. If you had to prioritise concerns, what would be your top issues?
I’ve got many concerns but I guess the most serious of them are complacency and
lack of respect or understanding of the value of our environment; I think they are
interrelated. Most people who come to this part of the world or who live here seem to
have an almost complacent view of the environment. There is so much of it that
it’s not particularly valuable; so we can afford to lose bits of it here and there. And we
don’t really understand it; it’s all this same monotonous bush. To me, as a zoologist
that’s a terrifying prospect. This bush is so intricate and interesting and full of so
many different animals each with their own particular requirements. For people to
think it is all the same and there is too much of it anyway, is just horrifying. That’s
certainly one of my main concerns. Related to that is people don’t value and see it as
almost expendable; too much of a good thing. It’s a very hard mindset to change.
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Savanna Walkabout > Research Tracks > Meet the Researchers> Dr John Woinarski
http://www.environorth.org.au/learn/savanna_walkabout/rt_mtr01.html
Page 3
In one sense, Northern Territorians extol the virtues of living in the outback but at the
same time but there is not quite a hatred but a disrespect for the bush; it’s just
monotony in extent. But it’s a mind-shift that we will have to try to engineer I guess to
make people more aware of the value of this landscape; to make them appreciate it
and its subtleties; it’s intricacies; it’s extraordinary life; far more than they do at the
moment. I guess they’re the main concerns that I’ve got but I’m still really concerned
that we are losing, it would seem, so many of our mammals from many parts of
northern Australia.
9. If I wanted to help, or get involved, what could I do?
There’s many different ways of helping and I think it starts from developing a feeling
for plants and animals; a sort of enjoyment of them; a liking of them; almost a
protective, maybe not love, but something like that.
If you can feel for the environment, for plants and animals, it’s really important. You
have to get in touch with our surroundings; we are part of the surroundings. So,
maybe it’s easy to start with birds, if you’ve got birds around your house; try to figger
out what sorts they are. And the more that you can see that, “hang on that one is
different to that one”; the more you appreciate that there is a remarkable richness out
there and that there are all these subtle differences between different species,
different individuals.
So it’s really up to you as an individual as a student to actually recognise that it’s
really important and interesting to know about all this difference. The more you find
out the more interesting it becomes. It’s a wonderful puzzle out there that’s perhaps
the most challenging of all puzzles that humans have to face. We’ve got to start
understanding it, learning about it.
Try to become expert in something: shells, trees, plants, birds, beetles, butterflies.
You know, nature’s wonderful!
_____________________________________________________________________
Savanna Walkabout > Research Tracks > Meet the Researchers> Dr John Woinarski
http://www.environorth.org.au/learn/savanna_walkabout/rt_mtr01.html
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