Employees of the Month

   We don’t mean to brag, but we’re going to nominate ourselves for employees of the month of October.  During the reptile survey last month, we managed to confirm 2 new species for the sanctuary.  These weren’t your ordinary species either—they were iconic, sexy, charismatic individuals that inspire the awe factor that is associated with so much Australian wildlife.  We even made a special email announcement from the AWC head office, highlighting our discovery.  If that doesn’t scream ‘you guys are legends’, then I don’t know what does.

   The first species we found was stumbled upon while having a look around a remote part of the property.  Tegan’s mum was here for a visit, and we decided to go for a drive and find somewhere to stick out some camera traps and see what happened.  We were originally going to find a narrow pass known as Kelly’s Pass, a track bounded by small cliffs and rocks; a perfect haven for some more unique animals.  Instead, we ended up going to a completely different place (we found out about that wrong turn later).  Wallow Hill, as it’s known, was only ‘discovered’ last year when the manager flew over it in a chopper, saw some fine beasts below and decided to try and make a road for mustering.  It’s a small bluff with sheer cliff faces on one side, petering out to a low hill on the other.  Cruising along, we decided to stop and go for a walk and see what was around the cliffs, put 6 cameras out, and see what happens.  The cliffs made for a bit of a hike, especially in the hot weather (Sorry Kathy!), but we were able easily distribute the 6 cameras (plus some peanut butter bait) in about 400 square meters of area.  There were plenty of animal droppings around and Tegan guessed they belonged to some kind of rock wallaby, but nothing to conclude that we found something new.  At one point we even stumbled upon an echidna hiding out in a little rock crevice, a significant discovery in itself since they aren’t normally seen on Wongalara with any regularity.  The plan was to collect the cameras when our reptile volunteers were here, to give them a chance to see the sights and share in our potential discovery.  Sure enough, upon collecting the cameras we found not a few rock wallabies, but TONS of rock wallabies.  Short-eared rock wallabies, to be exact.  They’re relatively widespread but have not been found here at all, nor has there been many signs of their existence.  So despite being a fairly widespread species in Australia, it’s a significant discovery for the sanctuary.  Plus, according to Tegan, they’re just too damn cute.  In addition to the rock wallabies, we got rock rats, another echidna, and a couple geckos.  They might have been the most successful cameras we’ve put out on Wongalara!

   The second in our run of cool animals came in large part due to the fact that one of our volunteers had done a lot of work with File Snakes (we found one a Pungalina, remember?).  She thought there would be a good chance of finding some out the back of the homestead, in the river where we get our water.  One night, we decided to brave the crocs and buffalo, and go have a look.  After about 20 minutes of spotlighting, finding plenty of crocs AND a couple buffalo, we were about to turn around and go home when something caught my eye near the riverbank.  I followed the movement from its origin in the weeds and saw the tail of a big File Snake floating in the water!  The only problem was, it was down a relatively steep embankment and there were plenty of croc eyes watching.  I was ready to look at it from a distance a go home with a win, but Tegan had other ideas when she arrived.  Nearly jumping into the water, she slid down the bank and just about couldn’t get back up.  I held her by the waist while one of the

volunteers held on to me.  She plucked the snake out of the water in no time, handed it to someone else, and after a momentary struggle to get back on to dry land emerged victorious and a little bit wet.  The excitement in the air was palpable, since we couldn’t actually catch one of the other species we recently found (risks: falling off cliffs, getting kicked in the guts).  Everybody got to hold the harmless little snake, and we all went to bed pleased with ourselves.

  So there you have it, yet another addition to the species inventory here at Wongalara, and all it took was a few cameras and an explorers spirit.  Who knows, maybe we’ll get something even better in the future.