Conservation project working to restore island off WA
One of the most remote pastoral farms in Western Australia ceased operations a decade ago, and is now being returned to its natural state. But it's not part of WA's enormous land mass, infact, it's the state's biggest island that had a very famous visitor around 400 years ago.
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TVTranscript
00:00 This is Cape Inscription on Wirrawunna, also known as Dirk Hartog Island.
00:07 It's named after the Dutch seafarer who landed here in 1616 and left behind a pewter plate
00:13 with his name and date inscribed.
00:16 It's the first physical record of European history in Australia, a history that's had
00:21 devastating impacts on the natural environment.
00:24 But now more than 400 years later, there's an ambitious ecological restoration project
00:29 underway to turn the island back to its natural state.
00:38 Wirrawunna is the largest island off the coast of Western Australia.
00:42 It's 80 kilometres long and its limestone and sparse coastal heath covers more than
00:47 60,000 hectares.
00:55 The Return to 1616 project aims to relocate 13 species of native birds and mammals.
01:02 Most have been lost to the island environment and across mainland Australia.
01:07 Since 2017, eight species have been successfully translocated.
01:13 The species we're planning to release here don't occur together anywhere else at this
01:19 point in time.
01:20 They used to co-occur in large swathes of area across Australia, but as a result of
01:28 colonisation and the changes that we've seen in the landscape over time, it's meant that
01:35 those species have disappeared from where they used to be.
01:41 Long before the first translocation, the island's pastoral operations were shut down and feral
01:47 animal populations removed.
01:49 These included an estimated 10,000 goats as well as the 5,000 strong station flock of
01:55 sheep.
01:56 So it started prior to the National Park being declared in 2009.
02:01 Once all the goats had been removed and the stock had been removed, then they started
02:06 to target feral cats.
02:09 The island used to be alive with wallabies and tiny kangaroo rats, but the domestic cats
02:14 allowed to breed and run wild by previous station owners have completely destroyed the
02:18 natural fauna.
02:19 The locals around Sharks Bay talk of cats big enough to pull down a full grown sheep,
02:24 but if they do exist, they were keeping well out of our way.
02:29 Dirk Hartog Island has a long history as a pastoral operation and the loss of biodiversity
02:34 was already apparent when this ABC film was made in 1970.
02:41 Then the island's sheep station was owned by WA businessman Sir Thomas Wardle, who was
02:46 also Lord Mayor of Perth.
02:50 By that late 80s, early 90s, there wasn't enough money in wool to sustain this station.
02:56 So we knew that we were going to lose ours in 2015, so it was important for us to try
03:01 and do a deal to hand the island back early and retain our freehold to develop tourism.
03:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]