Backyard beasts
Author: Jacqui Taffel
Date: 29/03/2004
Words: 728
Source: SMH
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald
Section: The Guide
Page: 2
 
The ABC reckons wildlife sanctuaries are thriving in your garden, writes Jacqui Taffel.

It's my idea but everyone else has done all the work," confesses Dione Gilmour, head of the ABC's Natural History Unit. Her vision was to organise a vast wildlife survey by asking Australians to describe the animals in their backyards. The response was so enthusiastic, however, that the idea has gone much further than Gilmour could have imagined. It has become a multi-media project called WildWatch Australia.

The initial plan was to use the ABC's regional radio network to promote the survey. Then a colleague of Gilmour suggested launching it with a TV program. "I thought, 'That's a good idea. We'll just have a studio discussion,' " Gilmour says. But the show's producer decided to interview people around the country, from the couple in Melbourne with owls in their garden, to the woman in Alice Springs who provides a bath for the local wallabies.

WildWatch's TV launch, hosted by Richard Morecroft, will be followed by six weeks of national radio promotion, with viewers and listeners encouraged to fill in an online form about their backyard and its wildlife.

The term "backyard" is meant in its broadest sense. Gilmour lives in a flat in St Kilda and her "garden" consists of two potplants on the balcony, but even she reports visits from possums.

Gilmour felt there was no point in the ABC doing a survey just for the sake of it, so WildWatch has been developed with the help of wildlife organisations and researchers around the country. Darryl Jones, senior lecturer in ecology at Griffith University, has been involved from the beginning. He used to study animal behaviour in the bush but about seven years ago he realised there was plenty of wildlife to study in Brisbane.

In 1997, Jones decided to look at the relationship between humans and animals in cities. "We knew people fed wildlife but they were always a bit shadowy. We weren't sure what they did." A series of surveys around Australia found that between 25 and 60 per cent of city households actively fed wildlife - not just greenies and bird nuts. "It's absolutely enormous," Jones says.

This presents a problem. For years, wildlife agencies have discouraged people from feeding wild animals, partly because they often use the wrong food. There's also a perception that regularly feeding birds can make them dependent, but Jones says there is no evidence to support this.

If that many people are feeding animals, Jones feels that, rather than trying to stop them, it's better to provide some simple rules (such as not using bread as feed, not overfeeding and maintaining proper hygiene). "The feeding thing raises lots of passions," he says. WildWatch will tackle this contentious area, among other issues. "It's not just another cute wildlife program."

The survey will provide a "thin coverage" of a large area most researchers would normally be unable to span, Jones says. "Getting a snapshot, a vague but broad picture of things going on around Australia, will be really useful." Jones is particularly interested in the data from smaller towns and c ountry areas that haven't been surveyed before. "Are people doing the same kinds of things everywhere?" he asks.

There's no pretence that WildWatch's methods are scientific but Gilmour sees it as a unique opportunity, using the ABC's wide coverage, to tap amateur knowledge and enthusiasm. "We're going to have more information and awareness at the end of it than we did at the beginning," she says.

It also fulfils Gilmour's long-term ambition to come up with a program that "completes the loop" with viewers by incorporating audience feedback.

WildWatch, Jones says, is a new kind of self-informing program. By the time the project finishes, "it will be talking about things that it has found [by] itself". What these things turn out to be is up to the ABC audience's reaction. Gilmour has high hopes. "I'm not looking for a tight little sample of 5000," she says. "I really hope we get a million responses."

WildWatch Australia airs on the ABC on Saturday at 6.30pm.