Ozzy, an orphaned long-nosed potoroo at Tatachilla Lutheran College in McLaren Vale, is living in the school’s eco-sanctuary after staff, students and volunteers raised him from a tiny pouch joey. In January, his mother became ill with a bacterial infection and had to be euthanised, leaving him still in the pouch, weighing 96 grams and having only just grown his first covering of fur. The whole rescue effort had to be improvised around that loss. No state apparatus stepped in here. Staff, students and volunteers did the work.
Who Kept Him Alive
Long-standing staff member Dolores Amos, who prefers to be known as Ranger Dee, took on the two-hourly night feeds and the sleep deprivation needed to keep him alive. During the day, other staff and volunteers kept up with his feeds, while students helped by crocheting pouches to keep little Ozzy warm and safe. That’s the kind of care hierarchy usually ignores until people build it themselves. Tom Hurley, the coordinator of the college’s EcoSanctuary, said Ozzy’s development was a testament to Ranger Dee’s skills and knowledge. He said, “He’s grown into a very robust young male.”
Ozzy is now a healthy one-kilogram juvenile and has moved out of the care centre into the school’s 4.3ha eco-sanctuary. He is learning “how to be a proper potoroo” and still has an appetite for a peanut treat. He still comes when called in the early morning, but it takes him a while to rouse after spending much of the night foraging for roots, fungi, grubs and insects. Recently, Ozzy has started making a nest for himself under a bus, a sign that he’s starting to have female potoroos on his mind.
What the Fenced-Off World Looks Like
He may find one among the nine other potoroos that live with him, along with brush-tailed bettongs, tammar wallabies and birds that can flourish away from the threat of cats and foxes. The college’s eco-sanctuary is more than 20 years old and is on land that was once used to grow grapes and run sheep in the wine-growing region of McLaren Vale. It has been revegetated with plants native to the local area and fenced to keep out cats, foxes and other predators. The fence says plenty. So does the fact that survival here depends on exclusion from the violence of introduced predators and the stripped-down land use that came before.
Hurley said the sanctuary is used as a teaching resource and as a place for students who want to learn about the environment, providing a contrast between what the area was once like and the vineyards that surround the school. He said, “This is as close to what it used to be like, as we can create.” That line lands hard. As close as they can create, inside a bounded patch of land, while the surrounding vineyards keep their place in the regional order.
What Was Lost Outside the Fence
Rob Brewster from the Invasive Species Council said he believed long-nosed potoroos were extinct in the wild in South Australia, due to land clearing and the introduction of feral predators. While they were able to cope with native predators such as quolls, the potoroos had not been able to withstand cats and foxes, as well as the loss of complex vegetation. The damage came from decisions made far above the animals now depending on a school sanctuary for a future.
Brewster said that while the school’s population of potoroos was only small, it meant a lot to keep the species “on the radar” and show how they could be returned to South Australia “one day.” That’s the language of cautious repair in a system that already wrecked the place. The species survives here in miniature, under watch, behind fencing, in a managed pocket of what once was.
Ranger Dee said, “That’s the way it should be.” Year 11 student Marlee, holding the pouch she had made for Ozzy when he was smaller, said, “To see him now, out with the rest of the animals, is so sweet.” The sweetness is real. So is the fact that a school, not the institutions that helped produce the loss, is left holding the line.