Oh what a night!
Despite a vicious dust storm sweeping the Reserve earlier in the day, the Outback Roast Under the Stars with Malcolm Douglas on Friday 11 September was a resounding success.
The family outdoor roast rounded up the activities of Threatened Species Week and around 85 people, including lots of families attended the night. All were excited at the prospect of meeting outback legend Malcolm Douglas and hearing him speak on his passion for preserving and restoring threatened species populations throughout Australia. None were disappointed.
Malcolm captivated his audience with tales of high adventure, close encounters with crocodiles, and of his efforts to preserve the wild bilby populations located in the Northern Pilbara and Kimberley regions of WA.
Malcolm was extremely impressed with the achievements of Arid Recovery. He is keen to adopt various practices he learnt during his visit and he will apply principles of the AR exclusion fence to a similar feral proof fence around his bilby enclosure on his wildlife park located just outside of Broome, WA.
Around $1000 was raised to help fund the vital translocation of five Western Barred Bandicoots from Faure Island in WA to the Reserve. These animals will increase the genetic diversity of our future Bandicoot population to ensure they are robust enough to avoid disease outbreaks and inbreeding.
Ongoing costs of supplementary feeding of the new arrivals will be offset by the generosity of visitors who engaged in a vigorous ‘auction’ of paraphernalia from Malcolm’s visit conducted in high spirit by Malcolm, and many also donated generously in order to ‘adopt’ a bettong or bilby that had been processed during the week’s annual cage trapping.
The team at Arid Recovery thank Malcolm, who was accompanied by his wife Valerie, for attending the night at his own cost, and for giving so much of himself to raise funds and awareness for Threatened Species.
A huge thank you goes out to everyone who helped make the evening a great success, especially volunteers Kimberley Jarman and Bree Galbraith. We also thank Greyhound Australia, RoxFM, Coates Hire, Cowell Electric, Roxby Downs VIC & Sodexo, for their in-kind contributions and vital support.
