AustraliaQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect. For five weeks a team of scientists and explorers will examine the ancient culture of the Aborigines and attempt to determine how it affects their modern existence.

All kinds of animals

The team bikes into Gosse's Bluff, the site of the Tnorala Dreaming that tells the story of a lost baby.

Waking up to a blaring alarm clock at 6:30 a.m. after five hours of sleep is pure torture. The team got rained out of our bush camp late last night and had to sleep in a hotel outside Alice Springs. I stumble out of bed with a runny nose and total lack of enthusiasm for the day ahead.

Twelve hours later, I can honestly say it was the best day I've had so far.

We started off with a fizzle, rather than a bang, this morning. It was one of those "hurry up and wait" scenes where we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early and then, for a dozen reasons, we didn't get on the road until the morning was half over.

We left in three vehicles. I rode with John Spencer, our brilliant teammate and guide, who is accompanying us from Alice to Uluru. He is a real mischief-maker who relishes every practical joke and funny situation with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Last night, for example, he let me struggle to set up a makeshift rain shelter for 20 minutes before he pulled out his bigger, better tarp! I really like him a lot.

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On the road, John told me we'd finally get to learn about a songline today. He dumped me off with the rest of the mob for a gorgeous bike ride to Gosse's Bluff, an awesome comet impact crater in the MacDonnell Ranges. Mavis Ntjalk and Herman Malbanka, an Aboriginal couple, met us at the bluff to tell us a Dreamtime story. I was hoping the story would be about an animal ancestor but it was about a lost baby. of all things. What kind of environmental knowledge could I find in a baby Dreaming?

I want to know what Aboriginal peoples think of all the introduced species that have arrived since Captain Cook landed here in 1788. You might think that introducing species isn't a bad thing, but it's serious trouble in Australia, where roughly one-third of the native mammal species have already disappeared. In addition, 75 plant groups are estimated to have gone extinct.

I asked Mavis what she thought about all the new plants and animals that have been introduced to her family's land by white settlers. The plants, she says, don't belong to the land, to her people. They stay away from them since they don't know what is poisonous and what is edible.

She feels slightly different about introduced animals. Some, like the camels and cats, have been nothing but trouble, eating bush tucker and decimating native animal species. Others, like cattle and horses, can be useful if kept under strict control. Mavis and Herman have watched changes occur over their lifetimes as more and more exotic species have invaded their land.

Feral foxes preyed upon the rabbit-eared bandicoot, which has gone extinct

But what if they hadn't been here, caring for the land as well as they could during all the changes? I am reminded of a story told to me earlier this week by Dick Kimber, a local historian and anthropologist. He told me of his Aboriginal friend, Wutuma, who moved from his land because of life-threatening droughts in the 1930s and couldn't return until the early 1980s. What he found upset him greatly: the once plentiful bilbies (rabbit-eared bandicoots) had disappeared.

He told Dick that he felt very sorry for his country. He'd been gone for too long and all the ninu (bilby) were gone. Wutuma was absolutely convinced that their disappearance was his fault and his fault alone.

He could not have known that the bilby had been extinguished by drought and an onslaught by introduced species. Feral rabbits competed with them for food. Feral cats and foxes preyed upon them, and introduced cattle trampled their burrow-lands. None of this would have mattered to Wutuma, though. His land was his responsibility and, if he had been caring for it properly, he might have saved the bilby from extinction in his area.

I can't help being struck by the radical difference between Wutuma's view of his ecosystem and the typical views of people in developed countries like the United States. Where Wutuma has a deep sense of total responsibility for his ecosystem, not even I consider myself truly responsible for the tiny little plot of land around my house.

Every day, more species are disappearing from the Earth. Human actions are certainly contributing to this extinction rate. So, I encourage you to think globally. Act locally. If we all acted locally, the global problems might just disappear.

Delving into the Dreamtime,

Sherri Hitz

AustraliaQuest
Classroom Connect