“I get to go right back to my country where my parents were living and where I was born. When I’m out bush all the young people sing out to me. I am happy to teach them. It’s been good learnin’ them up.”
The team’s determination to save the Bilby received a huge injection of fresh energy in 2016 at the inaugural Bilby Festival held in the desert community of Kiwirrkurra, Western Australia.
"The festival was the first of its kind,” says Vanessa. “It was such a powerful experience. Rangers from dozens of Indigenous ranger groups attended to coordinate efforts and share knowledge… It got them fired up.”
A number of ranger groups that attended the festival, including the Birriliburu rangers, are now working together to better monitor the species through projects such as the ‘Bilby Blitz’, which aims to collate monitoring data collected by ranger groups across the remote areas where the species remains. Data from the blitz will inform the National Bilby Recovery Plan, which is being updated to include input from Aboriginal people.
“I’ll never forget hearing senior Kiwirrkurra Rangers talk at the festival about the species they’ve lost in their lifetime or species they can remember hearing stories about. They reeled off a list: ‘The Brush-tailed Possum is gone,’ they said. ‘The Burrowing Bettong, the Rufous Hare-wallaby, the Northern Quoll – all gone.’ It reminded us that the Bilby is one of the last species left in the desert that is in that small to-medium size bracket, making it even more important to protect it.”
Vanessa’s hope is that by working together, Aboriginal rangers will be able to stop the decline in Bilby populations. And there is plenty of reason to hope.
“People like Rita who are knowledgeable about the Bilby and speak from the heart, they infect everyone around them with their energy. People can see how important the Bilby is to her, and it makes them want to do something to help.”
Rita has good reason to speak from the heart. The Bilby resides in it as strongly as her homeland, Mungarlu does.
“Me and the Bilby got one country,” she says, with characteristic flair.
Two-way science: protecting the Bilby is supported through funding from the Australian Government's National Landcare Program Threatened Species Recovery Fund Open Round.