Starts with Wallabies and somehow ends with James Bond

So last Thursday and Friday were spent at Cowan Field Station where we learned how to trap Tammar Wallabies. One of the important things to know about wallaby and kangaroo trapping is that many of these guys are very easy to stress out. Normally this wouldn’t seem like a big deal except that when a kangaroo/wallaby gets really stressed, their body has an extreme reaction which can lead to rapid degeneration of muscle tissue followed by death. On that happy note, I should say that Tammar wallabies are the exception. For some reason these little guys are much more tolerant of trapping than other species. This makes them a great research animal.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how does one trap a wallaby? Does it involve high tech wire cages? Anesthetic darts? Strategically placed cheesy-flavored baits? No. No it doesn’t. In fact, trapping Tammars basically involves giant modified butterfly nets (solid cloth, not mesh), and making sure you have enough people to act as sheepdogs…………wallabydogs. The Tammars at Cowan have been trained to run along the fences of their enclosure. So, one person carries a net near the fence line and the rest herd the wallabies into a corner until one of them makes a break for it along the fence. When that potential escapee gets up enough speed and is about to run past the person with the net, the net is thrust out against the fence and the Tammar runs straight into it.

Easy enough, right.

Yeah, no. In theory this is a pretty easy thing to do and the guys who work up at Cowan make it look deceptively easy as well. The trouble is the timing. If you throw the net out too quickly, the Tammar sees it and either changes direction or just jumps over the damn thing. If you throw the net out too slowly, the Tammar will slip right past it, they aren’t very big animals compared with your average kangaroo.

After a few failed attempts, I did manage to net a Tammar. My conclusion is that you have to stand a fair distance from the group that the animal is breaking away from. This will give the wallaby time to build up some speed before it reaches you. Once it has gotten near its top speed, the Tammar won’t be able to slow down or change direction quickly enough to get out of the way of your net. Once it has run into the net, you lift the opening vertically so the Tammar will be sitting in the bottom.

But Liz, what do you do with a Tammar once you have netted it? Do you give it an anesthetic to calm it down?

Nope. You reach into the net, grab the Tammar by the base of its tail and lift the little guy out and into a burlap sack, being careful not to let him kick you in the head/face. Once it’s in the sack the Tammar will be calm, having a similar response to being in the pouch, regardless of the animal’s age or size. You can then tie the sack closed and work with the animal at your leisure, so long as you don’t leave the sack somewhere where the animal will overheat.

So, that is basically what we did. When we had all of the Tammars in sacks we pulled them partway out to check their health (looking for scratches and cuts and any swelling in the jaw that might indicate a condition called lumpy jaw, a bacterial infection of the jaw bone which is often fatal). If the animal was female we checked their pouch for young as well.

sleepy wallaby joey inside the pouch

The best quote of the trip was from another student, best understood when you know that the easiest way to find the pouch is to look for a slightly discolored yellow-brown patch of fur on the underside of the animal:

Student: “James, I can’t get the pouch to open.”

James: “That’s not the pouch.”

checking out wallaby feet

All in all, it was a really awesome trip. We even got to see some red kangaroos being released after a study (they were a little wobbly and drool-y because large kangaroos are sedated when they are captured. These ones were on valium, literally). I also saw my first kookaburra, a really cheeky little guy who showed up when we were learning how to age kangaroos from preserved skulls. He dived out of a tree, knocked a kangaroo skull right out of a woman’s hand and then proceeded to land on our barbecue and stare at us quite insolently.

Tenting out overnight was a bit cold even with my new sleeping bag, but it was still a fun experience, with a nice campfire on Thursday evening (although marshmallows are weird here. They are about half the size of ours and come in white and pink. The pink ones are supposed to taste like raspberry, but they pretty much taste like Cherry Pepto Bismol.)

Saturday was another amazing trip, this one arranged by International Student Services to Royal National Park. 6 people from IH came as well as 2 women from my MConBio program. When we arrived at Royal National Park we canoed for 2 hours into a pseudo rainforesty area.

We even saw a bunch of wild cockatoos.

We then drove over to a lookout point over the ocean and a bridge we could walk over to get a really nice view. Finally we headed over to Wattamolla, where we went on a bush-walk to find some small waterfalls and then headed onto a beach area where I had my first go at throwing a boomerang.

We also learned that aborigines would traditionally rip eucalyptus leaves in half, roll up the halves and put them in their nostrils to clear up cold symptoms. I didn’t go quite that far, but I did discover that the ripped leaves have a very pungent scent. This also explains why you can buy Kleenexes with eucalyptus oil in them here, kind of like the ones with Vicks in them back home.

Saturday night, after we got back from the National Park, I went on an excursion to Star City Casino with two women from IH. I had never been to a casino before so it was a bit of an experience. We ended up getting one girly cocktail each and then we each spent five dollars on a slot machine just to see what it was like. It was actually a really good time, probably in part because none of us lost any more money than we planned on losing. Someday, when I’m less tired, I may go play a round of blackjack just so that I can feel like an International Woman of Mystery.

::Raises Eyebrow Dramatically:: “I also like to live dangerously”

Although I suppose playing Baccarat would be more dashing since it’s 007’s card game of choice. But who knows how to play Baccarat anymore?

I digress. Suffice it to say, it was an interesting week and I’m not surprised that I have slept for 10 hours on multiple nights since.

For the benefit of repeat readers

Our next exciting installment should include a Professional AFL (Australian Rules Football League) Game. I may even be able to explain some of the rules apart from the obvious one: ‘Kill the guy with the ball.’ Stay Tuned.