Quollanteering in 2017

Trip 4: Perth to Koolan Island

Purpose: Northern Quoll Annual Monitoring

Total Distance Traveled: 3768 km
Distance Traveled Year to Date: 10616 km 

When the Koolan Island Iron Ore Operation spiraled from full production into care and maintenance in under 12 months a lot of things changed in an equally short space of time. A little leak in the sea wall separating the main mine pit from the ocean became a catastrophic collapse over a 12 hour period and instantly put 300 odd people out of work. It was devastating for those employed on the Rock and it was equally as devastating for the company. MGI had been successfully running the operation since they built the sea wall, drained the main pit and commenced mining in 2006; MGI had made Koolan a success where others had failed. The collapse of the sea wall was as surreal to watch as it was unexpected. I did not see it, but fellow Animal Plant Mineral staff were there on site when it happened.

Main Pit from the air looking north east across the Rock.

Main Pit as seen from one of the viewing platforms before the wall collapsed. It is deep; very deep.

This photo shows the sediment laden water filling the pit to capacity

Koolan Island is the most amazing proving ground for young biologists trying to cut their teeth as field ecologists. It is a remote island in the Kimberley where conditions are as bad or worse than one could ever expect to experience in the Kimberley. The humidity is insane with all the heat of the Kimberley channeling into a little rock that sits amidst a vast ocean. Breezes are a luxury seldom experienced and easily forgotten as, for every ridge, there seems to be a dozen still and listless valleys. Vehicle access is adequate around the mine, but ridiculously challenging everywhere else which is most of the places we need to go during our annual Northern Quoll Monitoring survey. The hills are disgustingly steep, the ground is absurdly slippery and the vegetation is oppressively thick.

However, it is an awesome place to work, the animals are cute beyond reckoning, and if you survive the working day you can retreat to a nice air-conditioned room with a comfy bed, a hot shower and a great meal of a night. To top it off, virtually every room has an ocean view.

The Northern Quoll

Mount Gibson had generously welcomed student volunteers in 2015 after only a small amount of campaigning by yours truly. But the sea wall collapse cast some doubt over the practicality and safety of using volunteers in 2016; in the absence of a full nursing staff and operating medical center it was considered a risk not worth taking. I can understand that. However, the company welcomed students back in 2017 and, for that, I am forever grateful. 

One of the reasons I love working with volunteers is because they make you think about different ways of doing the things that you have done the same way a million times over. As a crusty and fractured old field ecology stalwart, one tends to get set in one's ways. For instance, I have always mixed bait by hand, which involves sticking my hand in a bucket of peanut butter, scraping oily fish out of a tin and grinding the two ingredients together with endless bags of rolled oats. When I have finally achieved a mixture with the right consistency, pliability, texture, adhesion and stench I spend hours rolling it into little balls to put into traps. I've done it for years and years: 25 in fact and it is a very necessary part of my job.

It is only when I seek to demonstrate it to the next generation that I realise how stupid the process sounds and alternatives quickly become apparent: almost as if to save from the embarrassment of appearing to be not to distantly removed from a pre 'industrial revolution' peasant.

During the Koolan Island annual quoll survey, I have been manually mixing bait by the bucket load since 2013. How daft of me not to have realised that, the entire time, I have had access to an industrial kitchen with industrial appliances. Thanks to the 2017 quollenteers, the quoll now enjoy a much more refined blend of rolled oats, peanut butter and tinned tuna and I have so much more free time in my day.

The other great thing about volunteers is that they have to be rewarded for their efforts. With all that free time we were able to enjoy the island by boat and do a spot of fishing.