In real life, pigs can be looked on as endearing, pottering around in their comical manner. If a farmers’ market featuring livestock comes to town, the pigs, young and old, can be relied on to steal the show in the eyes of observers. But with the decent comes the deplorable. And taking the lead role as villains are the feral pigs of Australia.

The insatiable appetites of feral pigs mean that some staple species of Australian wildlife can face unwelcome harassment and even have their status endangered. Unlikely as it seems, wild pigs have targeted sea turtles as food sources. And their voracious feeding habits are indirectly affecting the fate of koalas.

Nobody tells you that a helicopter creates a cyclone; that even 30 metres away, the growling wind means you have to cling to a swaying tree trunk as its leaves swirl viscously overhead. Nobody explains that the roar of the blades choke the surrounding rainforest into silence.

As part of the Emergency Bushfire and Recovery Appeal, I was invited to accompany the Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species (FAME) on a visit to Kangaroo Island in January 2020. Our first stop was the Western River Refuge where we spoke with representatives from the Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife Association, which has been working closely with FAME for a number of years to save the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart from extinction.

A tenth of Australia’s mammals have been wiped out forever. They’re gone. And never coming back! Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species Ltd (FAME) is working to prevent further losses. Losing 126 species of native plants and animals since European settlement in 1788 is catastrophic but in 2020 we’re faced with a further 182 endangered species and 201 threatened with extinction. That’s 30 per cent of what remains.

From late December 2019 through to mid-January 2020, South Australia’s Kangaroo Island experienced the most severe bushfires in its recorded history. The first wave of fires was almost under control when lightning strikes on the 30th December brought a second wave. The deteriorating conditions that followed saw a total of over 200,000 hectares - almost half of the island - affected by fire.

Seafood. Australians love it. And why not! We are surrounded by the sea, with a variety of glorious river systems weaving paths across the sunburnt land, carving their way out to the ocean. The food sources derived from water are abundant and astoundingly varied, with over 2000 species of fish alone.

Recently my workplace asked me to do a first-aid course. This was partly so our office could have an extra First Aid Officer and so that I could write this story. As fate would have it, in the time between registering to take part in my first-aid course and the actual course, I was on my lunch break when a young man collapsed on the side of the road.

A generation or two ago the humble rabbit was a cheap, accessible source of protein that became part of many family dinners. Rabbits were plentiful across agricultural lands and they were harvested on mass by both commercial and non-commercial hunters.

In the preface to his acclaimed book Wildlife Conservation: In the Belly of the Beast, Australian author and conservationist Professor Grahame Webb admits his reason for writing it will be achieved if it ‘stimulates others to think in more depth about wildlife conservation’.