{"id":525526,"date":"2026-03-07T22:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T22:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525526\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T22:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T22:46:14","slug":"ranger-staceys-totally-wild-adventure-bringing-nature-to-generations-of-australian-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525526\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranger Stacey’s totally wild adventure bringing nature to generations of Australian kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nineties kids didn’t dawdle on the way home from school in the afternoon. This was the age of appointment television, and that appointment was with Totally Wild.<\/p>\n

From 1992 it was beloved afternoon viewing for almost 30 years, hosted with a massive smile (and a decent fringe) by Stacey Thomson, better known as Ranger Stacey.<\/p>\n

In the process, she sparked a love of nature for generations of children.<\/p>\n

One of those kids was Jacqueline King. She is now assistant behavioural biologist at the Taronga Conservation Society Australia.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Taronga Zoo’s Jacqueline King says watching Ranger Stacey on Totally Wild inspired her. (Supplied: Taronga Zoo)<\/p>\n

“I can picture five-year-old me, sitting on the rug watching Ranger Stacey after school, just hoping that I could do that one day,” Ms King says.<\/p>\n

“Now, grown-up me gets to be out in nature, learning from and with critters and inspiring people, and then helping to share that knowledge with the world.”<\/p>\n

But Stacey Thomson’s path to Australian television icon was an unconventional one, involving prisoners and a supercilious puppet.<\/p>\n

Where it all began<\/p>\n

Stacey grew up in suburban Brisbane in the 1960s and ’70s.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Stacey Thomson was often camping and swimming with her family growing up in Queensland. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Her family ran a local cinema and spent a lot of time outdoors, including embarking upon month-long trips to uninhabited Northwest Island in the southern Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

“We’d have to take all of our water, all of our supplies, that was hardcore camping and big adventures,” she tells Ann Jones on ABC Radio National’s What the Duck?!<\/a><\/p>\n

“All the grown-ups would go scuba diving, and the kids would just run wild \u2026 at that time of the year, the turtles are laying, also there’s a crossover with the hatchlings.<\/p>\n

“I think that might’ve been a little spark in my mind about what I wanted to do in the future.”<\/p>\n

But it was a friend’s dad who first suggested she become a park ranger.<\/p>\n

“I told him, ‘I wanna work outdoors and I love animals and I like the environment,’ and he told me about a course at Queensland Agricultural College.<\/p>\n

“Mum and dad took me to the open day and pretty much the rest is history: I was sold.”<\/p>\n

Becoming a park ranger<\/p>\n

Graduating in 1983, Stacey’s first job with Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service was at Main Range National Park, south-west of Brisbane.<\/p>\n

“There was Mount Cordeaux, Mount Mitchell, Queen Mary Falls and all of the wilderness in between, it was beautiful.”<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

While much of the work, such as maintaining fire breaks and public toilets, was physically challenging, she really enjoyed connecting with visitors.<\/p>\n

“The cleaning of the toilets wasn’t really my favourite job, surprise!<\/p>\n

“But I did tend to … volunteer if there was an opportunity to talk to the visitors.”<\/p>\n

“[I’d] take them along the tracks and show them the greater gliders and the possums and the owls at night.”<\/p>\n

An island of prisoners<\/p>\n

As a 21-year-old, Stacey’s next job was in the middle of Moreton Bay at St Helena Island, a former prison site and Queensland’s first historic national park.<\/p>\n

With heightened media and tourism attention on the island in the 1980s, prisoners from Boggo Road Gaol were sent to assist with its maintenance.<\/p>\n

\"Five<\/p>\n

Stacey (second from right) with other rangers on St Helena Island. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Stacey was tasked with ferrying the prisoners to and from the island each day.<\/p>\n

“The prisoners would be driven down in the prison van, the warder would walk out to the end of the jetty, I’d take over from there.<\/p>\n

“They’d all jump into the boat and I’d drive them across to the island, they’d work for the day, and then I’d bring them back in the afternoon and they’d go back to prison for the night.”<\/p>\n

After two-and-a-half years of island life she was ready for a change.<\/p>\n

“I was going a little bit stir-crazy.”<\/p>\n

The start of a television career<\/p>\n

Comfortable talking to tourists and TV cameras alike, Stacey was often put forward for media interviews.<\/p>\n

Her bosses recognised her talent and transferred her to a desk job as an education officer at the Department of Environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then she became a regular guest on the children’s show Wombat on Channel 7.<\/p>\n

“What’s a better way of educating the masses than going on \u2026 a really popular afternoon show that reaches hundreds of thousands of kids across Australia?”<\/p>\n

That’s where Ranger Stacey first worked with the larrikin puppet and TV personality Agro.<\/p>\n

\"Five<\/p>\n

Ranger Stacey and the cast of Agro’s Cartoon Connection. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

When Wombat finished in 1990, Agro’s Cartoon Connection began with Ranger Stacey bringing animals and environmental education, and her trademark smile, to morning TV.<\/p>\n

Every Saturday they’d record a week’s worth of shows in front of a live studio audience, made up of families and buses full of scout groups.<\/p>\n

And if something didn’t go to plan, it was TV gold.<\/p>\n

“If I got pooed on or weed on while the camera was rolling, we wouldn’t stop.<\/p>\n

“Agro would make sure that we wouldn’t stop, you just have to deal with it and clean it up in front of everyone.<\/p>\n

“It was amazing because then I could start talking about scats, or animal poo and talk about, ‘OK, so this possum has a little pellet and it’s different to a wombat scat’.”<\/p>\n

“You just had to think on your feet a lot.”<\/p>\n

A Totally Wild turn<\/p>\n

In 1992, Network Ten executive producer Cherrie Bottger began developing a nature and environment program featuring Ranger Stacey and her colleague Ranger Tim.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Totally Wild’s Ranger Stacey and Ranger Tim signing autographs. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Mrs Bottger had previously worked with the pair at Channel Seven, and she had some inspiration close to home.<\/p>\n

“I had a four-year-old at the time who adored Ranger Stacey,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I started researching and tossing ideas around with her and her friends \u2026 their little minds were so curious about the world and its animals and environment.”<\/p>\n

The program was initially broadcast weekly, but it expanded to three days and then five as its popularity grew.<\/p>\n

Still employed by the department as a ranger, Stacey worked across Seven, Nine and Ten for several years.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Totally Wild was filmed mostly on location away from the TV studio. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Totally Wild ran for three decades and inspired generations of Australians to care about the natural world around them.<\/p>\n

“I remember back in the early days going out to Epping Forest National Park \u2026 there were only 70 northern hairy-nosed wombats \u2026 left in the whole world,” Stacey recalls.<\/p>\n

“We went back a number of times over the 29 years of Totally Wild \u2026 and although it’s still endangered, it’s certainly not as critically endangered as it was back in 1992.”<\/p>\n

Mrs Bottger credits the dedicated camera crew with creating something special.<\/p>\n

“It still gives me goosebumps when I think of the vision we were able to expose our young audience to,” she says.<\/p>\n

“Like a tiny joey, no bigger than a jellybean, climbing its way into its mother’s pouch; the praying mantis laying her cobalt blue eggs; the underwater vision of coral spawning; the repelling down a cliff face into a Jurassic World of tropical rainforest.<\/p>\n

“I reflect on more than 4,500 stories we presented to our young audience who today have families of their own, and I bet you, there is one name they all remember from their past: Ranger Stacey.”<\/p>\n

The end of a wild ride<\/p>\n

By 2021, streaming services had changed television programming. Totally Wild had already moved time slot and channel several times, when Stacey was called into a meeting in the boardroom \u2026 with HR on the phone.<\/p>\n

She was told the show was cancelled and that the full staff and crew would be told the next morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I probably had tears in my eyes, but I just pretty much grabbed my bag and I just left for the rest of the day because I couldn’t be sitting there for the whole afternoon.”<\/p>\n

It was a sad time, but when the announcement was made public, thankfully the right opportunity came calling.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Stacey continues to teach kids about native wildlife. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Today, Stacey is an education officer at Redland City Council continuing to inspire the next generation to take care of the environment.<\/p>\n

“Throughout my whole career, and it’s something we used to say on Totally Wild: ‘if we all do a little bit, it all makes a bigger impact’.”<\/p>\n

Her positive messages are still reaching little ears, through Stacey and through the thousands she’s educated along the way, like Ms King.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was lucky that being outside in the bush was part of the everyday, and Ranger Stacey certainly helped to give that meaning and bring it to life for me,” Ms King says.<\/p>\n

“Now, I work across science and education \u2014 I’m all about how people and the planet connect and relate.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Stacey Thomson still loves the outdoors and educating the public about the environment. (Supplied)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nineties kids didn’t dawdle on the way home from school in the afternoon. This was the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[261061,64,63,35844,261454,221927,2929,134,261455,261452,261453,261459,261458,261457,261456],"class_list":["post-525526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-agros-cartoon-connection","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-television","tag-australian-tv-shows","tag-australian-wildlife","tag-conservation","tag-entertainment","tag-nature-programs","tag-ranger-stacey","tag-totally-wild","tag-totally-wild-ranger-stacey","tag-totally-wild-tv-show-cast","tag-what-happened-to-totally-wild","tag-where-is-ranger-stacey-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}