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<\/p>\nEcologist Damian Jones is constantly reminded of the menace feral predators pose to Australian wildlife.<\/p>\n
Every week, riding a four-wheel motorbike, he patrols a 17-kilometre-long, high voltage exclusion fence that encircles the 1,000-hectare Tiverton farm at Dundonell in Western Victoria.<\/p>\n
Then, assisted by AI technology, he reviews hundreds of hours of footage taken nightly by 50 trail cameras strategically placed along its length.<\/p>\n
It shows that inside the 2-metre-high wire netting fence the property’s eastern barred bandicoots and eastern quolls roam freely.<\/p>\n
A fence holding back extinction<\/p>\n
Outside the fence marauding feral cats and foxes are often seen ogling them through the wire.<\/p>\n
“Without the fence the bandicoots would not be here, they would eventually be predated by the cats and foxes and they’d be gone,” Dr Jones said.<\/p>\n
“Similarly with the quolls, the foxes would take them out.”<\/p>\n
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Damian Jones opens a gate that is a part of a formidable fence encircling the conservation property. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)<\/p>\n
Tiverton is Victoria’s largest predator-free sanctuary.<\/p>\n
It’s also a commercial farm that usually runs about 5,000 merinos.<\/p>\n
Conservationists are hailing it as a major milestone, growing proof that commercial farming and conservation can happily co-exist.<\/p>\n
“What we found is we have got a profitable enterprise there. Definitely not a high carrying capacity margin enterprise, but enough to have a profitable farm,” said Odonata Foundation’s Nigel Sharp.<\/p>\n
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Dr Jones believes that without the fence, natives like the eastern quoll would not survive at the property. (Supplied: Pete James)<\/p>\n
Tiverton is part of the foundation, a leading Australian environmental conservation charity dedicated to saving endangered species.<\/p>\n
It’s the brainchild of Mr Sharp, an entrepreneur, investment manager, business executive, and environmentalist.<\/p>\n
Two decades ago the foundation bought Mt Rothwell Sanctuary, a 500-hectare property an hour’s drive west of Melbourne.<\/p>\n
The degraded landscape was first enclosed behind a predator-proof fence and in collaboration with Zoos Victoria gradually transformed into a wildlife refuge for nine endangered species.<\/p>\n
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Environmentalist and entrepreneur Nigel Sharp of the conservation charity Odonata Foundation. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)<\/p>\n
Successful breeding programs for eastern barred bandicoots and eastern quolls there have enabled surplus animals to be relocated to Tiverton where their populations continue to grow.<\/p>\n
Farm manager Tim Hill says he’s constantly amazed by how well the marsupials cope with climatic extremes.<\/p>\n
“It was perishingly dry in 2024-25. Species like the bandicoots were thriving. They were breeding,” Mr Hill said.<\/p>\n
Wildlife recovery on a commercial property<\/p>\n
The initial aim on the farm was to preserve and regenerate endangered native grasslands.<\/p>\n
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There are only 500 remaining southern brush-tailed rock wallabies and 400 of them are at Mt Rothwell Sanctuary. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)<\/p>\n
Along the way has come the discovery that the presence of marsupials such as bandicoots helps accelerate the process.<\/p>\n
“Bandicoots move a tremendous amount of soil every night based on their body weight,” Dr Jones said.<\/p>\n
“They’re helping to open up the pores of the soil, if you like, to allow water to penetrate, and they’re also helping to spread native seeds around.”<\/p>\n
There is another benefit for farming.<\/p>\n
As the native grassland species on Tiverton rebounded, so too has the quality of the wool produced from them.<\/p>\n
“We found suddenly we were topping the wool market because we had this really strong staple strength in a wet year, so the native veg wasn’t getting the same sugar hit through the spring,” Mr Sharp said.<\/p>\n
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Sheep play a key role in the ecological management of Tiverton farm. (ABC Landline: Peter Healy)<\/p>\n
That meant the wool had greater fibre strength and avoided a problem known as “tender wool”.<\/p>\n
Tiverton is one of the Odonata Foundation’s eight conservation properties across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.<\/p>\n
Its giant fence cost more than $500,000 to build, and the property custodians are diligent in ensuring no predators ever infiltrate.<\/p>\n
Feral cats and foxes are the major cause of animal extinction in Australia.<\/p>\n
Their exclusion from Tiverton further ensures an extremely high lamb survival rate.<\/p>\n
About one fifth of the property, including wetlands, is also fenced off from stock, allowing ground nesting birds such as brolgas to make a re-appearance.<\/p>\n
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Farm manager at Tiverton, Tim Hill, is excited to see rare marsupials in the landscape. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)<\/p>\n
Tim Hill said the property’s transformation was very exciting.<\/p>\n
“Our ambition is to release additional threatened species out onto this landscape over time,” Mr Hill said.Scaling up a predator-free future<\/p>\n
There’s growing evidence worldwide that the more native animals there are in the landscape the healthier the eco-system.<\/p>\n
The Odonata Foundation is collaborating with overseas research into this field, including scientists at prestigious Yale University in the United States.<\/p>\n
“Without the animals your fungi’s not working,” Mr Sharp said.<\/p>\n
“There’s so many different parts of your soil eco-system and soil organisms that don’t operate the way they did, so we’ve got no chance of getting all the native veg back if we don’t think about the animals.”<\/p>\n
Nigel Sharp believes it would be possible to enclose large areas of farmland and replicate Tiverton on a larger scale elsewhere in Australia.<\/p>\n
But he cautioned that its main limitation would be finding large, contiguous areas of farmland that contained suitable habitat, and a lack of funding from federal and state governments.<\/p>\n
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Wildlife ecologist Damian Jones checks one of his 50 trail cameras on Tiverton. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)<\/p>\n
The main challenge of safe havens such as Tiverton is ensuring the survival of endangered species by building up large populations of genetically diverse animals.<\/p>\n
The property is a window into a world largely lost since European settlement, now being reborn.<\/p>\n
Mr Sharp’s ultimate dream is to see a feral predator-free Australia where native animals can again roam freely across the landscape.<\/p>\n
“All of these things need to be worked through in a well-planned progression, but our ultimate goal is to be able to not have fences,” he said.<\/p>\n