Caring for wildlife

Charlie the Western ground parrot. Image by Sarah Comer Eight years ago, a volunteer was assisting the WA Department of Conservation and Land Management (now Environment and Conservation) in surveys in the Fitzgerald River National Park, about 50km east of Bremer Bay.

The volunteer came across a rare and endangered western ground parrot. Charlie, as the bird was nicknamed, was a real character.

After a few days the parrot befriended the survey group, allowing the group to film him feeding, scooting along the ground or resting in the shade of a mallee.

It is these kinds of encounters with wild animals that make volunteering with organisations such as DEC rewarding and enlightening. If you love nature, there is no better way to find out more about our flora and fauna.

What's more, there is also no better time to do it. Due to a change of focus in government funding to preservation of habitats rather than species, often the best hope of survival for our critically threatened wildlife comes from private donors and dedicated volunteers.

Voluntourism with the DEC can range from the "no frills" option of joining an existing survey at no cost other than personal expenses (often travel expenses are reimbursed and food and camping equipment are supplied), to fully fledged tours such as those arranged by Global Gypsies, where costs of the tour include catering, DEC scientists, a professional tour guide and a donation to the relevant project.

A good starting place for opportunities to assist DEC is its website (dec.wa.gov.au). Currently, the opportunities on offer include numbat, Gilbert's potoroo, dibbler or red-tailed phascogale cuddling (sorry, I mean monitoring), bird banding and western ground parrot surveys.

If you have time to spare, DEC also has a five-week volunteer internship in the Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Marine Park involving turtle monitoring and tracking. Experiences of this kind will take you into some of WA's most beautiful places.

Conservation Volunteers (conservationvolunteers.com.au) also keeps a list of volunteer holiday opportunities around the State.

If you don't mind doing a bit of work restoring coastal dunes, there is a five-day stay at Rottnest Island on offer for a bargain-basement cost of $205.

If, like me, you prefer birds (of the feathered kind), the Australian Wildlife Conservancy seeks help every year with its bird census at the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary in the Kimberley, a key refuge for the Gouldian finch.

Monitoring these beautiful and endangered birds is best achieved by sitting at a waterhole at sunrise and counting the delightful little tackers as they come in to drink.

I recently participated in a DEC survey to monitor the status of the western ground parrot and, over five days, myself, one DEC officer and four other enthusiastic volunteers ventured into the wilder parts of the Fitzgerald River National Park.

Armed with a DEC-supplied GPS and song meter, we listened for western ground parrot calls while watching the sun rise and set over the Mt Barren ranges.

In our free time, we walked through the park and became intimately acquainted with its many inhabitants.

Imagine thousands of hectares of rolling hills punctuated with granite outcrops, beautiful wildflowers, dozens of brush-tailed wallabies and the odd scenic mountain backdrop.

There are certainly worse places to camp than one of the world's top biodiversity hot spots.

Sadly, although we saw and heard the western whipbird, rufous fieldwrens, crested bellbirds, southern emu-wrens and plenty of tawny-crowned honeyeaters, we did not hear or see any western ground parrots. It has now been estimated that fewer than 110 remain in the wild, with more than 90 per cent of that population in Cape Arid National Park, 125km east of Esperance.

DEC predicts that without urgent action, they will become extinct in the wild in the next five to 10 years (assuming a bushfire does not wipe them out earlier), making them the first bird extinction in WA in 100 years.

You can learn more about the parrot and how to help prevent its extinction by visiting the Friends of the Western Ground Parrot at western-ground-parrot.org.au. And watch the video of Charlie.

Above all, consider volunteering for your next holiday. Not only will you meet great people, spend time in the bush and learn new skills, you also may have an unforgettable encounter with some rare wildlife.