Nick Olle

“...the last dunnarts that we’ve really got.” On the western side of the island, wildlife ecologist Pat Hodgens is under pressure to protect one of the world’s most vulnerable species: the Kangaroo Island dunnart. There were thought to be fewer than 500 of the small, mouse-like marsupials before the fires. But nearly all of their habitat has been destroyed, jeopardising their chances of survival. “There’s many parts of the island where they would have been just totally wiped out,” Pat says.