0:04
When the sun rises on Trinity Beach in North Queensland, Australia, locals and tourists are just getting out for beach walks or a morning surf.
0:13
Hi, are you Shay?
0:14
Yes, I am.
0:15
Oh my gosh, it's nice to meet you too.
0:18
But Shay, Agers Day is already well underway.
0:21
Am I going to head off and do Rd.
0:22
checks to start off with?
0:24
OK.
0:24
This early?
0:25
We're starting.
0:25
Yeah, we're starting.
0:26
Let's do it.
0:27
Hey, here we go.
0:29
Growing neighborhoods in Queensland and the cars that come with them are a major threat to local wildlife, especially to Wallabies, smaller cousins of Australia's iconic Kangaroos.
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They're as familiar along the edge of town here as deer are in American suburbs.
0:45
Shay and her team check the roads every morning for injured or orphaned Wallabies.
0:50
The urban sprawl is getting worse and worse.
0:53
Understandably, humans need homes.
0:55
We all need homes to live in.
0:57
But it is definitely creating that human wildlife conflict that we see today.
1:02
We do find quite a few car strikes here.
1:05
This road only went through a couple of years ago.
1:08
Does it usually take you a while to find anything?
1:10
Are there ever mornings where you don't find a wallaby?
1:13
It's a really happy morning and a very rare morning.
1:16
Unfortunately, if we don't find a wallaby that's been hit on the side of the road.
1:23
This morning just so happened to be one of those happy mornings.
1:27
The streets around Trinity Beach were clear, so we moved on to one of the best parts of Shay's day.
1:33
All right, So what we're going to do is escort these Wallabies out of the sports field and it's kind of hilarious because they know the drill.
1:41
They are all in there.
1:43
They've gotten in there because they absolutely love that fresh grass, whereas out here there's not so much.
1:51
These are agile Wallabies.
1:52
They're built for speed and tropical grasslands, hence the name Agile.
1:57
As you can see, there's about 50 in here right now.
2:00
So how do we approach them?
2:01
Do we just walk slowly?
2:02
Yeah, walk slowly.
2:04
We call it escorting the Wallabies because you can see they're already lining up waiting to get out that little tiny gate.
2:11
And they do that every single day without us.
2:14
If a dog got in or say if kids started playing soccer, they would absolutely freak out and throw them themselves against fences.
2:22
Look at that little head eating the grass.
2:24
She's trying to get in her lost snacks before she gets out.
2:26
And look at that mom.
2:27
I could see her pouch is low with the Joey and the head is sticking out.
2:42
So now that they're out of here, I imagine we're going to close the gates.
2:47
But our day isn't over, is it?
2:49
No.
2:49
Well, we haven't got any rescue calls in the past 20 minutes, so that's good.
2:54
But I'm on the 24/7 hotline at the moment, so I am essentially on call.
3:02
Thank you for calling the Agile project Shea speaking.
3:06
Agile project Shea speaking.
3:10
Thank you for calling the Agile project.
3:11
Shay speaking.
3:12
We don't know what happened to the females.
3:14
Throughout the day, Shay received constant phone calls from staff and members of the public reporting on the status of injured wildlife throughout North Queensland.
3:24
I mean you are the go to person for this whole team of rescuers.
3:28
Yeah, so I was, so I was asking you about, you know, every wild animal is different, every species is different.
3:35
But there was like a business as usual approach to moving Wallabies.
3:40
And my understanding is that you made a major change.
3:43
We wanted to prove that you can move a population of Wallabies from one area where their habitat has been destroyed and move them to several safe areas.
3:54
Shay's plan was initially rejected by the state government because previous attempts by others had failed.
4:00
But she created a simple humane trap that worked like a charm.
4:05
Her team with local humane societies has moved hundreds of Wallabies to safe, secret locations.
4:11
What's your vision for the future based on what you've seen so far?
4:15
Wildlife relocation is needed more than ever.
4:18
Us scientists and us passionate conservationists, we need to be trialling these maybe out-of-the-box approaches to manage these human wildlife conflicts.
