Extract from ABC News
The fence keeps feral cats and foxes out and natives like the eastern barred bandicoot in. (Supplied: Pete James)
Ecologist Damian Jones is constantly reminded of the menace feral predators pose to Australian wildlife.
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.
Then, assisted by AI technology, he reviews hundreds of hours of footage taken nightly by 50 trail cameras strategically placed along its length.
It shows that inside the 2-metre-high wire netting fence the property's eastern barred bandicoots and eastern quolls roam freely.
A fence holding back extinction
Outside the fence marauding feral cats and foxes are often seen ogling them through the wire.
"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.
"Similarly with the quolls, the foxes would take them out."
Damian Jones opens a gate that is a part of a formidable fence encircling the conservation property. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Tiverton is Victoria's largest predator-free sanctuary.
It's also a commercial farm that usually runs about 5,000 merinos.
Conservationists are hailing it as a major milestone, growing proof that commercial farming and conservation can happily co-exist.
"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.
Dr Jones believes that without the fence, natives like the eastern quoll would not survive at the property. (Supplied: Pete James)
Tiverton is part of the foundation, a leading Australian environmental conservation charity dedicated to saving endangered species.
It's the brainchild of Mr Sharp, an entrepreneur, investment manager, business executive, and environmentalist.
Two decades ago the foundation bought Mt Rothwell Sanctuary, a 500-hectare property an hour's drive west of Melbourne.
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.
Environmentalist and entrepreneur Nigel Sharp of the conservation charity Odonata Foundation. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
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.
Farm manager Tim Hill says he's constantly amazed by how well the marsupials cope with climatic extremes.
"It was perishingly dry in 2024-25. Species like the bandicoots were thriving. They were breeding," Mr Hill said.
Wildlife recovery on a commercial property
The initial aim on the farm was to preserve and regenerate endangered native grasslands.
There are only 500 remaining southern brush-tailed rock wallabies and 400 of them are at Mt Rothwell Sanctuary. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Along the way has come the discovery that the presence of marsupials such as bandicoots helps accelerate the process.
"Bandicoots move a tremendous amount of soil every night based on their body weight," Dr Jones said.
"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."
There is another benefit for farming.
As the native grassland species on Tiverton rebounded, so too has the quality of the wool produced from them.
"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.
Sheep play a key role in the ecological management of Tiverton farm. (ABC Landline: Peter Healy)
That meant the wool had greater fibre strength and avoided a problem known as "tender wool".
Tiverton is one of the Odonata Foundation's eight conservation properties across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Its giant fence cost more than $500,000 to build, and the property custodians are diligent in ensuring no predators ever infiltrate.
Feral cats and foxes are the major cause of animal extinction in Australia.
Their exclusion from Tiverton further ensures an extremely high lamb survival rate.
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.
Farm manager at Tiverton, Tim Hill, is excited to see rare marsupials in the landscape. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Tim Hill said the property's transformation was very exciting.
"Our ambition is to release additional threatened species out onto this landscape over time,"Mr Hill said.
Scaling up a predator-free future
There's growing evidence worldwide that the more native animals there are in the landscape the healthier the eco-system.
The Odonata Foundation is collaborating with overseas research into this field, including scientists at prestigious Yale University in the United States.
"Without the animals your fungi's not working," Mr Sharp said.
"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."
Nigel Sharp believes it would be possible to enclose large areas of farmland and replicate Tiverton on a larger scale elsewhere in Australia.
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.
Wildlife ecologist Damian Jones checks one of his 50 trail cameras on Tiverton. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
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.
The property is a window into a world largely lost since European settlement, now being reborn.
Mr Sharp's ultimate dream is to see a feral predator-free Australia where native animals can again roam freely across the landscape.
"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.
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