“What's important to me here? What you can see out there," Bill King said as he pointed out his back door.
"The natural environment, the waterways... it's where I want to live, because it's a nice environment that one can enjoy. People are to quick to forget that kind of thing, but it's important to me and a lot of people who find solace in it."
Mr King, a resident of St Ives Retirement Village in Greenfields, has been responsible for organising clean-up groups, rehabilitation programs and more within the village itself, and its surrounds, including the Serpentine River.
He has seen the landscape of Mandurah gradually change, but still maintains a passion for protecting the region’s incredibly important natural habitats.
“I’m not a scientist, I don’t know everything about the specifics of what the wetlands are, what all the animals are. But I’ve lived here long enough to have a connection to it. And I’m out there, doing something.”
Mr King maintains an almost daily schedule of maintaining the bushland around St Ives and noting areas that require maintenance, and has no qualms standing up for what he believes is a very important practice.
“People bring their dogs into the bush, and they just don’t know that dog droppings and markings more or less guarantee bandicoots will not nest there,” he said.
“I will go up to people and tell them, ‘Look, you really shouldn’t have your dog off the lead here’. Sometimes they’re fine, sometimes they’ll just start screaming at me. But I’m not planning on stopping.”
It’s all part of Mr King’s hopes to spread the awareness of the beauty of the area’s wetland areas, and the importance of protecting what little of it there is left.
Mr King is currently embarking on a bandicoot rehabilitation program, which includes documenting their activities through cameras and volunteer observation.
“These photos, I want to bring them into schools and let the kids know about them,” he said.
“I think a few of them would be pretty shocked to know what goes on in their own backyard.”
Mr King is currently embarking on a bandicoot rehabilitation program, which includes documenting their activities through cameras and volunteer observation.
