‘Oh my god, let it go!' The ABC show getting (almost) too close to dangerous animals
'We don't exist separate to nature,' says Jones, who lives with a strictly indoor Maine Coon cat named Bubbles and a freshwater prawn called Prawn Connery.
'All natural history documentaries are made on the back of research from people like those featured in this program,' says Jones. 'I think it's important to not shy away from how we get information, which sometimes means that you're uncomfortable. But that's how we find out things that will protect the species.'
In the series, marine ecologist Nicolas Lubitz remarks that the work of biologists is '95 per cent boredom, 5 per cent chaos'.
Jones agrees: 'The majority of the work that a scientist does will be based in an office or a lab, in front of a computer. And so what you see [in the series] is the high point of the year when they actually spend time with the animals. Fieldwork is addictive. I think it fuels the rest of their year.'
In the first episode, Jones joins Lubitz and his team on a perilous expedition tagging bull sharks off the coast of Townsville, during which she becomes visibly distressed as the thrashing fish is roped.
'I was scared, but I expected to worry more about myself,' says Jones. 'But the way in which they subdue a shark is by catching it and then turning it upside down, and then it goes into a sleepy state. And to see this animal so completely vulnerable – I'm just a complete softie. And this is probably why I'm a broadcaster and not a scientist. I'm just like, 'Oh my god, let it go! Let it go!''
In Moreton Bay near Brisbane, the seagrass-munching dugong stole her heart. 'They were surprisingly muscular. They have really dense whiskers, triple the thickness of a cat whisker. And their breath smells like grass.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
10 hours ago
- News.com.au
John Goodman makes sad confession about Roseanne Barr relationship years after her firing
John Goodman has revealed he hasn't spoken to his former on-screen wife Roseanne Barr in many years and doesn't think he will ever again. 'We haven't talked for about seven or eight years,' the actor, 73, told The Hollywood Reporter, noting that, 'I'd rather doubt if she wants to talk to me.' The two played husband and wife on Roseanne, which ran on ABC from 1988 to 1997 and returned for a 10th season in 2018. Plans for an 11th season were cancelled after Barr, 72, the matriarch of the blue-collar Connor family, compared Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to US President Barack Obama, to an 'ape'. She also falsely alleged that Chelsea Clinton was married to George Soros' nephew and that Soros was a Nazi sympathiser. 'Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,' President of ABC Entertainment Channing Dungey said in a statement at the time. Barr still refuses to take accountability for the tweet. 'The way I feel about it is God told me to do what I did, and it was a nuclear bomb,' she claimed in an interview last month. After the show's abrupt cancellation, ABC ordered up a spin-off called The Connors, in which Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert and other cast members reprised their roles from the original series. The show explained Barr's absence by having her character die of a drug overdose. Goodman, who also starred in The Righteous Gemstones, admitted that he didn't think The Connors would last as long as it did, finishing after seven seasons. 'I didn't think [the Roseanne reboot] was going to go beyond the initial five or six episodes,' he confessed. 'I thought it'd be a one-off thing, and then we got picked up, and Roseanne got fired. I thought that was it, and as soon as they dismissed the cast, I picked up Righteous Gemstones. 'Then we got to do the show again as The Conners. I didn't know how long it would last, but I sure enjoyed it while I was there.' Despite the frostiness between himself and Barr, Goodman only spoke warmly of the controversial comedian. 'We hit it off from jump street,' he remembered. 'She made me laugh, and I made her laugh, and wow, it was so much fun. We'd get so many viewers for the show back then — 20, 30 million people. Things are so different now, but it was a special time.' Barr has confirmed that she is not in touch with any of her former co-stars. 'No, I'm not friends with none of them. They're all in the past,' Barr told Fox News Digital in June. 'We don't talk.' Despite claiming not to 'hold any bitterness,' she did snipe that 'they f***ed it all up with their greed and ridiculous stupidity to f**k all that up. F**k them, but I wish them well.'
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Dr Ann heads west for new ABC science show
Dr Ann Jones loves science — a lot. So much, in fact, that the ABC journalist, whose PhD is actually in history, has made a career of communicating the joys of the natural world through TV series including last year's The Secret Lives Of Our Urban Birds, podcasts (she hosts ABC's enormously popular What The Duck?!) and radio shows. Her latest project for television is the new six-part series, Dr Ann's Secret Lives, which sees the presenter stepping into the field alongside scientists to study some of the world's most elusive creatures and 'uncover the secrets of how these remarkable creatures adapt, survive, and thrive in their environments'. Each episode focuses on one animal, with Jones travelling to all manner of places to study all manner of animals. Nothing, and no animal, is off limits, with everything from bull sharks to wild orangutans, dugongs to the 'the weirdest animal on the planet', the pangolin, getting a look in. Jones shot two episodes in Western Australia, where she headed off to the coast of Karratha to get up close and personal with deadly sea snakes and went to Rosemary Island in the Dampier Archipelago to meet wild turtles; both were 'pinch me' moments. 'It was incredible,' she admits. 'But also, I love nerds as well, so being around all these very highly skilled and competent and extremely smart animal lovers was my ideal place. 'These are people who, like me, love looking at the intricacies of, say, sea grass or some particular animal or whatever, and get lost in the details. So there was a lot of pinching of myself, but also a lot of 'what the hell have I got myself into?'' Dr Ann Jones spent time with scientists on an expedition off the Pilbara coast studying sea snakes. Credit: Supplied The question was especially pertinent on the episode where they find, catch and study elusive sea snakes aboard a research vessel off the Pilbara. These marine reptiles are highly venomous, and the trip could very quickly have taken a turn for the worst. 'We were 30 or 40km out to sea and if someone had got bitten, we didn't have any antivenom aboard, so we would have had to speed back to land as quickly as possible and hope for the best. 'I still haven't told my mum about that.' Fortunately there were no incidents, though the trip was not without its challenges. 'Most people went down with sea sickness,' Jones explains. 'I expected that I might be that person, but I was actually one of the last men standing.' If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. It meant she was called upon to lend a hand with the collection of the snakes. 'It was like a sushi train of sea snakes coming through, and the weather was horrible,' she explains. 'We had snakes in nets, snakes in buckets . . . the thing is, the welfare of those animals is in your hands, so I felt that was what drove me through. 'I didn't feel too sick because I was so focused on these animals — and not getting bitten.' Dr Ann's Secret Lives starts Tuesday, July 15 at 8.30pm on ABC.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Heather Ewart won't use the word retire, but there's a reason she's leaving Back Roads
After 10 years, 234 towns, and countless beers and yarns at outback pubs, Heather Ewart is leaving Back Roads, the rural Australia showcase that sprung from her 2014 documentary, A Country Road: The Nationals, about the history of the National Party. It's a bittersweet milestone for the former ABC news journalist who won't use the word 'retire'. In truth, she was ready to keep road tripping for at least another year. But two cancer diagnoses that she has kept to herself over the past decade, and arm injuries sustained from a car crash in May outside the NSW town of Nimmitabel, have contributed to her decision. 'It was the 10th anniversary of Back Roads coming up. Timing matters. And I just always think it's good to go out on a high,' she says. 'And there's nothing more to wake you up about life than having cancer, or being hit head-on by a bloke asleep at the wheel. You think, 'Life can be short.'' Recently returned from a holiday in the Cook Islands with her husband, fellow ABC news veteran Barrie Cassidy (she was visiting there for the first time since 1980, when she covered then-opposition leader Bob Hawke's attendance at the South Pacific Forum), Ewart is pleased to be handing the Back Roads car keys to former ABC News Breakfast host Lisa Millar, who, like Ewart, grew up in the country. 'There are certain character traits that country people share, like 'no bullshit', and resilience. You never lose that,' says Ewart. ' B ack Roads has succeeded because it is about country people and not about the presenter or the scenery. You've got to be careful not to make it a travelogue. And I think country people, particularly, are really aware of that. I've known Lisa a really long time. I don't need to give her any advice.' The first episode of Ewart's final season takes her to the NSW farming township of Moree, where she meets famed wedding dressmaker Melinda O'Donoghue, who has a classic Back Roads story. 'She'll drive through floods and drought to get that wedding dress there on time,' says Ewart. O'Donoghue is likely to join the long list of friends Ewart has made on the road, many of whom attended her farewell party at the Richmond Bowling Club, in her home town of Melbourne. 'I invited some of the characters that I've interviewed, not thinking that they'd actually come,' says Ewart. 'And lo and behold, Lyn Westbury, a travelling hairdresser from Innisfail, flew down with her husband, Barry the plumber. And Gail Sharp, the baker from Birchip, came down. And a fantastic fellow, Josh Arnold, a great country singer who goes all around outback Queensland to schools, helping the kids write anthems about their schools and their towns, he flew down.
