00:00 Each one of those cows drops around 12 cow pads a day and each cow pad averages about
00:19 1.5 kilograms of dung.
00:21 So in total each day we have close to half a million tonnes of cow dung being dropped
00:28 on the continent each day.
00:36 There are certainly some species of dung beetle in this and that's Taurus.
00:41 The bigger one's Taurus.
00:43 Dung beetles are a pretty important tool for being able to improve soil biology and soil
00:50 health.
00:51 They take the dung, create tunnels and take the dung down underground.
00:55 So you're building up nutrients, you're building air porosity, you're also allowing water to
01:02 be able to penetrate into the soil.
01:07 The small fawn coloured beetle is called Vulvus.
01:11 It comes from France and Spain.
01:18 The soil filters out all the nasty chemicals and we end up with much cleaner, clearer water
01:24 in the creeks, rivers, estuaries and oceans.
01:27 In fact in my opinion there is nothing that water catchment authorities could do that
01:33 would be more efficient than supporting dung beetle releases in their water catchment areas.
01:38 I think the more farmers know about it and they're aware of the great value of the dung
01:45 beetles, the more they come on board.
01:48 It really only takes a handful of farmers in each district in the ACT for the beetles
01:54 to be able to build up their numbers.
01:56 Very competitive.
01:57 They will steal dung from another species or another pair of beetles of the same species.
02:02 I can walk around some cattle properties where there are thousands of head of cattle.
02:07 There are no bush flies in the summer months, no buffalo fly and no dung in the paddocks.
02:14 So after 50 years of working with dung beetles it's a very satisfying experience.
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