That is, this story from Edgeworth's Gary Lawless about his thoughts on the loss of native wildlife in the 2019-20 bushfires.

Over to you, Gary: I recently read in Topics the astounding estimate of 3 billion native animals destroyed in those fires. This is depressing and hard to imagine, let alone come to terms with.

Like most Aussies, I find our native wildlife to be interesting and unique in its variations. So if this estimate is accurate, it is time we all take a long hard look at how we can protect the native fauna we have left.

Over the years I have been lucky enough to have had many encounters with our native fauna in quite a few of its many varied forms, far too many to relate here, but some might make an amusing story one day.

Those horrendous fires and the devastating aftermath made me reflect on a couple of these encounters that made me realise just how lucky we are here in Australia.

My own favourite animals are the marsupials, and over the years I have personally encountered many of them, either in their natural environment, or in and around our own human habitat.

My most common encounters have been with furry little ringtail and brushtail possums. These critters are quite common in all parts of Australia, and while their presence in the bush goes mostly undetected, when they invade our surroundings, they can become the subject of both admiration and frustration.

For instance, a male brushtail possum periodically takes up residence in the roof space of our garage. He is a recurring visitor, as he will move out for a few months before showing up again unexpectedly. I think his visits are linked to the availability of food, such as the flowering native trees and shrubs in the reserve behind our property.

When in residence, he curls up in the garage rafters somewhere during the day, and emerges at dusk to trot off and do whatever possums do in the depths of night, and returns before daylight. This is fine by me, as long as he keeps to himself, but he has become quite used to his surroundings here, and has taken to crawling out onto the roof at dusk, and just sitting there for a while before disappearing into the night.

This gives me an opportunity to observe him closely, and I am suitably impressed with his calm demeanour.

Of course at this point, he attracts the attention of my dogs, who bark furiously at him while he sits there and stares down at them with disdain. This haughty attitude sends my dogs crazy, and the racket of their barking also has the same effect on me. However, he knows he is safe from them and he will scratch and clean himself before departing, as if he is preparing for a date with a lady possum in the dead of night. I like his cheeky attitude, and he is welcome to return here any time, for as long as he wants to hang around.

Another possum encounter occurred a while ago in the shed where I store the horse feed. I knew that something was living in there, as evidenced by what it left behind, but could not pin down the identity of the trespasser. Then one day I started to clean up the shed, removing empty feed bags and such. As I went to pick up what I thought was an empty bag that was resting on the carrier of my quad bike, I felt that the bag was not empty at all, and upon investigation found a young brushtail possum curled up in there.

He was quite calm and relaxed, and as you can see by the attached photo, his cuteness factor is off the scale. I left him there to sleep in peace, and worked around him. He hung around for quite a while, and I started to leave him some pieces of fruit and other goodies to chow down on. After a while, he became very used to me being around, and would emerge from wherever he had been hiding, jump up on a feed drum, and watch me while munching his treats. Eventually, I was able to hand feed him his fruit, which was a treat for me as well as for him. He also became popular with the neighbourhood children who would come over to visit and watch him eat his treats. He was quite the celebrity.

Then one spring day, he just wasn't there anymore. I guess he had priorities other than hanging around with some old guy in a shed. Call of the wild I guess; or more likely a cute female possum grabbed his attention on one of his nightly excursions. I never saw the little guy again, but I hope he is out there somewhere, enjoying whatever possums get up to in the dead of night.

Experiences like this make you appreciate our native animals for what they are: an essential part of Australia's diverse wildlife population.

The point of this story is that we all need to be more aware of just how unique our island is, and to be more active in teaching our children that our wildlife, in all its variations, is irreplaceable; and once it is gone, it is never coming back. In this way, we may instil in future generations a sense of value and pride of collective ownership of our native fauna, and this may push them to actively protect what past generations have so commonly ignored.