I sat with the twins in the magpie enclosure to record our interview. I can’t tell the girls voices apart listening back to edit especially with hungry baby magpies sitting on my shoulder, my phone and hanging upside down on the hem of my jeans so not always sure who was speaking.
Sophie and Bridget AKA The Fauna Fetchers-
“We were born in Miranda in south Sydney and moved up to Tregeagle when we about 2. Shortly after our parents bought this 5 acre property where we are now. So we’ve been here for 22 years. We went to Teven Tintenbar Primary and Ballina High School.”
B – “Ever since primary school we established a wildlife role. We used to get called to the office a lot.
I distinctly remember crying one day at school because Sophie had caught this sick Lorikeet she was holding in her hat and I was like, that’s my job. We took it home and gave it tender loving care.
Dad and Mum were in Wires and over the years they left the group but still kept rescuing and rehabilitating animals and birds. Dad would always wake us up early in the morning with something in his hand. It would be a baby chicken and I remember sleeping with baby chickens. We’ve always had a strong affiliation with animals. It’s really important. It teaches you responsibility and things about life. We had those great role models like Steve Irwin.
Through high school I distinctly remember being in roll call and the deputy said..Oh Bridget there’s owls in the girls toilet. Two things came to mind, one it was weird being called out of class for this and secondly, they’re not owls, they’re Tawny Frog Mouths. I knew because I knew where their nest was as I’d been watching them at lunch time. I climbed up the tree and put them back up there. I was the only one allowed to climb the tree.
Sophie decided to stick around this area and she got into dog training and I went through to university to study Wildlife Science. A lot of people think we’ve always had snakes in our life but really I hadn’t even touched many until I went to uni. Growing up on a farm you see them and stay away. It’s all about respect. A lot of people ask us how we work with snakes and its like well, Doctors work with humans and that’s what they’re trained to do. I couldn’t work with them. I’d much rather catch snakes any day. I did a few handling courses till I got my confidence up.
I returned home after uni and I met Allan Burnett of Reptile awareness displays of Australia. I remembered him from seeing his shows when I was a kid and he said he knew me and offered me some work. I was doing snake relocations at that time to get a bit of cash after uni. He has become a mentor and helped us a lot. Getting this license as a zoo is quite hard. He’s helped us a lot as have our parents. I think a lot of people don’t realise that we have these licenses through the DPI and everything we do we do professionally following rules and guidelines, insurances and all that adulting stuff. We work really hard. We train and we build, we fence, we can both fix our own cars. We built this magpie enclosure you are sitting in just last week.
We are 24 on Monday. We look like we are 17. We get our ID checked every time. When I arrive to relocate a snake and I jump out of the car people are like..first of it’s a girl and secondly..she’s only about 13, how does she even have a license?
We have chickens, dogs, cats, some birds, a sheep called Rosemary I brought home from uni one day as pets but on license we have a few different lizard species, a few different python species. Eg, bearded dragon, blue tongue, frill neck, shingle backs. We have diamond carpet pythons, black headed pythons, a Woma python, Central python and a few others. We have 2 magpies at the moment and 2 dingoes we raised from pups.
Eventually we want to get a Wombat here. Because we are mobile with our shows it is a lot harder, not just in regard to transport. The animals need to be ok with people, sounds, new areas. The dingos originally came to us from Zambi Wildlife Retreat who take in rescues and ex zoo animals. They were only 4 1/2 weeks. They will be 2 in March.
I used to train my little dog who is still here. He’s a Tenterfield Terrier cross Poodle and he went everywhere with me. I was right into Soccer when I was younger and I would sneak him into my Soccer bag. I got him to walk on tightropes. I’m obsessed with that bond with dogs. The magpies get on well with the dogs. Our Dingos have done a lot of socialising with people but they are timid animals. Warrigal is our white Dingo and Dundee is our tan Dingo.
You should see how the next generation responds. We can do a talk to kids and they can take the words out of our mouths. A lot of stuff happening with the environment can be pretty negative but I feel like we have so much potential to change. A lot of damage has been done but I have hope for our next generation. We had an 8 year old who was so knowledgable about what needs to be done and I thought..You are the future so we do have hope. I do feel sometimes that we live in a bit of a bubble. The Northern Rivers is a fantastic area and we are really aware of the effects of climate, pollution and our environment. We just want to keep educating people.
We love using humour in our shows as well. We love characters like Russell Coight. Education is important but we think humour is too. That’s how you keep kids engaged. Our show is a bit quirky. We present our animals as having super powers. Kids relate to super heroes as we both love super heroes. Superheroes usually bring hope. I felt inspired after seeing Aquaman. I came out of there thinking I want to be a hero. Super heroes make a difference. You say to a kid..you wanna swim like a dolphin..we put those things forward as superhero powers.
Apart from human impact, wildlife in the first place have a struggle. Magpies have a fast metabolism and more or less have to be eating things all day which means all these insects in the ground need to be reproducing. Everything in our world is like a piece to a clock. If we start taking things out it will stop working. We live in and we love our world but if we don’t protect it……. As individuals we can do so much.
B – “Sophie does AFL and we both do some gym to keep fit. When we were in high school we did gym once a week and back then we mostly worked on our arms. People would say why do just do arms? I’d say, I’ve got to be big enough to jump on crocodiles and that was my legit reason. One day I will. It’s my bucket list. Being a girl in this industry you do see prejudice and even being young, people overlook you and it’s really sad. Just recently I had a lady call with a couple of snakes in her compost. I said, sure I can come out now. She said, do you have a man because I don’t think you could lift it. I said I’ve done this for 3 years and I haven’t had one snake I couldn’t lift. We try and be positive but some things like that get you down.
I got bitten by a brown tree snake the other day but it was my fault. I went out to Nimbin for a relocation and caught five big pythons. Silly me only packed one bag. I put all the pythons in the one bag like a big Santa sack and I put the tree snake in my pocket. He was happy to go in but when I got him out and he bit my thumb. It was my fault though and it wasn’t bad.”
S – “I started my own dog training business when Bridget hit uni. You get jobs where people look at you and they don’t have confidence in what you know and what you do. You have to prove them wrong when you shouldn’t have to. It’s been 4 years now and working with Bridget as well you still get doubters. We know stuff but we don’t know everything and we’re happy to put our hand up and say ok, we’re not experts but if I don’t know something, I will find out. We are still willing to learn and we like our shows to be relatable.
We work together and there’s sometimes conflict here and there without saying we’ve had punch ups (laughs). I was here dog training and Bridget was off at uni. You go through school knowing that you’re a twin and everyone knows you as such and then being your own separate person and having different experiences we still both ended up with the same headset of we are both here in this world to do something and to help our wildlife in our world.
We didn’t speak till we were 5 and people always say we are so good at public speaking. They ask what accent I have? I say Aussie with bad grammar and a touch of bogan. I like telling the shy kids that. We always say the key to conservation is education with the next generation and something I really loved was Leah White from the ABC came up with a great saying ..Double the voice, double the impact.”
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