Dr. John Walmsley | Australian Environmentalist of the Year 2000

We sat down for a chat with our good friend Dr John Walmsley at his bush block in the Adelaide Hills. He is known colloquially as the 'cat hat man' because he wore a hat made from the pelt of feral cat to a tourism awards ceremony, the ensuing controversy led to the laws changing to allow feral cats to be legally killed is Australia.

He set up wildlife sanctuaries across Australia to exclude feral animals and to reintroduce locally extinct and threatened species. We talk to John about the early days of his conservation endeavours as well as his firsthand experience working with such animals as platypus, bilbies and numbats.

John turned 80 in 2018 and is still active in the realm of conservation and habitat restoration.  

He was the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year in 2000.