Researchers from Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation are hoping a star appearance on Italian television will help efforts to preserve the critically endangered gilbert's potoroo.
A crew from an Italian TV network has spent the past few days on Bald Island, near Albany in southern Western Australia, shooting footage of the potoroos, as well as filming department scientists tracking and trapping the animals. The documentary will be screened next month to an estimated audience of about six million people.
Research scientist Tony Friend says the program may encourage Italian viewers to make a donation towards the conservation effort.
"We're going to have the gilbert's potoroo action group website address and people can contact that at the end of the show, it's quite succinct www.potoroo.org, so it's easy to remember and write down, so we might get some contact through that," he said.