This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batchel. It's a great pleasure to ask Jeremy

Zachus to tell us the story not only of a dachshund named Valerie, but also how Australia is

reacting to the story of Valerie. Jeremy, where is Kangaroo Island and what has Valerie done? Well, John,

kangaroo Island is a beautiful part of this South Australian landscape. Kangaroo Island,

if you draw a line directly from Adelaide down to the south and then as you get to the

tip of the, I guess you can say it's South Australia, you see a big old island down there,

and that is actually Kangaroo Island. And Kangaroo Island is effectively mostly conservation area,

which means it's all in its natural state. You have bushland, you can see quails. You have

kangaroos, ironically, which is what's named after, and all the wildlife under the sun.

There's a very, very small farming population still there,

which is a leftover really from the 1800s

when it was originally formed as a farming community.

But there's also a small town there, Kingsgoat and a couple of other very small

villages dotted around, mostly for tourists and mostly for people

who want to go down there and enjoy the natural beauty.

Well, Kangaroo Island has

unexpectedly this week made the headlines. And really it's because of something that started

over a year and a half ago. Now let me just rewind it a little bit. Back in around about

January 2024, there was a tourist family had gone over to Kangaroo Island. Basically, they'd

gone across on a ferry which allows you to take your car and your caravan,

which means you can take your pets into the caravan park and enjoy the beauty of Kangaroo Island.

They did this back there in January, 2024.

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