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“The ocean?”

“Heaps of ocean. If you set off from here, you wouldn't hit land again until you reached South America.” From Geoff's it's seven thousand miles across the water to Argentina, one of the longest stretches of open water in the world. It's swept by the Roaring 40s, the powerful western wind that confounds ships and blows the air clean.

On the old Woolnorth property at a coastal headland called Cape Grim, the Australian government runs the Baseline Air Pollution Station. At times, Cape Grim has registered the purest air in the world.

Geoff left us to explore the rocky, lichen-encrusted shoreline. The beach was covered with small, swirling shells; huge strips of brown and green kelp; abalone shells inlaid with silvery mother-of-pearl; and cuttle bones. The air smelled fresh and briny, with a note of decaying seaweed. Inland, eucalyptus trees, bent by ocean gusts, lined a low cliff. We walked into the tufts of grass behind the beach. The landscape was windswept and desolate, and it seemed devoid of wildlife. But then we began to look more closely. In between the tussocks of grass—everywhere—were piles of animal scat.

We pulled out our copy of Tracks, Scats and Other Traces and read from the introduction: “For many people who visit the wild places of Australia the mammals that live there are an unknown presence, rarely seen. But the signs of the presence are all around, if one can read them.” The signs included tracks, scratchings, scrapings, burrows, bones, and scats.

The abundance of scat led us to conclude that this place was profoundly alive. We had just worked this out when Geoff reappeared on the beach, wearing a black, full-body wetsuit and brandishing a sharp, serrated knife. He looked like a murderous seal. “Can't you just imagine a tiger walking along here?” he shouted.

Despite the chilly water temperature, he was about to leap into the sea in search of abalone. Abalone is the most expensive shellfish in the world—and one of Tasmania's most lucrative exports. Geoff dove into a salty pool ringed by rocks and came back with five big black shellfish. Each was the size of a tea saucer. We began to salivate.

“We'll eat well tonight,” he promised, prying open the shells and cutting the flesh free from the pearly interiors.

Before taking off from the beach, Geoff unhitched what was left of the dead pademelon from the back of the Pajero and left it for the local devils to snack on. “I only take out little bits of food on these nights,” he said. “So we don't give a complete feed to an animal. It just lures them into the area. Tomorrow night, after the rest of Team Thylacine arrives, we'll lay down another scent trail, conceal ourselves in a hide, and—if all goes well—watch the devils come down to feed.”

Just before we left, we saw a pair of long-legged shorebirds flying across the beach. As they disappeared, we heard them calling. Heh, heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. It sounded like a grating, staccato laugh. “Those are masked lapwings,” Geoff said. They were nesting on the beach. “When you hear them calling out at night, it might mean a devil's approaching.”

Not far from Geoff's house, we saw a small prickly object in the middle of the road.

“Wouldn't want anyone to hit that,” he said, pulling the Pajero to the side.

The prickly object was in motion, slowly ambling across the blacktop.

“That's an echidna. It's a bit like your porcupine.”

The echidna was a hunchbacked creature—about sixteen inches long—with a hairless needle of a snout. Its back was covered with long black hairs and white spikes.

Early settlers and explorers in this part of the world, not knowing what to make of the animals they encountered, often named them for creatures they were already familiar with. The echidna was originally called a porcupine because of its spiky back and sometimes a spiny anteater because, like South American anteaters, it had a long sticky tongue that darted out to eat ants and termites.

The name “echidna,” given