Off Track - Separate stories podcast

This is Mark: a life-size, custom-made inflatable whale. And he needs to be saved. 

Off Track presents the new ABC podcast 'GOOD GAME: how games play us' attempting to answer a BIG question: There's nothing like taking a walk out and about in nature — or is there?

What happens to the animals of the Kimberley when the big wet just doesn't arrive?

Over the course of the week, three pairs of shoes bite the dust, soles detached from uppers in the 45 degree heat, one microphone's glue melts and there are about a billion bush flies drinking from sweaty backs. But despite the heat, Karajarri country has a draw towards it stronger than the pull of the sun.

Frogs don't just croak, they moan and groan, sing, whine, whizz and sound like dripping taps and this is an episode of pure adoration for the calls of Australia's frogs.

Rumours of pumas and leopards roaming the Australian bush have been around for more than a century. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence but to date no definitive proof. Join in the search for a mythical cat in this re-issue of a classic Off Track.

It's only as big as a tea bag, plays dead if you pick it up, and landowners don't even know they have an endangered animal in their backyard.

It startled the cows, intrigued the locals and excited scientists around the world. Fifty years on, the Murchison meteorite still defines a town and yields new discoveries every year.

The Off Track family is growing and we want you to know about it. Meet our little sister podcast - Noisy by Nature.

The masked lapwing terrifies humans with daring aerial attacks, which are actually displays of its pure parental love.

[RE-ISSUE] The phrase 'mate for life' might seem romantic, but the reality of such a relationship for the long-lived Australian Magpie involves turf wars, sex on the side and the possibility of a step-parent bringing up your kids if you get too aggro.

What can science do to preserve marine life and help it develop in harmony with our own human development? This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Lindsay Smith has been tagging seabirds in the deep waters off Wollongong for over thirty years. Commercial fishing practice can have a devastating impact on seabird populations. But science is figuring out how to best mitigate the damage. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Shark fishing holds a special place in Kiribati culture. But a growth in the market for shark fins in Asia changed the traditional fishing practice. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Few places on earth are as exposed to the ocean as Kiribati; a chain of 32 islands spread across 3.5 million square km in the East Pacific. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Sink into the sounds of Gough Island, where the Albatross gurgle, the petrels moan and the skuas chatter. No human voices, all Off Track soundscape.

Albatross expert Dr Jaimie Cleeland listens to the gurgles and bellows of albatross as they nest on a tiny Atlantic island called Gough.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are opening wheelie bins and turning trash into treasure.

St Peter Island in South Australia's Nuyts Archipelago is home to sea eagles, short-tailed shearwaters, stick-nest rats and brush-tailed bettongs – and also some particularly venomous black tiger snakes.

A magpie calls to the rising sun, a fat green frog sings in a water tank and an endangered lemur moans about its family. Ann Jones takes you and a bunch of experts on an ear-tour.