About the Author

Principal school teacher by day, environmentalist by night (and week-ends if time permits), Peter Preuss was a long-time friend of Des Hackett.

Des and Peter worked together on many environmental campaigns. This included exposing unsustainable aspects of the kangaroo industry; the cruelty involved in using the steel-jaw leg-hold dingo trap; and the extent to which non-target species are shot during duck shooting season.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they campaigned to draw public attention to the plight of the Leadbeater's Possum and to expose unsustainable practices in the local timber industry. Peter convinced Des Hackett to reveal the location of a massive Mountain Ash tree that housed a colony of this endangered species.

This tree, known as the Hackett Tree became a local tourist icon. It also became a meeting place for environmentalists and loggers to discuss their different points of view. Unfortunately, in 1991, the tree was severely burnt by vandals and the possums in it were killed.

Devastated by this event, together with the fact that zoos would not release LeadbeaterÕs Possum that he had been breeding for almost thirty years, Des Hackett died a few years later.

Des left a box of rough hand-written notes and photographs about his work with the Leadbeater's Possums to Peter Preuss. Bred To Be Wild was compiled by Peter Preuss using this material as a legacy to his friend.