When Rose-Marie Dusting née Ecenarro was growing up in the western Queensland town of Richmond, she would frequently run into the bush to play, explore and build cubby houses.
One March night in 1968, when a nine-year-old Rose-Marie had run away in tears after getting in trouble at home, she experienced a surreal encounter that set her on a course of animal conservation.
“This little bilby came up, a baby bilby, it was limping, and it came up and snuggled into me underneath my arm,” Rose-Marie recounted.
“I couldn’t believe it because they’re wild animals.
“I picked him up and looked at him, kissed him on his long snout and I said, ‘You look like a bunny rabbit, so I’m going to call you Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby.’”
The encounter inspired Rose-Marie to write about Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby, and his best friend Bob the Kangaroo, for a school essay for which she received an A+.
“The teacher who taught me, I had the same teacher for seven years, she kept the story because she thought, ‘That girl is going to be a famous author one day,’” she said.
Rose-Marie moved to Mackay years later as a 12-year-old before moving to Adelaide to pursue nursing.
It was in 1979 while living in Adelaide that she self-published Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby, a book that would cement the bilby as Australia’s alternative to the Easter bunny worldwide while crowning Rose-Marie as the “bilby lady”.
“I was told nobody knows what a bilby is and since then, I’ve been educating the public about the bilby,” Rose-Marie said.
“I’ve had so many people come up and say to me, ‘We grew up with Billy Bilby and we want to teach our kids the same thing.’”
Rose-Marie’s characters have become mascots for animal conservation.
Her name and characters were used for the Save the Bilby Fund, and she is continuing to work with Australia Walkabout Wildlife Park and Taronga Zoo, while chocolate Easter bilbies can be found lining the supermarket aisles.
“That says to me that the bilby hasn’t died and it’s coming back,” Rose-Marie said.
Now in her 80s, Rose-Marie is rewriting the original Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby, due for release next easter, and has been working on a swag of other characters to bring attention to Australia’s growing list of endangered and extinct species.
“I just love animals, especially Australian species,” she said.
“They’re so unique and we’re so blessed to have them.
“We need to take action now.”
She’s hoping Paddles the Playful Platypus will deliver that message while putting Mackay on the map.
“What I want for Mackay is to use Paddles the Playful Platypus, it would put Mackay on the world market,” she said.
“He’s a good friend of Billy Bilby’s so it’d be a perfect platform for Mackay.
“I want to use my God-given talent and gift to save endangered species and to write books for children, not just about our wildlife, but about kindness and bullying.”
Rose-Marie has been hard at work over the last few years, creating hundreds of books and characters, and she is looking for local illustrators to get involved.
“I’m looking for a couple of illustrators and I’d like to give the people of Mackay a chance to be able to illustrate the new books,” she said.
Anyone interested is asked to contact Rose-Marie at radusting@outlook.com.
With the support of her husband Anthony, her two children Chloe and Samuel and her three grandchildren Levi, Gatlin and Henry, Rose-Marie Dusting’s mission is far from over.
Rose-Marie Dusting (middle) holding Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby at Australia Walkabout Wildlife Park, New South Wales. Photo supplied
Billy The Aussie Easter Bilby became a much-loved children’s book character
The ‘bilby lady’ encourages everyone to celebrate the endangered bilbies instead of bunnies at Easter
