Two Locally Extinct Mammal Species Reintroduced to Sturt National Park

As part of an impactful partnership between NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the decade-long Wild Deserts project, two more ‘extinct’ mammal species have now been reintroduced to Sturt National Park in far western NSW.

The Wild Deserts project recently released 20 Western quolls and 20 Burrowing bettongs to Sturt National Park, following a breeding program at Taronga Western Plains Zoo and the Arid Recovery project in South Australia. This brings the total to 13 species of mammals previously listed as ‘extinct’ in NSW now reintroduced into this region, including the Golden bandicoot, bilby, and Brush-tailed bettong.

The Western quoll and Burrowing bettong species disappeared from NSW about a century ago. Many species have faced local extinction in this region due to the impact of feral cats and foxes, with feral cats alone killing up to 1.5 billion native animals per year.

Which conservation efforts are combatting the impact of feral cats?

The creation of a large feral cat-free area within Mallee Cliffs National Park and two feral-free areas within Sturt National Park has made the reintroduction of locally extinct species possible.

These feral-free areas can help grow the populations of these species, however the further challenge is preparing species for survival beyond the protected areas. The next step is introducing vulnerable species to a ‘Wild Training Zone’, which has a lower number of feral cats than the wider landscape.

‘It has been incredibly exciting to release 20 Western quolls and 100 bilbies into the Wild Training Zone area’, says Principal Wild Deserts Ecologist Dr Rebecca West.

‘Seeing their tracks in the red sand for the first time in around a century and radio tracking them daily to check their survival has been a thrill, especially as so far, they are surviving well in the training zone, where we are reducing feral cat numbers to low numbers.

‘The research at Sturt National Park is critical because it will help identify whether some threatened mammal species can survive with a low density of cats. This can help inform a long-term plan for the return of species in open landscapes’, Dr West said.

So far, earlier reintroductions have been successful, with wild populations more than tripling for species such as the bilby, Golden bandicoot and Brush-tailed bettong.

In order to combat the impact of feral cats on Australia’s wildlife, the Australian Government recently awarded a $2.1 million grant under its new $11.4 million Threat Innovations program for the development and trial of advanced AI wildlife camera monitoring and Felixers, a recently developed feral cat grooming trap. Some of this technology will be rolled out across Sturt National Park.

Images by DCCEEW