Designated national parks will be fenced off and feral animals exterminated to allow Bilbys, Numbats, and Western Barred Bandicoots to flourish

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Australian native mammals not seen in New South Wales for over 100 years will be reintroduced to the wild as part of a new program.

Designated national parks in the state will be fenced off and feral fox and cat populations exterminated to allow reintroduced native mammals, such as the Bilby, Numbat, and Western Barred Bandicoot, to flourish.

The state’s environment minister, Mark Speakman, announced the $3m program on Friday, which will be run in partnership with Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) and the Wildlife Restoration and Management Partnership led by the University of NSW.

Speakman said it was the largest reintroduction program attempted by any government in Australia. “We are determined to halt the decline in our native species, and this project will go some way towards rectifying the species loss in NSW since European settlement.”

AWC director Tim Flannery called the project “one of the greatest mammal conservation initiatives ever undertaken in Australia”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tim Flannery: ‘One of the greatest mammal conservation initiatives ever undertaken in Australia.’ Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian

Australia has the world’s worst mammal extinction rate, with 29 land mammals having become extinct over the last 200 years and over 50 facing extinction.

Many small-to-medium sized mammals whose numbers are in serious decline can only be found in small pockets of the country or on offshore islands.

AWC chief executive Atticus Fleming called the Australian landscape a “marsupial ghost town” and said it was no longer enough to simply try to protect these tiny populations. Instead it was time to “turn back the tide of extinction”.

“Species like Bilbies and Numbats, they are iconic animals most school kids would know of but haven’t seen in a national park for 100 years. The animals that are the very essence of Australian bush identity have disappeared.”

Fleming said in the cases of the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby and Western Barred Bandicoot they plan to double population numbers, and in six other species see a 15-100% increase.

There are only 2,500 remaining Bridled Nailtail Wallabies and 3,000 Western Barred Bandicoots in the wild.

“If you look forward in five or six years time, the NSW government will be able to take 10 animals off the extinction list. I don’t think any other jurisdiction in the world has done that.”

One of the two projects by the AWC will be 10,000 hectares – much larger than the average 8,000 hectares of a national park. A fence to be erected will keep larger animals out and serve as a fox and cat-free zone.

Fleming said the introduction of feral cats has had a devastating impact on Australia’s native mammals, killing “tens of millions of animals” each night.

“There are four to twenty million feral cats in the country and certainly all of the studies show they’re eating at least five animals a night,” Fleming said.

The zones will be located in western NSW, which historical studies indicate were once home to the species being reintroduced.

The foxes and cats will be killed using soft jaw traps, baiting and shootings, after which the native mammals, to be taken from AWC reserves and Queensland national parks, will be reintroduced.

“The good news is, once these animals are in feral cat and fox free areas, they will breed like rabbits,” Fleming said.

The positive spillover effect from the reintroduced animals include improved land productivity, Fleming said. For example the Brush-tailed Bettong digs the earth, shifting five to seven tonnes of soil each year.

Fleming said such animals are called ecosystem engineers. “Restoring these small animals restores that ecosystem process, which will benefit land productivity and help a whole range of other species.”



Mike Letnic, an environmental scientist at the University of New South Wales, said the project will also restore lost predators such as the Western Quoll, which maintain the balance of nature.

“If you don’t have any predators, herbivores can get out of control and graze too much. This begins to damage the soil and habitat for other animals,” Letnic said.

The projects will launch later this year with the reintroduction of species to follow in 2018.

Once in operation, Fleming likened these zones to “stepping back in time ... to the Australia as it was 200 years ago before the arrival of feral animals. When the sun sets, the bush comes alive with small animals.”



He added it was important pet owners have their cat desexed and keep their animal inside at night. “And for your next pet choose a dog,” he said.