Why do we celebrate a devastating pest every Easter around Australia?

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 23 seconds 4 m 23 s Renowned author and illustrator Kaye Kessing talks about the making of the Easter bilby. ( By Nathan Coates ) Download 4 MB

That is the question many farmers and pastoralists ask, as does Alice Springs author and illustrator Kaye Kessing.

Ms Kessing is the creator of the Easter bilby, an effort to replace the bunny...but the pitch has not received a great response of late.

The author, who lives close to bilby heartland in Australia's remote central and western deserts, started the movement in 1993.

"A group of pastoralists and scientists in South Australia, called Rabbit Free Australia, approached me," she said.

"I'd been doing posters and big visuals and they liked the style that I was using.

"They approached me to come up with a story and picture book called Easter bilby."

Ms Kessing said the book introduced the idea that Australians should have a bilby, instead of a bunny, doing the important job of distributing eggs at Easter time.

The Easter Bilby story

Bilby, Chuditch and Numbat are out in the desert, said Ms Kessing, and they hear an old rabbit crying.

Easter bunny is exhausted from getting eggs to all the humans around Australia and other rabbits refuse to help.

So Easter bilby offers to help and Flash rabbit, Easter bunny's grandson, decides he wants in so that he can show off.

Easter bunny wisely tasks Flash rabbit and Easter bilby with delivering a basket of Easter eggs each, to see how they go.

Bilby is good chap, a thoughtful character who delivers the Easter eggs evenly and fairly.

Kaye Kessing's Easter bilby is about replacing the bunny with an endangered native animal ( Supplied: Kaye Kessing )

He gives eggs to everyone, the smallest and the tallest, whilst also giving them the Easter message of hope and new life.

Meanwhile Flash rabbit has a party with all his mates and makes a big mess in the desert.

Bilby gets the job of delivering the chocolate and Easter bilby replaces Easter bunny.

The bilby: a threatened species

Experts say there are about 400 wild bilbies left in small pockets of Australia's central and western deserts.

Ms Kessing said feral cats were primarily to blame for bilby decline.

"As I understand, cats in the desert can hydrate themselves on bilby blood," she said.

"The need for feral control is growing but it's a very hard problem to overcome.

"Biological control would probably be the best bet but if that is going to happen it's a long way off."

Ms Kessing said familiarisation was very important.

"The more people that know about bilbies, quolls, numbats and other native animals, the better," she said.

"We all see cats but we don't see our precious little native animals."

Trackers used to protect the Bilby

Kiwirrkurra Traditional Owner Sally Napurula Butler visited the Bilbies at the Alice Springs Desert Park after a recent Bilby survey and cat hunting trip on the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area ( Supplied: Lisa Hatzimihail )

Rangers in the remote Aboriginal community of Kiwirrkurra are using trackers as part their Bilby protection work.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 2 minutes 54 seconds 2 m 54 s Kiwirrkurra project leader Kate Crossing talks about using Aboriginal trackers to protect the bilby. ( By Nathan Coates ) Download 1.3 MB

Project leader Kate Crossing works 1000 kilometres west of Alice Springs and just over the Western Australian border, in Kiwirrkurra.

Ms Crossing said senior community trackers "were able to point out an injured bilby, two different young bilbies, a couple of different females and one male."

Despite once eating bilbies, Ms Crossing said Aboriginal people now worked to protect them, also carrying out "patchy burns to bring up fresh green pick and seeds that bilbies like to eat."

They are also hunting feral cats for bush tucker.

The Kiwirrkurra rangers are working with scientists and drones to better understand and protect bilbies.

Ms Crossing said 140 bush rangers and scientists would converge on Kiwirrkurra, in June, to share Bilby protection knowledge.