A small marsupial species has been saved from near-extinction thanks to the ongoing work of a conservation group.
The brush-tailed bettong, which resembles a tiny kangaroo and similarly keeps its young in a pouch, once inhabited more than 60% of mainline Australia, according to CNN. But European colonization of the country in the 18th century brought predatory wild cats and foxes, as well as the widespread decimation of the animal’s woodland and grassland habitats.
The species’ population size dramatically shrank by 90% between 1999 and 2010, possibly caused by the spread of blood parasites and other factors, according to some research, per the outlet. Now, brush-tailed bettongs, also known as woylies, inhabit merely a few islands and isolated areas of Southwestern Australia, amounting to just 1% of its former range.
In 2019, the Northern and Yorke Landscape Board launched the Great Southern Ark project — later renamed the Marna Banggara in honor of the native Narungga people who helped spearhead the initiative — to restore the ecological diversity of Australia’s Yorke Peninsula.
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“We are on a mission, if you like, to bring back some of these native species that have gone missing in our landscape since European colonization,” project manager Derek Sandow told CNN of the group’s work.
The team began by installing a 25-kilometer perimeter fence across the narrow part of the peninsula to keep predators out and create a 150,000-hectare preserve for the first species to be brought back from extinction, the brush-tailed bettong, which the Narungga people call yalgiri.
From 2021 to 2023, the group introduced nearly 200 bettongs into the protected area, after individually sourcing them from various remaining populations in the country to help “increase the genetic pool,” Sandow told CNN.
“We’ve reduced fox and cat impacts to a level that’s low enough for these yalgiri to be reintroduced and for them to actually find refuges, find food and to survive themselves,” he said.
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Two brush-tailed bettongs
The species was the first to be reintroduced into the region because it fulfills an important role in the ecosystem. Since their main food source is fungi — along with insects, seeds and bulbs — the brush-tailed bettong must tunnel into the ground to find it.
“They’re nature’s little gardeners,” Sandow explained. “A single yalgiri can turn over two to six tons of soil per year.”
The animals’ digging aerates the soil, promotes water filtration and helps seedlings germinate, which in turn benefits other species.
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So far, the reintroduction program is likely “exceeding expectations,” Sandow told CNN.
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A brush-tailed bettong
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A recent monitoring survey found that 40% of the brush-tailed bettong subjects were descendants of those originally introduced in the protected area, and 22 of the 26 females were carrying offspring in their pouches — a clear indication that “they’re breeding and healthy,” Sandow said.
Garry Goldsmith, a member of the Narungga community who works on Marna Banggara, told CNN that what’s particularly important about the program is what can be learned from it. He said the team hopes to return other locally extinct species to the region over the next several years.
Sandow noted the ripple effect of the initiative on other industries including tourism. “It can benefit local businesses, it can benefit local agriculture, it can provide those conservation benefits,” he told CNN, explaining, “It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
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