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The brush-tailed bettong looks like a small kangaroo and, similarly, has a pouch where it keeps its young. But don’t be fooled, this little marsupial is not as cute as it looks. When threatened by a predator, the beet will pull its little joey out of its pouch and jump to another to avoid being caught.
Giving up your baby may seem cruel, but it is an important survival strategy for animals that were, until recently, extinct on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula.
Brush-tailed bettongs (also known as woylies) once occupied more than 60 percent of mainland Australia. However, the conquest of this country by Europe brought cats and foxes, and the destruction of many of the grasslands and forests of this animal.
Between 1999 and 2010, the species’ population declined by 90% – a drastic decline that some research suggests may be the result of the spread of bloodworms, along with other factors. Today, the brush-tailed beet is restricted to a few islands and isolated pockets of mainland South-West Australia: just 1% of its former range.
Marna Banggara
“We are on a mission, if you like, to bring back some of these natural species that have been lost in our area since the formation of European colonies,” said Derek Sandow, project manager of Marna Banggara, an initiative dedicated to restoring some of the Yorke. A history of the Peninsula’s biodiversity.
Formerly known as the “Great Ship of the South,” the project, launched in 2019 by the Northern and Yorke Landscape Board, was renamed to honor the Narungga indigenous people of the region, who have been heavily involved in the project.
“Marna in our language means good, prosperous, healthy, while Banggara means country,” said Garry Goldsmith, a member of the Narungga community who is working on the project.
Bets jump as it is released on Yorke Peninsula. – WWF-Australia / Juansimage.com
The team first built a 25-kilometer predator control fence on the narrow strip of York Peninsula to create a 150,000-hectare sanctuary for the return of the first species: the brush-tailed bettong, known as yalgiri to the Narungga people. . “We have reduced the impact of foxes and cats to a low enough level that these yalgiris can be re-introduced so that they can find shelters, find food, and live on their own,” said Sandow.
Between 2021 and 2023, the team introduced approximately 200 brush-tailed bettongs into the protected area. Finding these people from the various remnants across Western Australia helped “multiply the genetic makeup,” Goldsmith said.
Sandow adds that increasing species diversity is important since these people “hold the genetic basis for the future of the species here.”
Ecosystem Engineers
Brush-tailed bettongs eat bulbs, seeds and insects, but their main source of food is fungi that grow underground; to get it, they must catch it. “They are small organic farmers,” said Sandow, “one yalgiri can turn two to six tons of soil a year.”
That is why they are the first species to be brought back to the region, he said. All of this digging aerates the soil, improves water filtration and helps seedlings to germinate – benefiting other animals that depend on the ecosystem.
So far, the reintroduction program has “probably exceeded expectations,” Sandow said. About 40% of the people taken in the recent monitoring study were descendants of those introduced in the area and 22 of the 26 women were carrying small bags. This means that they are “reproductive and healthy,” he says.
Marna Banggara’s team transporting the bet by air for re-installation. – WWF-Australia / Juansimage.com
“The most important part of this is learning this program,” Goldsmith said. If all goes to plan, the team hopes to reintroduce other extinct species to the area in the next few years, including other mammals such as the southern brown bandicoot, red-tailed phascogale and western quoll.
Sandow emphasizes that improving the region’s ecosystem through species restoration and predator control can have positive effects on industries such as tourism. “It can benefit local businesses, it can benefit local agriculture, it can provide those environmental conservation benefits,” he said. “There is no need to divide.”
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