BANDICOOTS BOUNCE BACK
The eastern barred bandicoot is rescued from extinction in Victoria.
IT’S AN EXTRAORDINARY conservation success story – particularly for a country with the worst rate of modern-day mammal extinctions. A three-decade battle to bring the eastern barred bandicoot back from beyond the brink in Victoria has been won, with the state’s official conservation status for the marsupial being reclassified from extinct in the wild to endangered.
Once common across Victoria, populations of the rabbit-sized bandicoot have been decimated by foxes and feral cats. It’s a loss that’s been exacerbated by the destruction of bandicoot habitat due to urban sprawl and agriculture.
In 1989, as the species’ number in the wild fell to below 150, efforts to rescue it from extinction were stepped up with the formation of the Eastern Barred Bandicoot Recovery Team. This multi-agency group, charged with rescuing the bandicoot and securing its future, brought together government and private conservation organisations, including Conservation Volunteers Australia, Zoos Victoria and the state Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
By 2005, with no more than 200 bandicoots still surviving in the wild, a number of captive-bred animals were translocated to predator-proof fenced sites, with some small success. But the biggest breakthrough in the fight to save the bandicoot from extinction came with the release of individuals onto the fox-free havens of Churchill and Phillip islands in southern Victoria’s Western Port. Both are managed by conservation organisation Phillip Island Nature Parks, which was part of the species recovery team for the bandicoot. Decades of integrated fox eradication programs on these islands paved the way for an initial population of about 160 bandicoots to thrive and grow into a current estimated wild population of more than 600.
The two islands are now providing animals for further wild releases of the species and the change in conservation status for the bandicoot means the captive breeding program can now be closed down.