SAVE THE EASTER BILBY!
EXPERTS SAY THE ENDANGERED MARSUPIAL SHOULD BE CELEBRATED THIS FESTIVE PERIOD
When Kat Castles moved to outback Queensland to work as a graduate vet, she never imagined she’d end up becoming the local matchmaker as well.
But the mother of three says she did not think twice about volunteering for the coveted role the moment she laid eyes on rural town Charleville’s celebrity residents – the greater bilbies.
As manager of the Save the Bilby Fund breeding program, Kat spends her spare time finding perfect love matches for the adorable endangered native animals. But it is not as simple as just placing a cute pair in a pen and waiting for the magic to happen – the bilbies are often flown across the country to go on blind dates with one another to find their perfect partner.
“We can’t just look at two animals and say, ‘Oh, those are super cute, they’ll make cute babies,’” Kat, 39, says. “This is a finely tuned program that ensures only animals who genetically complement one another are paired together. This may mean bilbies from other institutions, zoos or sanctuaries need to travel to us or we can coordinate the Charleville bibles to travel elsewhere, usually by plane, to meet their ideal partner.” The Save the Bilby Fund was formed more than 20 years ago to educate people about the bilby and its plight after being brought to the brink of extinction through predation by feral cats and foxes.
The fund, which survives solely off donations, runs a breeding program at the Charleville facility and a predator-free national park at Currawinya, in south-west Queensland.
Initially joining the fund in 2016 as a tour guide, Kat was quickly promoted to breeding manager and was thrilled when her first-born babies were triplets.
She has since procreated more than 50 bouncing bubs, all with their own unique names and personalities ranging from Tonka, who is the maternal type, to cuddly newborn Dr Scott.
The fund aims to grow the community of free-living bilbies at their sanctuary to 400 and a population of 10,000 bilbies across Australia by 2030.
“If all goes well with the blind dates, it takes two weeks of pregnancy before a tiny jelly bean bilby baby is born and makes their way to mum’s pouch,” Kat explains.
“There, they develop over 80 days and emerge a mini version of their parents.
“They then spend time in our breeding and creche enclosures at Charleville, which acts as a type of bilby boot camp. This gives them time to adjust to the environmental conditions, including the hot temperatures we have here, and perfect their burrowing and foraging skills in time for release into our bilby sanctuary.”
Not only does the fund rely on the generosity of donations, but the local community also backs them from the local travel agency getting the bilbies on flights to food and insect deliveries.
‘THE BILBY IS A SYMBOL OF HOPE AND LIFE’
And the bilby hasn’t given up the battle to become Australia’s exclusive Easter mascot. Chocolate bilbies are now available in supermarkets for the first time in four years, after a Save the Bilby Fund petition, ‘Bilbies not Bunnies!’, attracted 30,000 signatures and thousands of emails demanding the return of the Aussie battler.
“Bunnies, while almost as cute as bilbies, are a non-native feral pest and it just doesn’t seem right for Australia to be visited by the Easter bunny when the bilby is a symbol of hope and life,” she says. “We want Australians to celebrate a unique native species, which deserves our attention much more than a bunny.”
•For more information, visit savethebilbyfund. org.au