BABY BILBY BREEDS HOPE FOR RECOVERY OF A SPECIES
A BABY bilby born this year at a Sydney zoo will be the first animal to take part in their new breeding program on-site for endangered species.
The yet-to-be-named female bilby, who weighs just 440g, is being bred for wild release as part of a joint conservation program between Wild Life Zoo and Featherdale Wildlife Park.
Will Meikle, curator at Wild Life Sydney Zoo, who has been helping take care of the four-month-old, said these breeding programs would give the species hope for survival.
“We have a group of one young male and two adult female bilbies but this is the first offspring we have had in this group and the little bilby is very much like the adults only much smaller, about half of the size of the adults,” said Mr Meikle. “By the time she is due to be released we hope she can go to some predatory exclusion zone where there are a number of reserves created to exclude any of her predators like cats and foxes around western NSW or southwest Queensland.”