Numbats fitted with radio collars released into the wild

Posted November 27, 2015 15:51:04

Fifteen numbats have been fitted with radio-tracking collars at Perth Zoo ahead of their release into the wild.

The endangered mammals were almost extinct in the wild, with a small population surviving in Dryandra Woodland near Narrogin in WA's Great Southern region.

Even now, wild populations have dropped to as low as 1,000.

Dr Tony Friend, principal research scientist with the Department of Parks and Wildlife, said the drop was because of predation by feral cats and foxes.

"The population needs to be boosted to get it above the level where predation is going to have an extinction effect," he said.

"The Dryandra population is the most genetically important population we have - all our recovery work has been done from that population.

"We've set up six other population in Western Australia from the Dryandra animals."

The animals will be released into hollow logs so they have time to move out into the bush when they are settled in.

Dr Friend said survival rates of released numbats had been surprisingly good.

"We recapture them after a few months and weigh them, and check their condition and breeding status," he said.

The transmitters fit like a collar around the numbat's neck and give out a radio signal that can then be traced for about a year.

Hands-off approach

Danni Jose is the senior keeper at the native species breeding program at Perth Zoo and has been a part of the program to specially rear the animals so they are ready for release into the wild.

"We have to be very conscious of not handling them too much, not spending too much time around them, we want them to maintain as much natural behaviour as possible and obviously to be predator-aware and keep their foraging skills up," she said.

"We do lots of behavioural enrichment with them and take a very general hands-off approach with them as much as we can."

The animals about to be released are being fed termites, which are specially collected from areas around Perth.

"This year we had more females born so we're releasing eight young females and two males and we're also releasing some adults as well, which have bred quite a lot here at the zoo, so we're making space for more new breeding animals," Ms Jose said.

The major problem for the future of numbats is the threat of feral cats.

"It's an ongoing problem, we can remove them from an area by baiting but they're constantly moving back in, so that's something we need to continue," Dr Friend said.

Recently, the department started to use Eridicat, a 1080-based poison that targets feral cats as well as foxes.

Dr Friend has been involved with the numbat program for 35 years and has seen the population grow, dip and then grow again.

He expects the new baiting program will help the numbat population grow once again.

Topics: endangered-and-protected-species, animals, dryandra-6311, perth-6000