Success

Monitoring is showing animals once on the brink of extinction in WA are returning and breeding in their natural habitats as a result of fox-baiting.

Since Western Shield began in 1996, the Department has carried out more than 60 translocations of 16 animal species.

The species are the chuditch, dibbler, numbat, bilby, quenda, western barred bandicoot, woylie, mala, tammar wallaby, western ringtail possum, Shark Bay mouse, Thevenard Island mouse, noisy scrub-bird, western bristlebird, malleefowl and western swamp tortoise.

They've been relocated in areas ranging from the cool south-west to the warmer Kalbarri National Park, Shark Bay and the Montebello Islands.

The Department is working to increase the baited areas to include arid areas where predation by feral cats is a significant native wildlife threat.

Baiting has been so effective that translocations of between 20 and 40 animals result in the successful establishment of new populations.

WA is the only area in the world where three mammals — the tammar wallaby, the quenda and the woylie — have been taken off the endangered fauna list because of scientific management action.

The small hopping marsupial, the woylie has been relocated to more than 30 places. Just 10 years ago there were three surviving populations. Long-term success is happening at Dryandra Woodland, Tutanning Nature Reserve, Boyagin Nature Reserve and the southwest forest areas.

The bilby, which underwent a massive decline in its natural range in the last century, was returned to the Dryandra forest as part of a breeding program. Wild populations of chuditch have been re-established in several areas after being restricted to south-west forests and the southern Wheatbelt during the 1970s.

Western Barred Bandicoots — extinct in the wild on the mainland Ë have been translocated to field breeding enclosures within Dryandra Woodland, the first time in more than 90 years the bandicoot had existed in the south-west. This marsupial survives naturally on Bernier and Dorre Islands in the World Heritage Listed Shark Bay area. When you consider the last mainland sighting was at Rawlinna on the Nullarbor in 1929, the success of Western Shield is more than apparent.

Some earlier translocations have been astoundingly successful such as the reintroduction of quenda to the Dongolocking Nature Reserve in the Wheatbelt. Within three years, farmers on surrounding properties were regularly seeing quenda in their paddocks. Woylies are now the most abundant medium-sized mammal in Batalling forest block as a result of their reintroduction in the early 1980s and 10 years of fox baiting.

Some areas have been the target for translocations of several species due to their size and location. Five species have been reintroduced to Julimar State Forest north-east of Perth and six species have been reintroduced to privately-owned Karakamia Sanctuary in the Perth Hills.