Release of woylies in northern jarrah forest

27/1/95

Populations of an endangered native animal will be re-established in the northern jarrah forest this week when a group of woylies is released south-east of Dwellingup.

Environment Minister Kevin Minson said today the reintroduction of the woylies marked the beginning of an extensive program as part of the Department of Conservation and Land Management's major fox control program, Operation Foxglove.

"This initiative, covering 500,000 hectares of forest between Bindoon and Collie, is the most extensive endangered native animal recovery program ever undertaken in Australia," Mr Minson said.

"The fact that the program is now at a stage where researchers can re-introduce species such as woylies into areas from which they have become locally extinct is a tremendous step towards maintaining the State's natural ecosystems and their biological diversity."

Mr Minson said 80 woylies would be released into George and Taree forest blocks and nearby private forest.  The blocks are baited between four and six times a year with dried meat baits containing the naturally-occurring poison, 1080. Baits are dropped at a rate of five per square metre.

The woylie (Bettongia penicillata) - also known as the brush-tailed bettong - is a small rat-kangaroo which was once widespread across southern Australia.  Its range extended from Shark Bay, across southern South Australia and up into central western New South Wales.

It is now extinct throughout most of its former range except for isolated wild populations at Dryandra and Tutanning in the western wheatbelt and Perup east of Manjimup.  Populations have been re-established at Batalling east of Collie and Boyagin near Brookton.

"The animal is listed as endangered but work by CALM through the implementation of a recovery plan is proving so successful that researchers believe the animal's status could be changed within two years," Mr Minson said.

"The woylies being translocated have been gathered from Dryandra where the population totals 6,000 and is thriving following extensive fox baiting as part of a recovery plan for the State's fauna emblem, the numbat."

CALM researchers will measure each of the animals and record data before they are released.  Several of them will have radio collars fitted so they can be tracked for further research.

Mr Minson said the translocation would not only enable woylies to re-establish within the northern jarrah forest, it was also part of a research program involving the national Co-operative Research Centre for Vertebrate Bio-Control.  This research is looking at the response of native fauna to different levels of fox control.

CALM has been monitoring existing native fauna in the blocks such as brush tail possums, chuditch and quenda - also known as southern brown bandicoots - as well as fox populations.

This monitoring work will be extended to include the woylies.  CALM will use the results to determine the level of fox density reduction needed to enable native fauna populations to increase abundantly.

Operation Foxglove and the woylie translocation and monitoring is being funded by CALM, Alcoa of Australia, the Australia Nature Conservation Agency and CRC.

Mr Minson said CALM was planning to translocate woylies into the Julimar conservation park near Bindoon where fox baiting had been undertaken for several years.  Already populations of chuditch and brushtail possums have been successfully re-established in the park.

CALM will also release more tammar wallabies into Batalling.

Media contact: Caroline Lacy  321 2222 or 222 9595 or  Nigel Higgs, CALM 389 8644.