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It looks like a small kangaroo and is coming back from extinction

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The brush-tailed bettong looks like a small kangaroo and, in the same way, it has a pouch in which it keeps small. But don’t be fooled, this little marsupial isn’t as mindless as it looks. When threatened by an attacker, the Bettong will pull its little Joey out of its bag and strike a different spot to get picked up.

Sacrificing one’s own attacker may seem cruel, but an important strategy for the survival of the species, until recently, was ending in the South Australian Peninsula.

Long-tailed bettongs (also known as woylies) occupy more than 60% of mainland Australia. However, the European colonization of the country brought with it cats and human foxes, as well as the destruction of many areas of native grass and wood.

Between 1999 and 2010, the size of the population of 209, the size of the population of 90% decreased by 90% – a significant decrease that indicates that there may be another spread of blood traits, as well as other things. Today, the Book-Tailed Bettong is limited to a few islands and different pockets in South-Australian Australia: 1% of its former range.

Marna Banggara

“We are in a position, if you like, to bring back some of these traditional species that have been lost in our place of events since,” said Derek Sandow, project manager of Marna Banggara, an initiative dedicated to bringing back some of the Yorke Peninsula’s historical biodiversity.

Previously known as “the great ship of the south,” established in 2019 by the Northern York Landscape Board, it was renamed to honor the Narungga people of Narungga, who are very involved in this project.

“Marna in our language means good, prosperous, healthy, and Banggarmith, a member of the Narngga community, is working on this project.

Bettong drove as it was taken off the Yorke peninsula. – WWF-Australia / Juanskuvage.com

The group began to erect a 25-kilometer fence across a small part of the Yorke peninsula to create a 150,000-hectare safe haven for the first species to be restored: the Brush-Tailed Bettong, known as YALGIRI to the people of Narngga. “We’ve reduced the fox and cat impacts to a low enough level that these yalgiri can regenerate and find food, find food,” Sandow said.

Between 2021 and 2023, the group imported nearly 200 bettongs into the protected area. Finding these people from the remaining populations in western Australia helped to ‘increase the gene pool,’ said Goldsmith.

Sandow adds that strengthening species diversity is important because these people “are the genetic footprint for the future of the species here.”

Ecosystem Engineers

Brush-tailed bettongs eat bulbs, seeds and insects, but their food source is fungi that grow underground; To get it, you have to catch it. “They are small organic farmers,” said Sandow, “one Yalgiri can turn two to six tons of soil a year.”

That is why they are the first species to be reproduced in the region, he said. All of this digging mixes with the soil, improves water filtration and helps plants thrive – helping other animals that depend on the environment.

So far, the revitalization program has “almost exceeded expectations,” Sandow said. About 40% of people caught in a recent surveillance survey were descendants of those who originally came from that area and 22 out of 26 were carrying a meat bag. This means they are “reproductive and healthy,” she said.

The Marna Banggara team transports the bettongs by plane for regeneration. - WWF-Australia / Juanskuvage.com

The Marna Banggara team transports the bettongs by plane for regeneration. – WWF-Australia / Juanskuvage.com

Goldsmith says: “A really important part of this is learning in the process. If everything goes according to plan, the group hopes to bring back other species above the area in the region in the next few years, including other marsupials such as the southern bandicoot, the red phascogale and the western bandicoot.

Sandow insists that improving the region’s ecosystem through wildlife and deer control can also have positive knock-on effects on sectors such as tourism. “It can help local businesses, it can benefit local agriculture, it can provide those conservation benefits,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be special.”

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