A feisty little marsupial is bouncing back in a national park in South Australia thanks to a successful reintroduction program.
According to a press release by the South Australian government, 30 red-tailed phascogales were born in the wild this year. The births occurred after a hundred phascogales were released in the Gawler Ranges over the past year, with more planned for the coming months.
National Parks and Wildlife Service reintroduction ecologist Tali Moyle hailed the program's promising beginning: "It is heartening to see red-tailed phascogales in the Gawler Ranges, while the birth of the marsupials into the wild for the first time is promising for their future prospects."
The red-tailed phascogale was once widely dispersed throughout the woodlands of South and Western Australia. Unfortunately, as the Australian Wildlife Conservancy notes, habitat loss and predation by foxes and feral cats caused their numbers to plummet to the point where they disappeared entirely from the wild in South Australia.
The red-tailed phascogale is an incredibly agile little critter, only about 10 centimeters and weighing the equivalent of a chicken egg, they can leap an astonishing two meters between tree canopies.
Males have a much shorter lifespan than females; the exertions of the mating season are too much for them to handle, and every year, they all die off about a month after the season ends, regardless of success.
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Returning red-tailed phascogales to the area could fill the ecological gap their absence created in the first place.
As the Foundation for Australia's Most Endangered Species explains, this phenomenon is called a trophic cascade. The red-tailed phascogale feasts on insects and small vertebrates that larger carnivorous marsupials, such as the western quoll, overlook.
Reviving a lost species is a challenging endeavor, as it invariably means confronting the issues that led to its extinction in the first place. However, there have been many successful reintroduction projects worldwide that offer hope that the phascogale's comeback in South Australia will be permanent.
Above all, nature is resilient and will thrive if given half a chance. One of the best ways to support your local ecosystem is to create a thriving habitat for native fauna in your own backyard.
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