Dr David Hamilton, Dr Rowena Hamer, Morrigan Guinane, Erin Thomas, Sophia Jackson and Professor Menna Jones
This World Wildlife Day (3 March 2025), we‘re celebrating a wildlife win that has been multiple years in the making, involved multiple committed partners and has a focus on quoll-ity conservation outcomes.
That unquantifiable quollity comes in the form of the eastern quoll – a marsupial carnivore that went extinct in the wild on mainland Australia more than 50 years ago, but has been hanging on in Tasmania since. Unfortunately, since the turn of the century numbers of eastern quolls in Tasmania have been falling too. While the species has rebounded well in some areas, in others the quolls have disappeared entirely, or are barely hanging on by a thread.
Partnering to boost quoll populations
A partnership forged by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant, and also supported via the Elsie Cameron Foundation and the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes Hub, is looking to change that picture, and boost the long-term prospects of eastern quolls both in Tasmania and on mainland Australia.
Together, the University of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy and WWF Australia, with the support of the Tasmanian Quoll Conservation Program, have been investigating the drivers of quoll decline in Tasmania. Networks of cameras and a series of targeted surveys have allowed us to paint a picture of what the landscape might look like to an eastern quoll in terms of potential threats, possible prey and overall habitat structure.
The presence, or lack of, of eastern quolls in the landscape appears to be driven by a variety of factors. For example, there was a negative association between the presence of quolls and the relative occurrence of feral cats, with more cats meaning few or no quolls. In terms of habitat, eastern quolls enjoy ecotones (where open habitat transitions to more closed areas, like forests), which offer the possibility of both food and refuge.
Enabling conservation work
This information has allowed us to pursue some important conservation work – actively doing something about these declines by supplementing flagging quoll populations in areas with minimal ongoing potential threats. This required an enthusiastic, conservation-committed landholder, in the form of The Quoin – a 5,000-hectare private property in the heart of the Midlands, dedicated to innovative approaches to regeneration.
The key ingredient of quolls was also critical! These were bred as part of the captive-breeding program by four partner sanctuaries – Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, Devils@Cradle, East Coast Natureworld and Trowunna Wildlife Sanctuary. Together they form part of the Tasmanian Quoll Conservation Program, which is doing important work to help support and safeguard this species, and their cousin the spotted-tailed quoll, in the wild.
With a committed landholder, an area which we understood well in terms of its suitability for eastern quolls, and a ready source of quolls, we had everything we needed for a successful conservation translocation.
A new home for this endangered species
In early February, 24 eastern quolls were given thorough health checks, before being released into their new home at The Quoin. The ecosystem here is perfect eastern quoll habitat, with open grasslands full of potential prey, bordered by forested areas containing lots of readily available denning sites, in addition to low numbers of introduced predators.
The eastern quolls are being carefully monitored via live-trapping, tracking and remote cameras in their new home. This allows us to keep track of their health and welfare, as well as their movements and habitat use as they adjust to their new environment. The information we collect will help us to understand which features of the environment are critical for eastern quolls to survive in the wild, as well as to improve our methods for future supplementations. For example, in this release we trialled releasing some eastern quolls alongside their siblings, but these seem to have had little interest in spending time together in their new surrounds – possibly glad of the release from some familial tension in close quarters…
Over the coming years, this project will look to conduct up to five further translocations to help bolster eastern quolls in the wild at different sites around the state, while also providing valuable information about how we can help bring this species back to the wild on mainland Australia.
If you’d like to support the conservation of endangered eastern quolls and other threatened species in Tasmania, there are many ways you can make a contribution.
- Roadkill deaths remain a major problem for eastern quolls in many parts of the state, so remember to drive sensibly and safely after the sun has gone down, to help protect all of our native wildlife.
- Help us process our camera data of quolls at The Quoin: We have a large amount of camera data coming in on this project, and much of it still has to be tagged by human observers. We're at a crucial point where AI can do a good job at scanning for animals initially, but can still often miss well-camouflaged animals, including eastern quolls. Email the team to let us know if you’re interested in helping with this: David at d.g.hamilton@utas.edu.au or Rowena at rowena.hamer@utas.edu.au
- You can help support research into some of the world’s most unique and iconic species, including eastern quolls, by contributing to the University of Tasmania’s campaign to save our threatened species.
Thanks to all our partners and funders, in addition to the students, staff and enthusiastic volunteers who make this conservation work possible.