New hope for the Eastern barred bandicoot Perameles gunnii after 27 years of recovery effort

Abstract

The Eastern barred bandicoot Perameles gunnii (mainland unnamed subspecies) is classified as ‘extinct in the wild’ and has been the focus of a 27 year captive‐breeding and recovery programme. To date, the programme has successfully prevented the complete loss of this species, through the use of captive insurance populations and predator‐barrier fences, but has not yet delivered recovery in the wild. The key threats to this bandicoot are habitat loss and introduced predators; both difficult to mitigate. An active multi‐agency Recovery Team operates to conserve the Eastern barred bandicoot, manage recovery actions, and promote awareness and advocacy. The captive‐breeding programme has produced 920 offspring, 551 of which have been released to free‐ranging sites. Despite a slight but steady decline in genetic diversity over the duration of the programme, there does not appear to have been a significant loss of genetic fitness in the population, based on breeding rates, litter size and longevity. Animals have been released at a total of nine sites, with Eastern barred bandicoots currently present and breeding at four fox‐free locations. An ambitious plan is under way to more than double the current population to over 2500 individuals across several large self‐sustaining populations. This plan includes assisted colonization to fox‐free islands outside the natural range of the bandicoot and trialling the use of guardian dogs to protect unfenced, free‐ranging populations. Implementation of this Recovery Plan over the next 4 years will involve an array of conservation partners, and aims to down list the conservation status of the species and secure its future in the wild.

Editorial: The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations

“…This volume of the International Zoo Yearbook focuses on the roles that zoos and aquariums have in re‐establishing or reinforcing populations in the wild, and provides examples of reintroductions using wild (Astore et al ., ; Bird et al ., ; Daltry et al ., ; Ettling et al ., ; Nightingale et al ., ; Parrott et al ., ) or captive populations (Astore et al ., ; Bird et al ., ; Fritz et al ., ; Hogg et al ., ; Mawson & Lambert, ; Nightingale et al ., ; Parrott et al ., ; Woodfine et al ., ), reinforcements using captive populations (Bird et al ., ; Ettling et al ., ) and assisted colonizations (Gardiner et al ., ; Fraser et al ., ). The papers in this volume cover a range of animal and plant taxa, and present species‐specific reintroduction case studies that highlight particular challenges, such as biosecurity and disease management (Hogg et al ., ; Nightingale et al ., ; Woodfine et al ., ), the impact of invasive species (Daltry et al ., ; Nightingale et al ., ) and introduced predators (Parrott et al ., ) on native biodiversity, as well as broader review articles on the role that zoos and aquariums have in reintroductions and reinforcements (Fraser et al ., ; Gilbert et al ., ), and many of the articles describe the processes associated with conservation translocations. Overall, the papers highlight many of the challenges faced by conservation‐translocation practitioners, and provide a guide for zoos and aquariums seeking to participate in reintroductions and other conservation translocations.…”

“…Zoos and aquariums have considerable experience in managing a variety of taxa resulting in them being well placed to contribute to a wide range of conservationtranslocation projects. The papers in this volume exemplify how zoos and aquariums can participate in such projects for birds (Astore et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Fritz et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), mammals (Hogg et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017), reptiles (Daltry et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), amphibians (Ettling et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), terrestrial invertebrates (Gardiner et al, 2017), aquatic invertebrates (Nightingale et al, 2017) and plants (Bird et al, 2017). This volume does not contain any case studies of conservation-translocation projects for fish, and although zoos and aquariums have certainly been involved in re-establishing fish populations in the wild (e.g.…”

“…All of the conservation-translocation papers in this volume describe projects that are the result of partnerships between zoos, governmental agencies and statutory bodies, universities, non-government organizations, charitable trusts, landowners and other stakeholders. Some of these partnerships are formalized; for example, the White-clawed crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes population-enhancement programmes in south-west England have taken place under the South West Crayfish Partnership, a group of UKbased conservation organizations (Nightingale et al, 2017), and the 27 year captivebreeding and recovery programme for the Eastern barred bandicoot Perameles gunnii was instigated under a multi-agency recovery team that operates to conserve the species, manage recovery actions, and promote awareness and advocacy (Parrott et al, 2017). Others may have partnerships at their core but under less formalized arrangements: most of the breed-for-release programmes for amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals at Perth Zoo are run in collaboration with key partners (Mawson & Lambert, 2017).…”

The ecological effects of livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) on target and non-target wildlife

“…LGDs are bonded to livestock from an early age then accompany the livestock as they roam, protecting them from predators by alerting farmers to the presence of a threat, or directly deterring predators with visual, olfactory and auditory displays. The same breeds of dog have also recently been used in this way to protect threatened wildlife, including little penguins (Eudyptula minor), Australasian gannets (Morus serrator) and Eastern barred bandicoots (Perameles gunnii) from predation (van Bommel 2010, King et al 2015, Parrott et al 2017. Of the deterrentbased methods currently available, LGDs are often considered to be one of the most effective in the long term (Marker et al 2005, Scasta et al 2017, Khorozyan & Waltert 2019, although effectiveness can be highly varied (Smith et al 2000, Bruns et al 2020.…”

Predicting suitable release sites for assisted colonisations: a case study of eastern barred bandicoots

“…In 2015, eastern barred bandicoots persisted across 5 geographically isolated populations (Parrott et al 2017) ranging in size from ~60 individuals in the captive insurance population to around 1000 individuals at Mt. Rothwell (D. Sutherland unpubl.…”