PREVIEW

Last month, researchers for the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) announced they had discovered the first quolls born on their Mount Gibson Sanctuary property in a century.

The researchers discovered the baby quolls while reviewing hidden camera footage around the sanctuary, which usually tracks traps set to capture feral cats humanely.

The small-spotted animals were caught on video tampering with the traps so they could steal the bait inside.

The cheeky quolls scampered out of the traps before they could engage.

“Ecologists were delighted,” an AWC representative told The Dodo. “[The quolls] are the first to be born [on the] sanctuary in around 100 years.”

Also known by their Latin name Dasyurus, quolls are small nocturnal mammals native to Australia and New Guinea.

Four species of quoll are native to Australia, and two are native to New Guinea.

The animals vary in size from 300 g (11 oz) to 7 kg (15 lb).

They have brown or black fur and pink noses.

Up to thirty pups may be born in a litter, but only six or seven may live to adulthood.

Depending on the species, quolls live for an average of one to five years.

AWC Field Ecologist Erin Barritt gushed over the organisation’s quoll discovery, “This is very exciting for the team, as it’s our first evidence of successful breeding to independence for reintroduction program at Mt Gibson.”

Conservationists had previously released quolls into the sanctuary but determined that this baby quoll sighting marked the first indication that the released quolls had reproduced.

“We had a mysterious case of cat trap tampering whereby the traps were closed, the bait was gone but no culprit inside,” Erin recalled. “We deployed motion-sensor cameras to find out what was going on and sure enough, we found small quolls eating the bait and using their petite size to escape the traps.”

She continued, “We suspected that the small individuals may be new arrivals to the sanctuary, and so we compared their unique spot pattern against a reference library of all 45 quolls that were released at Mt Gibson over the last 12 months. It’s a bit like picking out constellations, except the points twist, turn and stretch depending on the quoll’s position…”

“We compared the images of the four quolls to those in the reference library and were unable to find any matches. That’s how we were able to confirm Mt Gibson’s first sanctuary-born independent juveniles.”

Erin estimated that the baby quolls were born in July last year, and were weaned away from their mother’s pouch in December.

Ecologists named the quolls Tim Tam, Oreo, Monte, and Tiny Teddy – after Australian biscuits.

According to Erin, the names were chosen because “the quolls [are] fresh out of the oven, just like our favourite treats”.

The animals were identified as Western Quolls, which were considered locally extinct at Mount Gibson before the AWC released a cohort of eleven individuals in April last year.

The organisation then released 23 more in June, 11 more in November, and eight more in March this year.