Woylie re-introduction as part of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s endangered species recovery program at Scotia Sanctuary, far western New South Wales, Australia

Summary

The woylie (Bettongia penicillata), recently reclassified from least-concern to Critically Endangered after a 95% population crash in just three years, was reintroduced by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy into two fenced, feral-predator-free stages of its Scotia Sanctuary in far-western New South Wales, sourcing founders from the conservancy's only stable high-density population at Karakamia Sanctuary in Western Australia. A 2004 release of 172 woylies into Scotia Stage 1 persisted but suffered poor recruitment and a steady population decline, apparently because a co-reintroduced congener, the boodie, out-competed woylies for food, leaving females able to conceive but unable to raise young to independence due to lactation-stage nutritional stress. A second release of 57 woylies, captured overnight at Karakamia and flown to Scotia after a month in quarantine, went instead into the boodie-free Stage 2 in 2008; that population has grown steadily since, with high post-release survival, confirmed pouched young, and documented F1-generation breeding. Quarterly trapping surveys since 2005 tracked both populations, revealing the contrasting trajectories. Major difficulties included a decade of below-average rainfall limiting forage growth, and the acute scarcity of any other viable source population given the species' catastrophic wild decline. The project rates itself Partially Successful, noting it is still too early to fully judge the more promising Stage 2 reintroduction, even as Stage 1 continues to struggle under interspecies competition.