{"id":42015,"date":"2025-01-26T12:51:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T17:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/kangaroo-like-marsupial-species-described-as-natures-little-gardeners-brought-back-from-brink-of-extinction\/26\/01\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-01-26T12:51:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T17:51:55","slug":"kangaroo-like-marsupial-species-described-as-natures-little-gardeners-brought-back-from-brink-of-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/kangaroo-like-marsupial-species-described-as-natures-little-gardeners-brought-back-from-brink-of-extinction\/26\/01\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Kangaroo-Like Marsupial Species, Described as ‘Nature’s Little Gardeners,’ Brought Back from Brink of Extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A small marsupial species has been saved from near-extinction thanks to the ongoing work of a conservation group.<\/p>\n

The brush-tailed bettong, which resembles a tiny kangaroo and similarly keeps its young in a pouch, once inhabited more than 60% of mainline Australia, according to CNN<\/a>. But European colonization of the country in the 18th century brought predatory wild cats and foxes, as well as the widespread decimation of the animal’s woodland and grassland habitats.<\/p>\n

The species’ population size dramatically shrank by 90% between 1999 and 2010, possibly caused by the spread of blood parasites and other factors, according to some research, per the outlet. Now, brush-tailed bettongs, also known as woylies, inhabit merely a few islands and isolated areas of Southwestern Australia, amounting to just 1% of its former range.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Northern and Yorke Landscape Board launched the Great Southern Ark project \u2014 later renamed the Marna Banggara in honor of the native Narungga people who helped spearhead the initiative \u2014 to restore the ecological diversity of Australia’s Yorke Peninsula.<\/p>\n

Related: Northern White Rhinos Could Be Saved from Extinction Thanks to Species\u2019 First IVF Pregnancy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on a mission, if you like, to bring back some of these native species that have gone missing in our landscape since European colonization,\u201d project manager Derek Sandow told CNN of the group’s work.<\/p>\n

The team began by installing a 25-kilometer perimeter fence across the narrow part of the peninsula to keep predators out and create a 150,000-hectare preserve for the first species to be brought back from extinction, the brush-tailed bettong, which the Narungga people call yalgiri.<\/p>\n

From 2021 to 2023, the group introduced nearly 200 bettongs into the protected area, after individually sourcing them from various remaining populations in the country to help “increase the genetic pool,” Sandow told CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve reduced fox and cat impacts to a level that\u2019s low enough for these yalgiri to be reintroduced and for them to actually find refuges, find food and to survive themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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