Eastern Quoll Reintroduction to Mainland Australia
In February 2018 Violet ventured out with the Rewilding Australia team to Tasmania’s Trowanna Wildlife Sanctuary and Devils at Cradle’s to participate and assist one of their breeding programs. This expedition focused on breeding of 20 Eastern Quolls in Tasmania before their release into the wild in Australia for the first time since their extinction on main land Australia in the 1960’s.
Eastern quolls are generally considered extinct in the wild on mainland Australia, however still survive in Australia’s island state of Tasmania.
Rewilding Australia seeks to support the Australian Government’s Threatened Species Strategy by working with ecologists, communities, and government and indigenous land managers to improve the trajectory for Australia’s wildlife. Rewilding Australia’s own flagship project is an ambitious collaborative project to return eastern quolls to the wild on mainland Australia.
On the expedition in February Violet joined a team that included WWF Australia, vets from Taronga Zoo and the research team from the Australian National University who carried out vet checks and placed tracking collars on the quolls before their release into Booderee National Park, NSW.
It was an intense but hugely rewarding time, working with these divine little creatures, who used to be known as the ‘farmers friend’ in Australia due to their diet of pasture grubs, pests, mice and rats.
Rewilding Australia is also coordinating Eastern Shield Wildlife Recovery Program; a wildlife monitoring and invasive species management across 15,700 hectares of private land adjacent to Booderee National Park to provide added insurance to a reintroduced population of eastern quolls.
What made the experience even more surreal is that one of the Quolls was named after Violet and she has been able to track her progress closely since her release in February. Violet (the Quoll) has survived against all odds and has even produced her first litter of babies who she cared around in her pouch until only recently.
Violet’s drawing of an Eastern Quoll will be donated to Rewilding Australia and a percentage of sales will produce a continual donation stream from the sale of limited edition prints.