Discover the forgotten marsupial making a comeback in the Outback

Until recently, Red-tailed phascogales, also known as wambengers or mousesacks, were only found in the wild in the southwest woodlands of Western Australia and have not been recorded in the wild in South Australia for many years.

But – thankfully, that’ll all changing. Forty-five Red-tailed phascogales were reintroduced into the Gawler Ranges National Park on the northern Eyre Peninsula in May and since then 30 young phascogales were born into the wild for the first time this winter.

To build on this success, another 40 phascogales from Alice Springs Desert Park and Cleland Wildlife Park’s captive breeding programs will be released in November 2024 and April 2025.

What are they?
The Red-tailed phascogale is a small, insectivorous marsupial with a distinctive reddish-brown tail. They are a feisty and tenacious small predator with a taste for mice, insects, birds and reptiles and live largely in trees, particularly mallee and black oak woodlands.

The released phascogales are now having to stand on their own four feet in a ‘safe haven’, an unfenced but predator-reduced wilderness and so far, they are faring well.

Why have their numbers dropped?
As with many small mammals, habitat loss and predation by foxes and cats brought the phascogale to the brink of extinction. Since European colonisation it is estimated that 73 species – 41 plants and 32 animals – have become extinct in our state.

However, thanks to the combined efforts of the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) and the Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species (FAME), the future for this precious marsupial is looking up.

What’s being done to help them?
The multi-faceted project involves scientific research, captive breeding programs at Cleland Wildlife Park and Alice Springs Desert Park, large-scale feral predator control and radio tracking of the reintroduced phascogales.

Cleland’s phascogale captive breeding program has gone from strength to strength, with the successful 2024 breeding season producing another 50 young, many of which will be released in the Gawler Ranges in November.

This determined and combined effort from government scientists and state and national conservation groups and volunteers has given the phascogale in South Australia a much brighter future.

Bounceback

A key element to DEW’s 30-year Bounceback project is managing threats to species such as reducing fox and cat numbers and managing goat numbers.

This has enabled the project, through the funding partnership with FAME, to reintroduce species such as Western quolls and Brush-tailed possums into Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park and Vulkathunha National Park with great success.

Interested in in the Bounceback project, read our blog on why ecosystem restoration is so important to threatened species.