Living with native predators the solution to keep endangered mammals ‘street smart’

New research, just published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, has found that living with a native predator around can help native mammals bred in conservation reserves better survive when released into the wild.

The research, which focused on woylies, was undertaken by the University of Western Australia in collaboration with the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions.

Woylies are cute small digging kangaroo-like animals that can carry things like nesting material with their tail.

Lead researcher Dr Natasha Harrison is from The University of Western Australia’s School of Biological Sciences and is also a Research Scientist at the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.

Dr Harrison said that one of Australia’s key threatened mammal conservation strategies is breeding animals in cat- and fox-free havens and then releasing animals back into former wild areas.

“This research is about giving haven-bred animals the best chance of survival long-term if released beyond fences.

“Our earlier research found that animals bred in predator-free havens lost the traits they need to detect and escape predators.

“This was very concerning because anti-predator traits are critical for the survival of animals when released to former areas beyond the fence, where predators, like foxes and cats, persist.

“This study looked at how we can help animals bred in havens to keep their predator-savvy traits, by investigating if being exposed to a native predator, the chuditch, inside havens helped animals keep the traits they’d need to survive in areas with cats and foxes.

“The great news is that it did. We found that woylies that were in havens with chuditch were much more predator-savvy than woylies in havens with no predators as their anti-predator traits also appear equal to those of wild woylies.

“The real test is whether they would survive equally well in the wild, so we undertook an experimental release of chuditch-haven woylies and wild woylies into an area where cats and foxes persist and monitored survival for 10 months after the release.

“The survival rates were the same, suggesting that exposure to chuditch has maintained critical anti-predator traits.

“This finding is exciting as it provides tangible evidence to inform how we manage our havened populations to get the best outcome for conservation and help these iconic animals to survive long-term.

“It is important to understand that not all woylies survived. Their anti-predator traits will hopefully help enough animals to survive for the population to persist, but cat and fox control is still incredibly important even when woylies maintain anti-predator traits.”

Biodiversity Council Lead Councillor and study co-author Professor Nicki Mitchell from the University of Western Australia said:

“If these results translate across other havens, then all large havens could include native terrestrial predators amongst the assemblage of species they support.

“That way, when vulnerable mammal species are collected from havens to release for conservation programs elsewhere, which is increasingly common, they’ll have the best chance of survival.

“This will also help retain the genetic diversity of the founding populations by ensuring more animals survive to reproduce, which is another challenge that conservation managers face.

"But it is not as simple as rushing to put native predators into all the havens that currently don’t have them.

“Some populations may not be able to withstand predation pressure at all, but for those that can, exposure to native predators within havens adds another valuable tool to the conservation toolkit."