http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2012/09/baby-numbats-are-born-to-be-wild.html

http://www.zooborns.com/.a/6a010535647bf3970b017d3be65951970c-500wi

http://www.zooborns.com/.a/6a010535647bf3970b017744959526970d-popup

These baby Numbats, photographed shortly after their mother deposited them in an underground burrow, are part of the Perth Zoo’s Native Species Breeding Program. This unique program breeds Numbats and other endangered animals for release into the Australian wilderness. So far in 2012, 19 Numbats have been born at the zoo for release into the wild to help rebuild populations of this endangered marsupial.

Numbats are unique creatures. Like all marsupials, the young are born in a highly underdeveloped state and crawl to their mother’s pouch, where they complete their development. Numbats are one of only two marsupials that are diurnal (active during the day), and they eat only one thing: termites. Adult Numbats eat up to 20,000 termites a day! Because Numbats are not strong enough to break open termite mounds, they must wait for the termites to move about near the surface. For this reason, Numbats’ daily routines change seasonally to follow the movements of termites.

The Perth Zoo has successfully bred 160 Numbats for release into the wild to date. This is important because as Australian wild lands are altered due to clearing and fire, Numbat populations have dwindled. In addition, Numbats are preyed upon by feral foxes and cats.

Poor termites.

hate numbats. walked around dryandra for a week looking for the buggers. didn’t see one.

:-)

Mesopredator release hypothesis – appears that cats are hammering numbats at Dryandra in response to very low fox numbers after 1080 baiting program (unforseen consequences of predator control and all that).

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y145/neomyrtus/Dryandra/?action=view¤t=MOV00723.mp4

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y145/neomyrtus/Dryandra/?action=view¤t=DSC00729.jpg

they can’t shoot the feral cats but can shoot bats

Aww cuties. All power to the numbats.

“They” can shoot the cats, but trapping and particularly baiting is more cost and time effective, with better outcomes for native critter recovery. Just that cats are notoriously bait-shy and trap-shy, and it appears that cat numbers bounced up when fox numbers went down.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-23/numbat-numbers-in-decline-feature/2851582

The numbats’ main predators are foxes and cats. Fox baiting in Dryandra has been very successful but this has had a detrimental side effect. Dr Friend says research on the woylie led by DEC scientist Nicky Barlow shows cats are now having far more impact on native animals than foxes.
“We’ve got strong evidence from the woylie side of things that cats have taken over as a major predator from foxes, which makes sense I guess because we are controlling the foxes,” he said. “It also makes sense that cats will be advantaged by the absence of foxes because foxes normally harass them but possibly also prey on their kittens. “So take foxes away, life’s much better for cats and they can sort of slip into the vacuum.”

Dr Friend says while baiting has proven to work well on reducing fox numbers, it is not as successful with cats. “Basically the difference between cats and foxes I suppose is that foxes are much more susceptible to baits,” he said. “They can smell meat baits a long way off and home in on them, they also are quite happy to scavenge whereas cats don’t have a sense of smell and they’re not scavengers. “Cats really prefer live prey so the only way to really get cats with a bait is when they’re really hungry so we are working on cat baiting but it’s proving much more difficult than fox control.”

The other concern with cat baiting is the effect on other native species within the conservation area. “The baits are softer and more palatable than fox baits so there are some native animals which could possibly take the baits,” he said.