The fight to save our state emblem

BY PETE MAZANEC

It’s a warm but overcast day at the Perth Zoo as I walk up to the homestead in the
Australian bushwalk. The homestead houses what is now an endangered species in
Western Australia; the numbat. It is already rarer than the giant panda in China with
fewer than 1000 left in the wild. Upon entering the homestead, I emerge from the
back entrance to the enclosed verandah where, just outside the barricade, a ranger is
giving a small crowd of onlookers a talk about the ecology of numbats.

“They all have a unique stripe pattern,” she says.

Introducing Whiskey the numbat, one of 14 Adult Numbats at Perth Zoo. Photo: Peter Mazanec.
“You’ll see some of the striped bands are closer together and some are further apart
and sometimes… you might have a full white stripe or a broken stripe…every one of
them, if we photograph [the numbats] and put them alongside each other…we could
tell them apart.”

It is here we are introduced to Whiskey, the resident numbat in the homestead

enclosure. Whiskey is, like all numbats, very cute. Whiskey is just over a foot long
with short legs, a slender body, and a bushy tail. He is reminiscent of a large squirrel
as he scurries frantically to and fro around the enclosure.

Perhaps what is most eye-catching about Whiskey is the striking detail and
colouration of his coat. Reddish-brown and flecked with white, broad white stripes
cover the dark fur on Whiskey’s rump like an artist’s brushstrokes, growing smaller
and finer up towards his haunches. Black stripes begin on either side of his snout and
continue across both eyes as though drawn with charcoal, like it were the finishing
touches on a dreamtime painting. It is little wonder such a pretty marsupial is the
emblem of our state.

Sadly, our beautiful numbat is dying.

The Department of Biodiversity and Attractions has always been at the forefront of
running baiting and breeding programs aimed at boosting numbers and reintroducing
numbats to areas where they were previously hunted out. While success has been
achieved in avoiding extinction, one thing is clear: numbats still need help and it
seems they have found support from an unexpected source – a growing portion of
citizen scientists and volunteers in the community. United by the fight to save our
state emblem, they have come together to assist DBCA with conservation efforts.

The ranger goes on to outline the biggest threats to the numbat – foxes and, primarily,
the feral cat – which are responsible for the decimation of the numbat population
across Australia. The decline of the numbat began with European settlement where
clearing of woodlands for agricultural use largely diminished its habitat.

Loss of territory followed by the introduction of cats and foxes spelled ecological
disaster for the numbat and many other native species. Estimates suggest that numbats
were once found across the South West of Western Australia all the way to New South
Wales. The numbat now resides in just two blocks of woodland in WA; one in
Dryandra and the other at Perup Nature Reserve near Manjimup, comprising less than
one percent of its former range. With a combined population of approximately 200,
these two locations may represent the last wild numbats in WA.

Department of Parks and Wildlife Principle research scientist Tony Friend says there
was the concern in wildlife circles that the numbat was rapidly heading to extinction
in the 1970s, where the initial culprit was identified as the fox.

“The work that I did in the first, say, five years established that foxes were the biggest
threat to numbats,” he says.

“That was really the start of the big fox baiting campaigns in the South West of WA.
And everything went fine for a while and the baiting program expanded.”

Whiskey at feeding time. Photo: Peter Mazanec

However, Friend says after successful baiting reduced fox numbers for several years
and numbats appeared to recover; they suddenly began to decline again and the
evidence from various projects around 2012 pointed to the feral cat.

“If you had an animal with a radio collar on that had been predated, you usually end
up with the predator’s saliva on the collar, and you could swab that and get
identification for the predator,” he says.

“That work showed that cats were the biggest predator of woylies and the biggest
predator of numbats.

“The cats were basically taking over where the foxes left off and I think, you know,
extinction would most likely have happened if we weren’t able to do anything about
cats.”

The damage that feral species have inflicted on Australian fauna is unparalleled. On
average, feral cats are thought to kill 377 million birds every year, being responsible
for the extinction of 20 species and threatening the survival of 124 more. Australia
already has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, and the latest research
suggests that more extinctions are looming unless conservation efforts are stepped up.
Encouragingly for the numbat, help is coming from an eager local and online
community working in conjunction with the government.

Sean van Alphen and Paul Sellers founded the Boyagin Brigade, an entirely volunteer-
based organisation dedicated to the conservation of the numbat. Van Alphen, who
works at the airport by day, says his interest in wildlife conservation began as a child.

“I’ve actually worked at the airport all my life and I’ve been involved in airport
operations and managing operations and all that, but my passion has always been
wildlife and the conservation of wildlife,” he said.

“Dryandra was one of the main places I would go as a kid, especially in my teens and
early 20’s.

“I’ve done a number of interviews and people always [ask] what attracted you to the
numbat and I can’t really pinpoint an exact answer. I think it was a chance sighting in
Dryandra in the late ’80s and it just branched out from there.”

Van Alphen and Sellers conduct drive surveys to monitor numbat sightings in Boyagin
and Dryandra, averaging about one every 31km in Boyagin.
 Whiskey the numbat Photo: Peter Mazanec
However, in Boyagin this year sightings blew out to one every 65km and was the
reason behind the drive for their latest project. The freelance sensor camera project at
Boyagin involves 20 fixed cameras throughout the reserve to record wildlife sightings
in the area. Impressively, the project was funded entirely by online donations from the
community raising over $8000. The data is used to help assess numbat populations
while also monitoring foxes and feral cats, too. Sean says the camera project is giving
them much-needed information about what happens in the reserves.

“The sensor camera project is giving us some good results on what sort of feral
predators we have out there, which we think is mainly the fox more so than the cat.

“We’ve been doing this for just over 12 months but we’ve been getting the same
numbats in those 12 months which is really, really good,” he said.

Van Alphen and Sellers also received support from other numbat enthusiasts who,
though they do not conduct research as such, pass on valuable information about
sightings and mating pairs to them. Sean also makes sure to record their observations
and pass on the data to Tony Friend.

“It’s not just myself and Paul… there’s two other people that go down there…they
love numbats, they love photographing them…one guy is right into finding if they are
breeding… he doesn’t write the notes down but he tells me everything and I write the
notes down and make sure everything that he’s seeing is archived.

“It’s brilliant… it’s all that we want to give to the department, to Tony, to anybody
who’s studying them or is part of that drive to ensure that they don’t become extinct.”

Cute and cuddly; Whiskey searching for termites. Photo: Peter Mazanec
Another volunteer organisation involved in the fight to save the numbat is Project
Numbat. It has been in operation for eleven years now and contributes to population
monitoring, habitat management and feral predator control among other functions.
Project Numbat spokesperson Amy Robey says community involvement is essential
for its operations.
“As a 100% volunteer-run community organisation, gaining community involvement
is very important for Project Numbat, it is literally what keeps us going,” she says.

“We have been running since 2006 and couldn’t function without our volunteers;
whether they are committee members, fundraisers, presenters or fieldwork
volunteers… last year Project Numbat accumulated over 1,300 volunteer hours.”

Financing, of course, is essential for Project Numbat to continue its work but, once
again, the generosity of the public has provided much-needed support.

“Aside from active volunteers, we have around 200 financial members,” says Robey.

“Annual memberships cost $20 and these funds enable us to operate on a day-to-day
basis…we then have regular and one-off donors whose funds go into a special
account reserved for numbat conservation projects.

“We also have other organisations that we collaborate with on certain projects…
the pooling of skills and resources is often paramount because as a small organisation,
we would not be able to do it alone.”

It is these organisations and others which provide hands-on opportunities for

volunteers to help out such as Dig survey teams, which involve looking for signs of
numbats digging for termites and scats. These surveys help conservationists get an
idea of numbat distribution in a reserve.

But let’s face it; a lot of us may not have time to make trips out into the bush when
needed. Thankfully, new technology is making it even easier to be involved in
conservation, and you don’t even have to leave your house.

Sensor cameras like those used by the Boyagin Brigade have opened up even more
opportunities for the everyday Joe to assist with conservation, not only for the
numbat, but for other endangered species, too. In partnership with Zooniverse, an
online citizen science platform, the Western Shield Camera watch initiative, which
began in 2016, allows anyone worldwide to sign in and go through photos taken by
the cameras in northern Jarrah forests and help in analyzing the data sets.
 Whiskey standing to attention. Photo: Peter Mazanec
The online citizen scientists are a substantial help to this project according to
zoologist Michelle Drews.

“It does contribute significantly in multiple ways,” she says.

“It provides a huge amount of public awareness and it gets people to understand the
types of things that need to be done to manage feral and introduced species.

“People who aren’t involved in environmental science wouldn’t understand that cats
are a problem and this kind of project highlights how little people understand that.

In terms of classification of data, Drew estimates volunteers get through about 70% of
images with about 30% needing to be double checked to verify their accuracy.

“So in terms of greater public awareness it’s been great and, in terms of classification
of data, [the volunteers] get through 70% of the images…when you’re talking about
500,000 images, 70% done is great.”

As it pertains to the numbat, an initiative was undertaken on Zooniverse called

numbat discovery, which allowed citizen scientists from all over the world to help
conservationists sift through thousands of photos with the goal of getting an estimate
of the numbat population upper warren region near Manjimup. The project is still
active and anyone can sign up to participate.

So, what does this mean for the numbat? For the time being, it means that the future
of our state emblem is looking brighter as its chances of survival improve thanks to
the work of the government and selfless volunteer organisations.

Back at Perth Zoo, I watch as Whiskey frantically searches the soil for termites. I
can’t help but wonder if he’s at all aware of the desperate strategies being put into
action to help save him and his kind. A solitary creature, it’s a fair bet that Whiskey is
completely oblivious to the fact that he may be more alone than he realises, and of the
trouble his kin face if conservation efforts fail.

But for now, he’s still pretty cute.

Amazingly, The stripes on a numbat are unique to each individual and can be used as an identifier. Photo:
Peter Mazanec