Adelaide Zoo keepers have marked National Threatened Species Day with a special pouch check on one of Australia’s smallest threatened marsupials, with tiny Red-tailed Phascogale joeys offering hope for future releases into the wild.
The zoo is currently in the middle of its Red-tailed Phascogale breeding season, with keepers carefully checking females to monitor the number of joeys developing in their pouches and the ratio of males to females.
A female Red-tailed Phascogale can carry up to eight joeys at once, with every successful breeding season helping build the population needed to continue returning the species to areas where it has disappeared.
Adelaide Zoo Acting Assistant Curator of Natives Erin Turrell said the pouch checks provided an important early indication of how the breeding season was progressing.
“We’re right in the middle of our breeding season, so these pouch checks allow us to see how many young the females are carrying and make sure we’re retaining good numbers of joeys,” Erin said.
“A female can have up to eight pouch young at one time, so we’re looking for good numbers as well as a healthy mix of males and females.
“They are incredibly tiny at this stage, but these little joeys represent something much bigger. The aim is to continue breeding Red-tailed Phascogales so we can support more releases into the wild in the future.”
Red-tailed Phascogales were once widespread across much of arid and semi-arid Australia, including South Australia and western New South Wales, but their natural range has contracted dramatically and wild populations are now largely restricted to Western Australia’s Wheatbelt.
The species is listed as Vulnerable nationally and faces threats including habitat loss and predation by introduced species such as cats and foxes.
Adelaide Zoo plays an important role in efforts to restore the species to parts of its former range through its conservation breeding program.
The zoo has previously supported releases of Red-tailed Phascogales into protected habitat at Secret Rocks in South Australia, as well as at sites across the South Australia–New South Wales border region, including Scotia Sanctuary in New South Wales.
These releases are helping establish new populations in areas where Red-tailed Phascogales once lived, with Adelaide Zoo now leading the project and continuing to breed animals for future conservation releases.
Erin said breeding animals at Adelaide Zoo was ultimately about creating new populations beyond the zoo gates.
“The goal of the program is to help ensure the survival of Red-tailed Phascogales and ultimately see them established again in places where they once lived,” Erin said.
“That’s what makes days like today so important. We might be looking at tiny joeys in a pouch now, but hopefully some of these animals, or their offspring, will one day be part of future releases back into the wild.”
Visitors to Adelaide Zoo can see male Red-tailed Phascogales in the zoo’s Nocturnal House.
Every visit to Adelaide Zoo and Monarto Safari Park helps support Zoos SA’s conservation programs working to save species from extinction.
