By Jeremy Cook
A sick quoll has been captured, treated and re-released into native habitat near Stanthorpe with hopes it can still find a mate before breeding season ends.
Mama Cass, as she’d been named, was one of several spotted-tail quolls caught by Quoll Society Australia ecologists Paul Revie and Jessica Lovegrove-Walsh at Girraween National Park last month.
The pair have spent the past three years monitoring the endangered marsupial at Girraween, hoping to learn more about the animal’s movements and better inform their efforts to save the species.
Mr Revie said they found the little female quoll “in a bad way”, suffering from a dangerous skin disease.
“During our most recent trapping session, we caught a couple of quolls with severe mange, an emerging skin disease that poses a threat to the local quoll population,” he said.
“One of the females was in a bad way so we took her into care and she’s been having treatment for the past three weeks.”
For quolls, breeding season typically lasts the winter. Upon release last Tuesday, Mr Revie said they hoped she’d “still be able to find a mate and breed at the tail end of the breeding season”.
“We caught her with pouch young last year on the 1st of September so fingers crossed,” he said.
Like all four species of quoll, populations of the spotted-tail quoll have declined rapidly across Australia since European settlement due to a range of threats like feral predators and land clearing.
But at Girraween, quoll numbers remain relatively strong and it’s why ecologists have begun treating the area as ground-zero for repopulation efforts. Under a current project, Mr Revie and his team of volunteers have begun restoring vital corridors of remnant vegetation throughout the park.
Once finished, they’ll have planted more than 20,000 native trees and shrubs which quolls will use to move through.
