SOUTHERN BROWN BANDICOOT

The Southern brown bandicoot is a small marsupial, growing up to 30cm long, and covered in coarse greyish to brown hair. It was once found across much of eastern Australia, where it played an important ecosystem engineer role, by burying seed, leaf litter and improving water penetrability in soil. The range and abundance of the southern brown bandicoot has declined as a result of habitat degradation and predation by foxes and cats and now has a patchy distribution, surviving only where suitably dense habit provides it shelter, or where foxes are managed. Image courtesy of John O’Neill, Wikimedia.

Rewilding Australia has provided monitoring support for southern brown bandicoots reintroduced to the Jervis Bay region on the NSW south coast, and is continuing to invest in securing the future of the species by developing ‘Rewilding Bannockburn’ – an 80ha area of fox and cat exclusion habitat that will be used as a stepping stone between captive-bred animals and wild-ready bandicoots.