Rare pookila mouse rediscovered in Western NSW as species fights for survival
The pookila, also known as the New Holland mouse, was live-trapped and released in Goobang National Park in April, 28 years after it was last recorded in the area.
Its discovery has offered a glimmer of hope for the micro "ecosystem engineer" after it was listed in March as vulnerable in NSW, meaning it faces extinction in the medium term.
Meanwhile, in Victoria and Tasmania, the pookila is considered endangered — at high risk of extinction in the near future.
With 12 of Australia's native rodents extinct, there are urgent efforts to safeguard those that remain.
"Our native rodents are really over-represented in our mammalian extinction record," said Zoos Victoria field officer Nadia Nieuwhof, who led the search effort for the pookila in the Goobang.
"At the zoo, we're aware of that kind of extinction crisis and we're doing what we can to fight for [them]."
Ms Nieuwhof's team deployed 282 motion-sensing cameras across eight parks and reserves in NSW and Tasmania, with 91 placed in Goobang National Park, where the pookila was last recorded in 1997.
The cameras were baited with peanut butter and oats and left for up to four weeks at a time in an attempt to attract the cryptic mouse.
"Goobang National Park is really significant in that it's the furthest inland extent of their range and it is some 200 kilometres further inland than any other record we have for the mice," Ms Nieuwhof said.
"Given it's quite a special case, we decided to absolutely cover the entire park with cameras."
It is also a notably "steeper and more rocky habitat" for the critter, which usually prefers sandier soil.
The team also live-trapped the mice for genetic testing.
"Once we analyse the genetics, it'll be interesting to see if these more inland populations differ from their coastal counterparts," Ms Nieuwhof said.
The effort was part of a two-year project under the Australian government's Saving Native Species Program to reassess the pookila's status.
Zoos Victoria led the project in collaboration with the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) and other agencies.
While the team was excited to discover the mouse was still in Western NSW, the results suggested a shrinking population.
Pookila were historically distributed throughout the 421-square-kilometre park, but were only detected on five of the 91 cameras in a southern corner.
In Tasmania, none of the cameras on the main island detected any pookila, which have not been seen there since 2000, but mice were confirmed on Flinders Island.
"These surveys are often limited by access, so it's very plausible that the mice are still hanging on in [mainland] Tasmania," Ms Nieuwhof said, adding that the next phase of the project would broaden the search.
Dubbed a "dumpling on legs", the pookila plays an outsized role in soil health and biodiversity.
While some burrowing natives use cavities made by other animals or build simple burrows, the mouse is known for extensive and complex underground burrow systems.
"This results in a lot of soil turnover, which is really important because it promotes things like litter decomposition and nutrient cycling, and eventually new plant growth," Ms Nieuwhof said.
"They're basically little ecosystem engineers."
With habitat loss driving the pookila's increasing isolation, the next phase of the two-year program is to genetically examine live-trapped specimens to ensure inbreeding does not further weaken the species.
"If we do identify some populations with low genetic diversity, then we'll make use of conservation breeding programmes," Ms Nieuwhof said.
"For instance, we'd take mice both from Goobang and other nearby populations and kind of slowly reintroduce some new genes into the population."
A similar program is underway in Victoria, where seven of 12 historically known local populations are already extinct.
Efforts to combat other major threats like feral predators and bushfires are also being tackled under a new conservation framework being designed in NSW, including ways to improve management of native ground cover and alter fire regimes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Researchers using cryopreservation to save critically endangered Gossia gonoclada
Cryopreservation was once the stuff of science fiction, but now the technology is being used to help save a critically endangered tree in south-east Queensland. There are only about 380 Gossia gonoclada, or angle-stemmed myrtle, left in the wild, mostly found in riparian and vine forest areas around Logan and parts of the Gold Coast. The small tree has dense, glossy, bright-green leaves, and plays a role in local ecosystems — but it's under severe threat. A fungal disease known as myrtle rust — which damages new growth — along with land clearing and rising temperatures, has drastically reduced the tree's numbers. Jingyin Bao, a PhD student at the University of Queensland, has spent three years developing a scientific protocol to indefinitely store plant tissue at ultra-low temperatures. "The idea is to safeguard these species by storing the healthy regenerable plant tissues so that one day they can be used to grow new plants in case the species becomes extinct in the wild," Ms Bao said. Her work involves taking tiny shoot tips — or the growing points of the plant where new leaves emerge — treating them with a cryoprotective solution, and freezing them in liquid nitrogen at temperatures as low as -196 degrees Celsius. "It's a technology that's been developed for quite a long time, initially for other things like IVF, but the challenge in part for cryopreservation is that you have to develop a protocol for different things every time differently," Ms Bao said. "So you have to fine tune everything in the protocol in order to make it work for different species. "For Gossia gonoclada, we don't have any similar protocols that have been developed before, so we have to do it step-by-step." Dr Alice Hayward, a plant molecular physiologist at the University of Queensland and Ms Bao's supervisor, said it wasn't possible to simply store the tree's seeds because of its fleshy fruit — meaning cryopreservation of shoot tips and tissue was the only viable way to conserve it. The method also helps preserve and regenerate myrtle rust-resistant individuals, enhancing the species' resilience. "A lot of our threatened plants, especially tropical species, about 30 per cent don't survive seed storage, so that's where cryo-preservation is really important — just safeguarding and banking the genetic diversity," Dr Hayward said. Dr Hayward said Ms Bao has already achieved remarkable results. She's been able to grow new trees from regenerated tissue, "Jinying's been successful in achieving 100 per cent regeneration rate for cryopreservation of Gossia fragrantissima, which is a related species to Gossia gonoclada," she said. "That's quite unheard of. Often the rates might be between 40 to 70 per cent regeneration." The project is a collaboration with Logan City Council, which secured about $500,000 in Australian government grants to fund the work. Lee-Anne Veage, an environment officer with the council, has been working to save the species — named after former Queensland premier Wayne Goss — for more than a decade. She's affectionately known among colleagues as the "Gossia guardian". "We estimate we've got about 300 trees in Logan and 80 or so elsewhere — including naturally occurring populations as well as planted ones," she said. "We've got a recovery plan that's a 10-year plan… [and] that's including monitoring the health, the status against threats like myrtle rust, doing habitat mapping, germplasm collection and writing up a report." For Dr Hayward, the breakthrough represents an exciting leap forward in her research field. For everyone else, she said, it could be summed up with a pop culture reference.
ABC News
6 hours ago
- ABC News
Australian-first psychedelic-assisted therapy trial for terminally ill patients shows improved quality of life
Michael Quinn's prostate cancer had spread throughout his body when he came across a newspaper call-out that would change the course of what remained of his life. The newspaper was asking for people to take part in an Australian-first clinical trial investigating how psychedelics, combined with psychotherapy, could help alleviate the anguish often experienced by people who have a terminal illness. Terror-stricken about the prospect of death, and suffering from bouts of panic and catatonic depression, Michael registered his interest. His wife Pat Quinn said the results would ultimately be life-changing for her late husband. "He felt that the program softened the edges of his edges and found a new path to dealing with this illness," she said. "He still had some anxiety, obviously, and some frustrations, but he was much, much more calm." Over the course of three-and-a-half years, researchers at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne have examined the use of synthetic psilocybin — the compound naturally found in "magic mushrooms" — in combination with psychotherapy for 35 people, including Michael, with advanced terminal illness. The pool of patients was small, but the study's co-author, clinical psychologist Dr Margaret Ross said the results were promising. "We did see reductions in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, demoralisation — so we saw big reductions in psychological distress. But not only that, we also saw increases and improvement in quality of life," Dr Ross said. "Beyond the metrics we saw people experiencing things like reconciliation and forgiveness in situations where there were fractured relationships in the past. As well as treating people with terminal cancer, the study was the first in the world to offer psilocybin-assisted therapy to patients with non-cancerous life-threatening conditions like motor neurone disease. Participants in the trial took two doses, six to seven weeks apart. Half the participants received a placebo for the first dose, while all participants received psilocybin for the second dose. Patients then spent roughly seven hours in a calm, dark room listening to music. Both Dr Ross and co-author, psychiatrist Justin Dwyer, were at their side, and sometimes hours would pass without anyone saying a word. Each dose was preceded and followed by psychotherapy sessions. Dr Dwyer said the accompanying psychotherapy was an essential part of the treatment, but noted the gruelling nature of the entire process could be challenging for some participants. "The narrative about psychedelics is really problematic. I think they're presented as things which are going to cure mental illness, prevent suicide — they're presented as things which are going to transform really intractable states of suffering," he said. "I have a real problem with that, a) because it's not true in the way it's presented, but b) because it sort of downplays the amount of work people have to do and the courage which is required to sort of do that work in a deep way." The clinicians also caution that psychedelic-assisted therapy was not a match for certain people, including those with some psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. "If they struggle to tell the difference between emotions and physical sensations, if they've got a lot of really raw, unprocessed trauma that they're avoiding, I think potentially it could be a very harmful treatment," Dr Dwyer said. But for others, Dr Ross said the therapy could help people face the end of their life. "It's kind of like staring at the sun, you can't look at it for too long. It's so difficult and so terrifying for many to accept that they're not going to exist anymore," she said. "So to kind of be able to sit with, and face and walk through and transform, this experience of terror in the face of the unbearable meant that people could, instead of living with this terror, this daily existence with these thudding reminders that their life was going to be coming to an end very shortly — they could actually go, no, I'm still alive." The clinicians are now trying to expand the research, which is largely still in its infancy. For decades psychedelic therapy has been shunned by researchers and the medical community, weighed down by baggage from Richard Nixon's war on drugs as well as a lack of interest from pharmaceutical companies who do not stand to profit from non-patented treatments. Australia's national medical regulator only approved the therapeutic use of some psychedelics to treat a number of mental health conditions in 2023, making the country one of the first in the world to officially recognise psilocybin as a medicine. Dr Ross said as a result, more work was needed to understand how to deliver this type of treatment more broadly and affordably, with the treatment currently requiring hours of clinician time. "It's tens of thousands of dollars. We've seen it, you know, upwards of $26,000, which is just inaccessible for, you know, 95 per cent of the population," she said. "We need to be looking at how we can roll this out in a more cost-effective, time-effective and accessible way." Co-Director of Health and Policy at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre Ian Hickie said the results of the trial were encouraging, with other treatments for terminally ill patients historically failing to ease the anguish people can experience when they know they are about to die. "The focus of the study is a really interesting one. It's a population that traditionally hasn't done well with a lot of the traditional approaches, which are often sedative medicines, slow forms of psychological care, ineffective forms of meditation, or mindfulness that really don't go to the level of distress that people are experiencing," he said. But Professor Hickie noted he was cautious about "over-interpreting" the results of a small trial, emphasising the psychedelics could be harmful for certain people, and agreeing that more research needed to be done. "There may be a window that's created to make psychological treatments more effective as a consequence of using psychedelic drugs," he said "The psychedelics alone won't be the solution. What's the best combination? What opportunity is created and can you capitalise on that?" Dr Ross and Dr Dwyer's consulting rooms are a hidden retreat in the middle of busy Melbourne, largely unnoticed by those passing by. As she enters the space, Pat Quinn reunites with the two clinicians who helped her husband face death. Dr Ross offers Pat a hug and a cup of tea, while telling her they kept the sugar they bought especially for Michael when he would come in for his appointments. "Marg and Justin, what they did for Michael I think was outstanding. The difference that it made and the difference that it made for me," she said. She said Michael participated in the trial with the hope it would not only help him, but ultimately others too. "It made a huge difference and I don't think he would have coped and I don't know that I would have coped either if he hadn't been through that process and I would hope that it could be expanded to help a lot of other people through it," she said. "I know it's not a cure, but if it helps people to deal with what they're going through it's got to be beneficial. "It meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to him. And he meant a lot to me."
ABC News
15 hours ago
- ABC News
Fire ant fears in central Queensland as dogs detect nests at five mine sites
Specialised detection dogs have discovered new fire ant nests at five mine sites in central Queensland's Bowen Basin. The discoveries, announced on Tuesday, come six weeks after the highly invasive pest was found outside the south-east corner for the first time, when it was identified at the Broadmeadow Mine near Moranbah, more than 150 kilometres inland from Mackay. The National Fire Ant Eradication Program (NFAEP) said in a statement the ants arrived in pallets of bricks that were stored on soil and transported more than 800km from south-east Queensland. The surveillance occurred between August 12 and 14, and was confirmed on Monday. NFAEP operations director Tom Roberts said the ants were discovered at the new sites after the bricks were moved to other mines. "At this point, we believe we've eliminated all known risks, and we're just working with each mine site to confirm they've got all the relevant information in regards to identification," he said. The NFAEP on Tuesday said the new sites were in the Central Highlands and Isaac Council regions, but declined to reveal the names of the mines involved. Odour dogs were used to find the new nests. The nests have been destroyed using "direct nest injection", with broadscale treatment applied to the surrounding areas. The Invasive Species Council fears further outbreaks in central Queensland could take resources away from the main fire ant stronghold in the state's south-east. "It shows what we've known for a long time, and that is that if fire ants get into shipments from one site in the fire ant zone, they can spread to multiple parts of Australia all in one go." Mr Pianta said central Queensland's dry climate would help eradication efforts. "There isn't a lot of food for the fire ants to forage there in that location to be able to build up their densities and increase," he said. "The evidence is that these fire nests have been there for a short period of time and probably haven't spread locally, so it will be possible, I think, to eradicate them." Fire ants were first detected in Brisbane in 2001, with eradication work still underway in south-east Queensland. In early July, a nest of the species was found in central Queensland for the first time, which NFAEP officers destroyed on July 9. Follow-up aerial treatment using drones began on July 24, and a containment area was placed around the detection site. NFAEP said surveillance of the area would continue for years.
