Latest news with #pookila
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Woman with 'specific skills' sets up 280 cameras in search for tiny, rare Aussie animal
A woman with a specialised skill set has been tasked with seeking out one of Australia's most elusive mammals. Not only are pookila tiny, it is extremely rare, and it's vanished from locations where it was once abundant. Another challenge is that the pookila closely resembles other native mice, and the invasive European mouse, of which there are millions, so locating one of the last few native pookila could be like finding a needle in a haystack. To increase the odds of finding them, Zoos Victoria field officer Nadia Nieuwhof has learned to identify exactly what sort of habitat the last of the species is likely to occupy. She uses a combination of oats and peanut butter to lure them out of hiding, so they can be photographed using motion-sensing cameras and studied. 'As you can probably imagine, they can be quite hard to tell apart. But I've really gotten my eye honed in on what the pookila looks like when it pops up on camera,' Nieuwhof told Yahoo News. 'Then, for the live trapping that we do, you need to have experience handling the mice because they're really quite delicate. Not only because they're small, but their tails are very sensitive, so you've got to be very careful when you handle them." Related: Native mice rebound after major change at outback property It's estimated fewer than 10,000 pookila remain in Victoria, but that number can rapidly change because populations will boom and bust with the weather and available feed. For the next year, Zoos Victoria will work with state environment departments and continue to set traps around NSW and Tasmania as part of a federally funded program to calculate how many remain. More than 280 devices are being used that are designed to capture or photograph, but not harm the tiny creatures. In NSW, pookila have been detected at 21 sites, including areas where they haven't been seen this century. Mass bird poisoning fears at suburban shopping centre Zoo defends $180 experience after video 'stunt' sparks concern Invasive species undergoes mysterious change as it dominates Australia So far, no pookila have been detected on the mainland of Tasmania, but there is a small population on Flinders Island, northeast of Launceston. The species is listed nationally as vulnerable to extinction, but Zoos Victoria's native rodent biologist and head of the National Pookila Recovery Team, Dr Phoebe Burns, thinks this assessment could be conservative due to previous surveys in Victoria. 'In places where we have conducted intensive surveys, such as Victoria's Gippsland region, we've noticed really significant declines. This gives us great concern for the species across its entire range,' she said. The pookila has inhabited Australia since long before Tasmania and Victoria were connected via a land bridge 14,000 years ago. Like all of Australia's native rodents, its numbers have significantly declined since European settlement. Habitat destruction and fragmentation, predation by foxes and cats, and bushfires are key reasons for its disappearance. Whenever Nieuwhof is lucky enough to see a pookila she immediately feels 'excited'. "Every time a new one pops up at one of my camera sites, I feel pure, pure joy, really. It's very rewarding," she said. "And when you see them in the live traps as well, they're just the sweetest, cutest little animal,' she said. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
ABC News
12-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
The Pookila mouse was spotted in Western NSW for the first time in decades.
The native pookila or New Holland mouse has been rediscovered in the Goobang National Park after a 28-year hiatus.
ABC News
12-07-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Rare pookila mouse rediscovered in Western NSW as species fights for survival
For the first time in almost three decades, conservationists have rediscovered an elusive native rodent in Western New South Wales, more than 200 kilometres from its typical coastal habitat. 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.
