National Parks and Wildlife experts are monitoring a spotted-tail quoll sighted in the rocks of a busy northern New South Wales marina.<\/p>\n
Coffs Harbour residents found the forest-dwelling creature in the city’s foreshore area and reported the unusual sighting, concerned for the animal’s welfare due to its unlikely location.<\/p>\n
Wildlife carer Michael Sallustio said he was surprised to see the carnivorous animal, which is listed as vulnerable in NSW, in the populated marina area.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely odd \u2026 for [the quoll] to travel from the bush, across dangerous roads, running down the breakwall there,” Mr Sallustio said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a very intriguing one \u2026 it’s kind of cool it’s there, but it’s also out of place.”<\/p>\n
The spotted-tailed quoll was found among rocks at the Coffs Harbour marina. (ABC Coffs Coast: Toby Hemmings)<\/p>\n
Glen Storrie from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service has been tasked with monitoring the quoll.<\/p>\n
He said while the species was known to have diverse habitats, sightings at the marina were unusual.<\/p>\n
“Having quolls move through urban areas close to bushland isn’t uncommon, but usually they’re not seen. They do hang out in more natural areas,” he said.<\/p>\n
A regular visitor<\/p>\n
Mr Storrie said the quoll had been sighted several times over the past few years and likely travelled from the nearby Coffs Creek via the botanical gardens.<\/p>\n
“We think the quoll would likely move between those two areas,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They can travel a couple of [kilometres] foraging and looking for food.<\/p>\n
“So, this is not only a celebration of having a quoll, but also having natural areas right in the middle of the city.”<\/p>\n
Mr Storrie warned people not to feed or approach the animal and to take extra care with fishing gear and when walking dogs in the area.<\/p>\n
“Quolls have really powerful jaws, they have one of the most powerful bites in the animal kingdom, just a bit below the Tasmanian Devil, so you don’t want to put your hand in its mouth,” he said.<\/p>\n
Spotted-tailed quolls usually live in trees in rainforests and bushland. (Supplied: NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service)<\/p>\n
He said the quoll was looking healthy and plump, and had likely been feeding on pigeons nesting between the jetty rocks.<\/p>\n
There had been no reported threat to the nearby mutton bird population, a protected and threatened species, Mr Storrie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quoll-ity conservation<\/p>\n
Dean Reid from Aussie Ark, based in the Barrington Tops on New South Wales Mid North Coast, said spotted quoll populations were declining across the country, with sightings of the “secretive” species rare.<\/p>\n
“Human activity \u2026 also cats and foxes might predate on the young, so those are a couple of factors why they’re declining, ” Mr Reid said.<\/p>\n
“Urban sprawl and land clearing is also a big one.”<\/p>\n
He said Aussie Ark was working to breed and release spotted-tailed quolls from next year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Quolls are listed as endangered, with eastern quolls wiped out on the mainland in 1963. (Supplied: J.Turbill DCCEEW)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Parks and Wildlife experts are monitoring a spotted-tail quoll sighted in the rocks of a busy northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[141115,64,63,61602,141118,141112,141114,141113,141119,128,141117,141116,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-235188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-are-quolls-endangered","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-coffs-harbour","12":"tag-coffs-harbour-jetty","13":"tag-coffs-harbour-quoll","14":"tag-good-news-stories","15":"tag-jetty-quoll","16":"tag-marina-quoll","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-spotted-tail-quoll","19":"tag-tiger-quoll","20":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}