A mystery disease sweeping through ringtail possums in the South West is leaving the critically endangered species blind and paralysed, with carers concerned that things will only get worse in summer.<\/p>\n
So far, 85 cases have been identified by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), but vets believe many more are going unreported.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The illness leaves possums vulnerable to animal attacks, being hit by cars and struggling to find food. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry\u00a0)<\/p>\n
Suspicions proven correct<\/p>\n
Busselton’s Heritage Vet’s Dr Natalie Bowskill first noticed something suspicious about the possums coming into the clinic in January 2024.<\/p>\n
“By the time we got to the fifth or sixth possum with unusual symptoms, I started to get a bit suspicious,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Natalie Bowskill says she has few options when it comes to treating blind possums. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
Dr Bowskill said it was hard trying to treat sick possums without knowing what was wrong.<\/p>\n
“Initially I felt like we had nowhere to send them, nowhere to continue their care, and we were euthanasing them \u2014 and that’s where you’re left,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve even had some blind babies, but we’re keeping them going.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to just put every blind possum down; what if this is a reversible condition?”<\/p>\n
Dr Bowskill said she was worried about how many were being missed as the sick possums become more vulnerable to attacks from other animals or being hit by cars.<\/p>\n
She said it would be difficult for a vet to detect the syndrome if they were already injured.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The true number of possums affected is unknown, with litters sometimes orphaned in the wild. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
Alarm bells ringing<\/p>\n
Dr Bowskill sounded the alarm with DBCA in September last year.<\/p>\n
Lead DBCA investigator Anna Le Souef said testing was underway to identify a common link or underlying cause.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anna Le Souef is leading an investigative collaboration to identify the underlying cause. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
“We’re looking at lots of different factors, including infection potential, infectious causes, environmental and nutritious factors,” Dr Le Souef said.<\/p>\n
“We’re making a big effort to find out the cause of this syndrome, but we don’t know how long it will take.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Researchers are looking into potential infectious, environmental and nutritional causes. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
Dr Le Souef said spreading awareness across the region was vital.<\/p>\n
“This is a critically endangered species, so even small health issues can significantly impact the population,” she said.<\/p>\n
“They’ve presented to various rehabilitation groups and it’s about coordinating that response, making sure that everyone has the information.”<\/p>\n
Concerns for the summer<\/p>\n
Suzie Strapp, who owns the South West-based wildlife organisation FAWNA, said the emergence of the mystery syndrome showed endangered species were not getting the attention they deserved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Suzie Strapp is concerned the endangered species will not cope with the added stress of disease. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
“The situation for endangered species in the South West is pretty dire, and we don’t know what we don’t know because no-one is looking,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The last thing they need is another threatening process on top of the ones that, unfortunately, cause them to be a critically endangered species.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Western ringtail possums are critically endangered, with as few as 8,000 estimated left in the wild. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n
The 2023\/24 summer saw the South West without rain for six months, the driest six-month spell on record in 150 years.<\/p>\n
Ms Strapp said she was concerned about the prospect of another hot summer with the added stress of disease after FAWNA reached capacity in 2024.<\/p>\n
“We don’t have the facilities to cater for the huge number of animals coming in,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve actually had to euthanase animals instead of keeping them because we don’t have the facilities.”<\/p>\n
Ms Strapp said she worried about what this disease meant for other South West fauna.<\/p>\n
“It’s a canary in a coal mine for other endangered species,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So far, 85 cases of the disease have been recorded by DBCA, but experts fear that number is just the tip of the iceberg. (ABC South West: Madigan Landry\u00a0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mystery disease sweeping through ringtail possums in the South West is leaving the critically endangered species blind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,17956,33801,75,5705,90043,2400,148116,337,148115,128,45,338],"class_list":["post-249595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blind","tag-critically-endangered","tag-environment","tag-fawna","tag-mystery-illness","tag-native-species","tag-perth-zoo","tag-research","tag-ringtail-possum","tag-science","tag-wa-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249595","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=249595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}