{"id":515834,"date":"2026-03-03T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515834\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:00:15","slug":"wild-breeding-success-for-released-eastern-quolls-in-tasmanias-midlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515834\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild breeding success for released eastern quolls in Tasmania\u2019s Midlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captive-bred eastern quolls released into Tasmania\u2019s Midlands are now breeding in the wild, a major conservation breakthrough for a species thought to be quietly disappearing.<\/p>\n

Researchers checking on quolls released at The Quoin \u2013 a 5,000-hectare conservation property in the heart of the Midlands \u2013 have discovered females carrying joeys.<\/p>\n

They say the breakthrough offers rare hope for the spotted marsupials, which have vanished from large areas of the state over the past two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing females successfully raising pouch young in the wild is a milestone that gives us real cause for optimism,\u201d Dr Rowena Hamer from the University of Tasmania said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr Rowena Hamer said the breeding success offers real cause for optimism<\/p>\n

She said the findings are particularly significant because eastern quolls have already gone extinct on mainland Australia more than 50 years ago and Tasmania is their last refuge.<\/p>\n

Eastern quolls, about the size of a small cat with distinctive white spots, hunt insects and small mammals at night and play an important role as predators in Tasmania\u2019s ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\"\"Students like PhD candidate Erin Thomas have studied how individual traits would affect how quolls adapted in the wild<\/p>\n

Their numbers have declined sharply in the Midlands and along the east coast.<\/p>\n

Researchers say the reasons behind their decline remains partly mysterious, but feral cats, climate change, habitat loss and competition with other species all likely contribute.<\/p>\n

The animals which were released in 2025 were fitted with tracking transmitters and monitored using live-trapping and motion-triggered cameras.<\/p>\n

The technology allowed researchers to watch how quolls adapted to their new environment in detail.<\/p>\n

\"\"Eastern quolls released in Tasmania\u2019s midlands are now breeding in the wild<\/p>\n

Crucially, they survived long enough to find mates and breed.<\/p>\n

PhD candidate Erin Thomas, working with Dr Hamer, studied how individual traits would affect adaptation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe start learning about individual quolls before they\u2019re on the ground,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPost release monitoring lets us respond quickly if challenges emerge and helps us understand what\u2019s working well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Quoin property\u2019s mix of grassland and woodland, low feral cat numbers and limited roads is thought to create ideal conditions for their survival and breeding.<\/p>\n

Researchers say they plan more releases at different sites to establish resilient populations across Tasmania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captive-bred eastern quolls released into Tasmania\u2019s Midlands are now breeding in the wild, a major conservation breakthrough for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-515834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515834","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=515834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}