{"id":749848,"date":"2026-06-21T00:55:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T00:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749848\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T00:55:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T00:55:43","slug":"a-suburban-backyard-and-a-4-million-lifeline-how-was-endangered-residents-are-being-resurrected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749848\/","title":{"rendered":"A suburban backyard and a $4 million lifeline: How WA\u2019s endangered residents are being resurrected"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At 85 years old, this western swamp tortoise, dubbed \u2018C12\u2019, is one of the oldest of Perth Zoo\u2019s residents \u2013 and one of the most important for West Australian conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

The species was believed to be extinct until a young boy uncovered one in his backyard in the Swan Valley in the 1950s and brought it along to a wildlife show at the Perth Town Hall.<\/p>\n

It had only been recorded once before, in the 1800s, when a specimen was sent to the Vienna Museum in Austria, lodged as a new species and promptly forgotten about until the wildlife show, more than 100 years later.<\/p>\n

By the late 1980s, Perth Zoo had commenced a breeding program to boost numbers and in 1991 \u2018C12\u2019 made his debut.<\/p>\n

To this day, he continues to play a significant role, siring 142 hatchlings and counting.<\/p>\n

Now part of the zoo\u2019s overarching native species breeding program, \u2018C12\u2019 has helped contribute to more than 1300 western swamp tortoises being bred.<\/p>\n

Almost all have been released into the wild, but numbers remain critically low.<\/p>\n

Perth Zoo\u2019s science program leader Dr Harriet Mills said that was because the species was naturally only found in a small area on the northern Swan Coastal Plains, including in the Ellenbrook Nature Reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have quite specific habitat. They require these wetlands with specific hydrology and geology with a clay-based structure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Harriet Mills.Perth Zoo\/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were probably restricted and just evolved in that very specific habitat over many thousands of years \u2013 just one of those quirks of evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because they need a specific habitat to thrive, urban development is a real concern, Mills said.<\/p>\n

The Ellenbrook Nature Reserve is protected, but keeping it that way is not yet a guarantee.<\/p>\n

The region is now also one of WA\u2019s fastest-growing residential development areas, supported by the new Metronet line and increasing demand for space for new homes in the midst of a housing crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can have influence over whether the reserve remains protected but unfortunately, we don\u2019t have that much control,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

The concerns over development is one reason the zoo\u2019s program has introduced new populations of the tortoise into different regions of the state, further from the city, including at sites in the Moore River Nature Reserve in the Wheatbelt, and Scott National Park in the South West.<\/p>\n

At the latter, 117 western swamp tortoises have been released.<\/p>\n

Perth Zoo currently has 49 ponds housing their resident tortoises for breeding, and also runs a program out of Monarto Zoo in South Australia.<\/p>\n

\"AA tortoise being released after it was raised at the zoo. Perth Zoo\/ Supplied<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just tortoises that Perth Zoo\u2019s native species breeding program is focused on \u2013 another critically endangered critter housed just next door to the tortoise behind the scenes is also receiving VIP treatment.<\/p>\n

The numbat, WA\u2019s fauna emblem, has an estimated population of between 2000 and 3000.<\/p>\n

The zoo\u2019s breeding program has resulted in the release of 325 captive-bred numbats since its inception in the early 1990s, contributing to a rise in population numbers from just 300 in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still not out of the woods, but much more secure,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Balston\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, we have around five or six breeding pairs at the zoo each year and we\u2019re doing a release in late spring, early summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than putting all our eggs being all in one basket, we spread them out a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of numbats as being a south-west animal in the Wandoo and Jarrah forest, but if you look at their former distribution, it actually went right across most of southern Australia into western New South Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perth Zoo has translocated populations across WA, much like with the western swamp tortoise, and also sent numbats to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy in Sydney and to their Mount Gibson Sanctuary in WA, as well as to similar sanctuaries in South Australia and NSW.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are developing our captive breeding techniques to allow us to have insurance populations and be able to breed in captivity if we need to, going into the future,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

Part of that insurance will come from new funding for the zoo\u2019s native species breeding program, handed down by the state government in its 2026-27 budget.<\/p>\n

The $4.1 million commitment over the next two years will largely be used to replace the existing numbat breeding facility.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe numbat joeys, born the size of jellybeans, emerging from their burrow for the first time.DBCA<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are quite limited in our capacity with just 24 enclosures because numbats have four young,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe separate them out from their mother, so with having just 24 enclosures \u2013 half of those are for the adults, then we need the extra space to be able to separate the young off, so we\u2019re basically limited to how many we can breed each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gives us 10 to 20 animals each year for release, which is quite a small number, relatively speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were able to have another facility, we can manage that a lot more easily, and it can increase our capacity to breed, and therefore release animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mills, her favourite part of the job is being part of those release efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much work here that goes on round the clock year by year, but it\u2019s all with the intent of actually getting the animals back out to the wild,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOccasionally, I get to go out to release a numbat or a western swamp tortoise. That\u2019s definitely the most satisfying thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the future, the zoo is looking at what it can do to promote its native species breeding program more effectively.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne of the captive numbats at Perth Zoo. Perth Zoo\/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is behind the scenes, and something that we\u2019re really conscious of is the fact that people don\u2019t really understand the scope of what we do,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the master plan for the zoo is to look at what opportunities there might be for making that a little bit more visible to the public.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-749848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749848","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=749848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}