{"id":357100,"date":"2026-01-07T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/357100\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:44:09","slug":"native-cat-thought-to-have-vanished-seen-for-the-first-time-in-80-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/357100\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Native Cat\u2019 Thought To Have Vanished Seen for the First Time in 80 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

An endangered species of marsupial\u00a0known as\u00a0the\u00a0\u201cnorthern quoll\u201d\u00a0or the “North Australian native cat” has been spotted in a wildlife<\/a> sanctuary in Queensland for the first time in\u00a0almost a century,\u00a0sparking hopes of a potential comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The critter was captured on a motion-sensor camera\u00a0at\u00a0the 164,850-hectare Piccaninny Plains Wildlife Sanctuary in Northern\u00a0Kaanju\u00a0Country, jointly owned by\u00a0Australian Wildlife Conservancy\u00a0(AWC) and The Tony & Lisette Lewis Foundation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once widespread across northern and eastern\u00a0Australia<\/a>, northern quoll populations have collapsed due to toxic\u00a0cane toads<\/a>; feral predators including cats; inappropriate fire\u00a0regimes;\u00a0and habitat loss.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The\u00a0closest\u00a0detection of the species was in 2017, when a quoll was captured on a trail camera on the neighbouring Indigenous managed\u00a0Kaanju\u00a0Ngaachi\u00a0Wenlock and Pascoe River IPA by\u00a0Chuulangun\u00a0Rangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ecologists have\u00a0been fearing\u00a0the loss of the species from Piccaninny Plains for\u00a0nearly two\u00a0decades after\u00a0failing to detect\u00a0the elusive\u00a0marsupial in\u00a0surveys since 2008\u2014including multiple\u00a0targeted camera deployments in 2015, 2021 and 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then last year, sanctuary\u00a0manager Nick Stock, following a hunch, deployed a single camera\u00a0on an isolated rocky outcrop within the sanctuary that he spotted from a helicopter.\u00a0Within days he had captured unmistakable evidence of a quoll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a fantastic surprise!\u201d Helena Stokes, AWC Wildlife Ecologist said. \u201cAfter years of no sightings, to finally confirm a northern quoll on the sanctuary is hugely uplifting for our team. It reinforces the importance of persistence, good science, and managing threats across large landscapes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This record, according to Stokes gives them a \u201croadmap\u201d and a clear starting point for future surveys and research.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0possible this quoll, and hopefully others, have adapted their behaviour in response to the presence of cane toads. Understanding that resilience could be vital for the species\u2019 long-term survival,\u201d\u00a0she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The rediscovery\u00a0also\u00a0offers an important starting point for understanding how the species continues to persist on Cape York.<\/p>\n

Early signs\u00a0indicate\u00a0that the rocky outcrop has\u00a0largely escaped\u00a0fire\u2014thanks to AWC\u2019s long\u2011term fire management\u2014and, to date, surveillance cameras have not detected any\u00a0feral cats<\/a>\u00a0in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery rediscovery\u00a0matters,\u201d said Nick Stock. \u201cJust when we were close to giving up hope, this little quoll reminds us why we keep searching, and why protecting these landscapes at scale is essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about endangered species? Let us know via\u00a0science@newsweek.com<\/a>.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An endangered species of marsupial\u00a0known as\u00a0the\u00a0\u201cnorthern quoll\u201d\u00a0or the “North Australian native cat” has been spotted in a wildlife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[94973,428,5147,34943,62795,133172,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-357100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-science","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ecology","11":"tag-marsupials","12":"tag-northern-quoll","13":"tag-rediscovery","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}