More than 100 years after being declared extinct in the state, 10 of the strongest and healthiest Australian bilbies from Dubbo's Western Plains Zoo have been released into a protected area of the Sturt National Park in the most north-western corner of New South Wales.
For Dubbo-based senior zookeeper Steve Kleinig a long career in conservation has brought many golden moments, but releasing the bilby is one of the best.
"I've been at Western Plains for the last 19 years, and I've been lucky enough to be involved in quite a few conservation projects over the years," he said.
"But when the first bilby was released, the cameras were on and everyone was crowded around, and to see the emotion on everyone's face; that was very overwhelming.
Five male and five female bilbies were flown from Dubbo in the cold early hours of September 11 to Tibooburra, as part of the Wild Deserts Program.
They were released into a 2,000-hectare area in the nearby national park where they were fenced-off from cats, foxes and rabbits.
There are just 9,000 bilbies in Australia and the reintroduction of the small marsupial into the special enclosures aims to increase that number by 17 per cent.
It is the third time in NSW that such a release of the bilby has occurred.
Bilbies have already been released in the Pilliga and Mallee Cliffs but this is the first time in Sturt National Park.
A healing process
For the local Wongkumara people, the region's Traditional Owners, they see the arrival of the bilby as a healing process for the land.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service deputy secretary Atticus Fleming said bringing the bilbies back was the first step in trying to restore the landscape.
"Ultimately, what we want is for the Australian bush to resemble what it was a couple of hundred years ago; alive with these mammals that perform really important ecological roles," he said.
Mr Fleming said the bilby's digging action assisted in seed germination for revegetation and with aerating the soil.
"The soil gets turned over which influences the way water moves through the landscape, it influences germination rates, it gets the landscape functioning again the way it used to be," he said.
"So, the idea is for the bilbies to be in there digging away, beginning the process of renewal.
"When you get formerly compacted soil instead now being turned over, that heals the landscape."
More to be done
Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate in the world, with more than 30 mammal species lost since colonisation.
The introduction of feral predators and hard-hooved livestock has played a key role in those species' demise, according to chief executive of Taronga Conservation Society Australia Cameron Kerr.
"The ecosystems are all living on the edge, it's a delicate balance," he said.
Future releases into the Wild Deserts Program enclosures will include the carnivorous western quoll; a natural predator of the bilby.
"Western quolls, stick-nest rats, golden bandicoots and western barred bandicoots are all breeds that can go back in [the environment] one step at a time," Mr Kerr said.
