Plan to protect Canberra's 'vulnerable' spotted-tailed quoll

There is a marsupial about the size of a domestic cat that peruses forest environments across the eastern seaboard of Australia. The spotted-tailed quoll is the largest marsupial carnivore on mainland Australia however in the ACT it has almost disappeared.

But there is a new action plan that hopes to better protect the species.

The ACT government has outlined a plan to better protect spotted-tail quolls.

The ACT government has outlined a conservation and protection plan to maintain long-term, suitable habitat conditions for wild quolls in the region.

Spotted-tail quolls were listed as vulnerable on a threatened native species list in 2003. Since 2005 there has been an average detection rate of one per year in ACT borders.

The plan will be implemented by surveys and supporting research on the species and its ecology.

It aimed to "protect local habitat, especially around sites that are suitable for dens, and maintain connectivity with surrounding NSW".

ACT conservator of flora and fauna Ian Walker said spotted-tail quolls played "an important ecological role as a high order predator".

"Numbers declined with European settlement. It is believed the introduction of strychnine baiting in the Canberra district in 1861 led to their widespread poisoning," he said.

"Today their greatest threats include destruction of habitat, fire, competition and predation from introduced carnivores - and road mortality."

Spotted-tail quolls are also found in south Queensland through to south-western Victoria and Tasmania. Monitoring in recent years has failed to detect activity from the spotted-tailed quoll in Canberra.

"Cameras and surveys looking for quoll scat in selected areas of Namadgi National Park in recent years have failed to detect the species, but we hope broader surveys will uncover the species," Mr Walker said.

The spotted-tailed quoll is not to be confused with the eastern quoll that was reintroduced to the ACT in 2016 at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary.

Spotted-tail quolls are larger than eastern quolls and, as the name suggests, their white dots extend to their tail.

The announcement of the plan came as the ACT government formally recognised unnatural fragmentation as a key threatening process following advice from the scientific committee.

This will also help to protect native species such as quolls, grassland earless dragons, golden sun moths and striped legless lizards.