How is the numbat being protected?
The numbat, a termite-eating marsupial and Western Australia's animal emblem, is protected through fox and cat control, fenced predator-free sanctuaries and reintroduction programs.
Numbats once lived across much of southern and central Australia. After European settlement, land clearing and introduced predators, especially foxes and feral cats, wiped them out almost everywhere. By the 1980s only two small populations survived, in Western Australia's Dryandra Woodland and Perup forests.
Numbats are active by day and eat up to 20,000 termites daily, using a long, sticky tongue. Because they forage in the open, they are easy prey for introduced predators.
Conservation work
Widespread fox baiting under Western Australia's Western Shield program helped numbat numbers recover in some areas. Perth Zoo has bred numbats for release since the 1990s.
Organisations such as the Australian Wildlife Conservancy have released numbats into predator-free fenced areas in Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales.
The numbat is still listed as endangered, with only around a thousand mature numbats thought to remain in the wild.
Did You Know?
The numbat is also called the banded anteater because of the white stripes across its back.