A tiny Australian native mammal that lives fast and dies young is bouncing back, with projects in two different states showing an increase in its numbers.

Red-tailed phascogales – small, arboreal mammals that weigh around 40 to 60 grams when fully grown – are listed as vulnerable nationally under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

However, a conservation milestone has been reached in the Gawler Ranges on Eyre Peninsula after the animals were recorded to have been successfully breeding in the wild for the third consecutive year.

The success follows the autumn release of 45 red-tailed phascogales into the Gawler Ranges Safer Haven, bringing the total number reintroduced over the past three years to 189.

“That’s really a great success for the program, and a great sign that the population is starting to establish,” Bounceback Program coordinator Matt Heard said.

“They’re just an amazing animal. They’re one of these rock stars of the mammal world, so they live fast, and they die young, as a lot of small mammals do in Australia.

“The males only live for about 11 months, and [they] only last one breeding season.”

Monitoring cameras have recorded 20 females across the northern ranges, with footage capturing animals born in the wild.

Red-tailed phascogales feed mainly on insects and small animals, and have rusty-coloured backs and bushy tails which enable them to balance as they run through the trees.

The Gawler Ranges National Park, around a six-hour dri­ve north­west of Ade­laide, was proclaimed in 2002 to pro­tect rare and threat­ened plants and ani­mals.

The reintroduction of the phascogales is part of a partnership between the Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species and the South Australian Department for Environment and Water Bounceback Program that aims to establish populations in areas where predators are actively managed.

With numbers showing signs of natural growth, resources are being directed towards monitoring the species while continuing feral cat control.

“We’re never going to totally eradicate them [feral cats] from this landscape,” Heard said.

“We’re using myriad techniques to then suppress those numbers, so that while this population of phascogales establishes, they’ve got the best chance that they can have.”

A red-tailed phascogale in WA’s Mount Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary. Photo: Aliesha Dodson

Meanwhile, there is also good news from Western Australia, where red-tailed phascogales have been captured in record numbers at a wildlife sanctuary in the Wheatbelt region.

Ecologists captured 48 phascogales during a survey at Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Mount Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary – more than double the number captured in 2024, and the highest number recorded since the species was reintroduced nine years ago inside the sanctuary’s 7800-hectare feral predator-free fenced area.

AWC field ecologist Aliesha Dodson said the increase followed better weather conditions after severe drought in 2023 and 2024.

“It was incredibly dry at Mount Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary,” Dodson said.

“The phascogales, as well as other boom and bust species on the sanctuary, felt the impact of the drier period, and populations decreased as their food resources became scarce.”

Dodson described the animals as “incredibly quick and naturally wary” explaining that it was unusual to see them in high numbers during surveys: “To record this many individuals is a really encouraging sign for the species.”

She added that the predator-free fenced area was also giving the species the breathing room it needed to recover after the drought.

AWC owns and manages three sanctuaries protecting the red-tailed phascogale, with the others both in south-west NSW.

–InDaily / The New Daily