Bandicoots Make Comeback in Adelaide's Mount Lofty Ranges

0:00A colony of southern brown bandacutes, South Australia's last surviving bandacute species is making a comeback just six kilometers from Adelaide Inn, the Mount Lofty Ranges. These endangered marsupials are holding steady in a small protected area thanks to local conservation efforts aimed at linking them to other groups. Volunteers with the Friends of Brown Hill Creek built a grazing enclosure to shield native plants from kangaroos and feral deer. They cleared invasive blackberry and weeds bit by bit, letting local vegetation thicken up as a safe refuge. Bandacute bungalows made from pallets and sticks give the critter spots the high from foxes and cats. Before Europeans arrived, eight bandacute species roamed South Australia, but this one's the only one left, and it's still endangered. Blackberry bushes, though a pest, offer temporary cover where native habitat vanished. A new colony popped up in Quippo Forest, 35 years after the last sighting there. The bandy bunch team, led by researchers Jasmine Packer and Rossy Bonder Borch, teams

1:01up with park staff, universities, and locals for weed control, and fencing. Recent surveys show babies popping up, boosting numbers after a dip last year. Now they're pushing the bandacute superhighway, planting corridors across gaps and private land to connect this key colony to Adelaide Hills groups. In bushfire country, that linkage could save them all, raising the parts profile for bigger protections. That's your sending news today update, AI powered and always on.