A spotted-tail quoll was captured in South Australia by a farmer has sparked hopes that the creature, once extinct in the region, may be making a return, according to Australian News reports from last Thursday.
The quoll, a type of marsupial, hadn’t been seen in the region for 130 years. While the quoll was considered extinct in that region, it maintains an endangered status throughout the rest of Australia.
Pao Ling Tsai, who captured the creature, had been trying to catch the predator responsible for hunting his wildlife. Tsai told ABC News that he expected to capture a cat or fox and was shocked by what he found.
"It was incredible. I had no idea what it was at first."
The quoll escaped Tsai’s trap, but another (or possibly the same one) was captured by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
"I definitely think there are more – when I went out this morning [on Thursday], all the food was taken," Tsai told ABC. "I've given the video to National Parks and Wildlife to see what animal took the food, but I think it was another quoll or quolls."
Official reactions to the find
Limestone Coast district ranger Ross Anderson from the NPWS said that the organization was "blown away" by the animal's re-emergence.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime event, really," he said to the media site.
There have been some anecdotal, verbal records in the 1970s and 80s of local sightings, but the last official records of spotted-tailed quolls are from the 1880s," Anderson explained, describing the significance of the animal’s discovery.
The captured quoll was released in an undisclosed location on Thursday.
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