30 wildlife cameras fail to spot 'quite cute' native after year of filming

Researchers, rangers fear native northern quoll species could be extinct in Litchfield National Park In short: Wildlife cameras have been filming in Litchfield National Park for almost 12 months, but the nationally endangered northern quoll is yet to be spotted. PhD candidate Ryan Sauermann says feral animals, such as cats and cane toads, have contributed to the native species' population decline. What's next? Ranger Darius Nasir warns "we won't see them again" if the decline continues, and Mr Sauermann wants pet-owners to help limit the threat to wildlife. For nearly a year, Ryan Sauermann has been scouring the Top End's Litchfield National Park in hopes of catching a glimpse of a northern quoll — but he's yet to spot one. The University of Melbourne PhD student believes the once-common marsupial may now be locally extinct in the region. "We started out hoping to set up a captive breeding and rewilding colony, given how quickly their populations have declined," he said. "Now the PhD project has turned more into [looking at] where are they, are they even still around, and if not, why?" Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife ranger Darius Nasir has been helping Mr Sauermann with the research. The senior park ranger used to spot the nocturnal northern quolls "almost every night", but said it's now been four or five years since he's seen one. "Around 2009, 2010, I used to see them all the time around my house … my dogs would be going off and it'd be quolls, quite abundant quolls back then,"he said. Mr Sauermann said the spread of cane toads was largely to blame for the decline in the native species. "As the cane toad front moves through, we're losing 85 to 95 per cent [of the northern quoll population]," he said. The species' decline is not restricted to the Top End — earlier this year, research in Queensland confirmed spotted-tail and northern quolls were "functionally" extinct in large parts of the state, where the introduced toads also pose an ecological threat. Mr Sauermann said changes to fire management and other feral species also posed major threats to northern quolls, which are listed as "endangered" nationally, and "critically endangered" in the Northern Territory. "More frequent burns tend to be worse for the quolls as well," Mr Sauermann said. "The introduction of feral predators — cats especially — are a big issue." A range of methods Mr Sauermann has set up more than 30 wildlife-tracking cameras throughout the national park. Food is used to attract animals to these "camera traps", with footage showing a variety of feral animals and other wildlife sniffing around the caged microphones. "We've gotten quite a lot of buffalo and pigs, we've gotten a fair few cats, but no quolls at all so far,"he said. "It's been north of 4,000 nights of camera trapping, which means 30-plus cameras deployed for almost a year." Loading...Citizen science is also playing a big role in the study, with Mr Sauermann doing everything he can to raise awareness about the plight of the northern quoll. "In Litchfield where we've got a lot of tourists, I've been putting up flyers around park that say, 'If you see a northern quoll, please give me a shout'," he said. "I've reached out to a number of Facebook groups … but unfortunately, those have yielded very limited success so far." The search continues Mr Sauermann has been flying from Melbourne to the Top End "every couple of months" since late last year — and said he will keep coming back, despite so far not locating any quolls. "Just because we're not finding anything right now doesn't mean that they're not here, doesn't mean we should stop looking," he said. The PhD candidate said, aside from dingoes, the carnivorous northern quoll is "probably one of the apex predators out here". "They're the ones managing, not just insect populations, but also other rodent populations," he said. "They're massively important for the ecosystem." Mr Nasir said keeping quolls in northern Australia was "greatly important", and he feared the possibility of an ecological snowball effect if the "quite cute" animals were wiped out. "If we lose these quolls, we won't see them again — it'll be like the bloody thylacine," he said. "We've got too many extinct animals around already as it is, let alone [adding] another one." Mr Sauermann urged pet-owners to keep dogs and cats away from wildlife, encouraging Territorians to do their bit in protecting the environment and trying to limit fire risk. "There's so much more out there than I think people realise and just getting people interested would be a huge, huge win," he said.