'Australia's loneliest echidna' no longer solo after trail-cam discoveries

Echidna sightings on Aboriginal-owned Lungatalanana/Clarke Island excite after extensive bushfires In short: New trail camera footage from Tasmania's Lungtalanana/Clarke Island raises hopes that the echidna population is recovering. In 2014, a bushfire destroyed 98 per cent of the vegetation on the Aboriginal-owned island. What's next? A restoration project hopes to return the island to its pre-colonial state. Ranger Tasha Cooper had been learning how to trap feral cats on an island off Tasmania when she came across a discovery that sent her scrambling for her radio. Curled up in the cage was an echidna — or trimanya in palawa kani, the language of Tasmania's Aboriginal people. The species had not been encountered in person on the Bass Strait island in decades. "The excitement was overwhelming. I didn't know if I was going to cry or scream or what,"Ms Cooper said. "Just to see this trimanya curled up trying to push his way out of this cage, there were just no words for it," she said. 'Australia's loneliest echidna' spotted on trail camera Lungtalanana, also known as Clarke Island, is in the Furneaux group of islands off Tasmania's north-east coast. About 8,230 hectares in size, the island returned to Aboriginal ownership in 2005. Pakana rangers are working to restore the island through land management practices, including weed removal, cultural burning and remote wildlife monitoring. In 2023, a trail camera recorded two images of an echidna, captured months apart. Due to the high number of images to review, the photos were not discovered until 2024. It marked the first time the species had been spotted on Lungtalanana/Clarke Island in decades, and came after fears that a 2014 bushfire that burnt through 80 per cent of the island had wiped them out. Conservationist group WWF Australia, which supports the island's Aboriginal-led restoration project, had labelled the echidna as "Australia's loneliest". Following the discovery, trail camera surveillance was boosted, with an image of an echidna recorded in 2025, and a further three this year. But it was not until Ms Cooper's encounter in September that an echidna was spotted out in the field. To determine whether the images were of a single active individual or multiple echidnas, rangers contacted University of Tasmania echidna expert Stewart Nicol. Professor Nicol said that due to the "cryptic" nature of echidnas, it was difficult to estimate population numbers without tracking them. "Given the size of the island that they're working on, and the fact that there's been about four or five sightings now, I'd be surprised if there were fewer than a dozen of them. "There'd probably be more than 20 or 30 echidnas there, probably even more,"Professor Nicol said. Ambitious whole-island rewilding project The discovery comes after the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre last month launched the Lungtalanana Restoration Project. Along with the removal of invasive species and native wildlife tracking, the project is working to repair habitat and return locally extinct species such as Bass Strait wombats, Bennett's wallabies and long-nosed potoroos. It will also create training and work opportunities for Palawa people while strengthening culture and connection to country. It is that hoped at least six species wiped out by invasive predators, land clearing and catastrophic bushfires can be re-established on Lungtalanana/Clarke Island. "It's going to be a huge win for us, for the Palawa community,"Ms Cooper said. Healthy Country ranger Tooarn Brown said the priority was the removal of feral cats. "We want to make sure they're gone before we start doing any major rehabilitation," he said. Mr Brown said the confirmation of an echidna population on the island was encouraging and showed restoration efforts were having an impact. "It means that our management of the island, in both the native plants in the program and when it comes to getting rid of predators, are coming together and creating enough of a system where those small animals don't feel the need to just hide away," he said.