Eastern Quoll specimen.
Image: Marilyn Blankley
Source: Rayleen Reynolds
Two Eastern Quoll specimens have been collected and given to Melbourne Museum for analysis. Both quolls were found, with only a few months between sightings, deceased at the side of a road near Little River. The latest specimen was retrieved last week.
Eastern Quolls have been extinct on the Australian mainland for decades and can be recognised by their distinctive white body spots and unmarked tail. They are still relatively common in Tasmania.
Rayleen Reynolds, who found the quolls, had previously seen the creatures apparently feeding at the side of the road. Reynolds is a wildlife 'foster carer' who identified the marsupials through her own research before contacting the museum.
It is believed that the quolls may have escaped from the nearby Mount Rothwell Conservation and Research Centre, which for some years ran a captive breeding program. All captive-bred quolls were micro-chipped.
It is not clear how long the quolls survived in the landscape, which is Victorian basalt plains, and would offer a fairly flat unwooded habitat with scattered low bushes and open grasslands. However, it would be significant if they had survived in the vicinity for a period of time, because this area, once their natural habitat, is now populated by cats and foxes. Further examination of the specimens, including ascertaining the contents of their stomachs, may reveal more about this.
Paul Mervin the manager of the Mount Rothwell Conservation and Research Centre noted that because the first quoll (found in June) was not micro-chipped, it is very likely that it was born wild. He had also received reports of sightings of Eastern Quolls in the local area.
The captive breeding program is no longer running at the centre, and Eastern Quolls are now free-ranging within the twelve-kilometre perimeter fence; however, the fence has been breached a number of times and is considered an “exclusion” rather than an “inclusion” boundary. Mervin commented that quolls are good climbers.
An investigation of the specimens may expose useful new information about the adaptiveness of Eastern Quolls.