Dr Hornsby has also installed 100 nestboxes at premium sites for phascogales. While the natural extinction of South Australia's phascogales now seems beyond doubt, it may not be permanent. In that regard the zoo is an ideal place. Taking into account Adelaide Zoo's track record of breeding rare and endangered animals for reintroduction into the wild, this is a role we hope that the zoo would take on board. But for that to be effective, the factors that have led to the decline of so many species will need to be reversed.
Cats are very difficult to control, but it's being looked into.
We can't grow forests in a short time, but what we can do is augment what we have got with the basic requirements of phascogales by putting up nestboxes in the stringy bark woodlands that we've got. Putting up nestboxes is going to help not only phascogales but all the other arboreal species, particularly birds, which are looking for nesting hollows that aren't there any more.