Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L00432:reg:3:p7
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L00432
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 3 (pt 7/14)
Character Range: 36404–39397

levels with each playing a different role in achieving the metapopulation goals:
    * captive management: receives and intensively manages genetically valuable individuals and amplifies them for distribution to fenced-wild and wild sites; engages in education and advocacy.
    * fenced-wild management: provides long-term or permanent sites supporting bilbies as part of the managed metapopulation; provides a source of individuals for dispersal to wild and to other fenced-wild sites.
    * wild management: provides long-term or permanent sites supporting bilbies as part of the managed metapopulation; acts as a source of wild founders for the managed metapopulation; sites receive bilbies generated through the managed metapopulation to support viability.
In addition to the extant naturally occurring wild populations of the Greater Bilby, there are a number of bilbies that are either maintained in captivity, have been reintroduced behind fences, introduced onto islands, or have been reintroduced to the wild.
Such translocated populations persist because management negates or isolates them from threatening processes such as predation from introduced predators. Each of these populations faces challenges that may require specific actions and monitoring to measure and maintain population performance. For example, the effects of low founder numbers, the potential loss of adaptation of the Greater Bilby to introduced predators, or the selective pressure a fence, site habitat, or exclosure size may impose on a population.
There is a limited understanding of how some of these factors may influence population processes. For example, the long-term impacts of restricting bilbies wide-ranging and dispersing opportunities are unknown (Moseby & O'Donnell 2003). It is assumed that the Greater Bilby co-evolved with native predators such as monitors and large pythons (Skroblin et al. 2017), so bilbies are aware of native predators and have behaviours that minimise risk of predation by those predators. It is unclear whether predator awareness training can be effective against predators such as foxes and feral cats. Evolutionary isolation from foxes and feral cats may mean that the Greater Bilby's naivety of predation risk may not be overcome as a result of predator-awareness training. Because of variation in the duration that juvenile bilbies remain with their mothers, avoidance behaviours are more likely to be passed down to those juvenile bilbies that remain with the adult for long enough to learn from their mother (Moseby et al. 2012). Results from releases of bilbies from a fenced, fox- and feral cat-free, area have shown that juveniles succumbed to feral cat predation soon after pouch exit (Moseby et al. 2012; Steindler et al. 2018).
A trial reintroduction to unfenced areas of Watarrka NP resulted in a growth in bilby numbers for a short period of above average rainfall, following which they declined and became locally extinct, most likely due to predation