BoorYul-Bah-Bilya Came for the River. It Left with Quokkas.

An Aboriginal-run program monitoring water health in the Mandoon Bilya (Helena River) catchment near Perth set up wildlife cameras and caught something nobody expected: a population of quokkas. The world's happiest-looking marsupial, it turns out, has been living in the hills near Perth this whole time and grinning at no one.

Most people associate quokkas exclusively with Wadjemup (Rottnest Island), where tourists, locals and celebrities have made the island's population famous. The mainland story is considerably less told. Quokkas were once abundant in southwest Western Australia but declined dramatically since the 1930s, likely due to foxes and widespread land clearing. In the 1920s they were considered a pest of pine plantations near Perth and were actively hunted and poisoned. While isolated populations are known to exist in the Darling Range, this is the first time quokkas have been photographed in the Perth Hills.

The discovery came through the BoorYul-Bah-Bilya program, run by the Bibbul Ngarma Aboriginal Association. It is the first program of its kind to consider the environmental, cultural and social values of a river in a single integrated plan, using the Mandoon-Helena River as a model that can be applied to any river by any community. The quokkas were a bonus. Their exact location will remain confidential.

BNAA Senior Elder Greg Ugle, a Noongar Traditional Elder, called for protecting the quokkas, noting that this Perth population is an important discovery.

The threats that drove the decline haven't gone away: fox and cat predation, land clearing, increased bushfire intensity and reduced rainfall are all still active. But finding evidence of this population could help inform conservation efforts for the species.

A program that went looking for a healthier river came back with the first photographs of quokkas in the Perth Hills.

Read the full story at SBS NITV, December 20, 2024

Hot Take: Turns out the best wildlife survey (for quokkas at least) is a water health program run by people who've been responsible for the land for thousands of years.