Once Thought Gone Forever, These Mysterious Creatures Have Returned
Deep within Australia’s Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary, a team of ecologists made a startling discovery. Nestled in the underbrush was a small cluster of spiky, fur-covered creatures. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a tangle of bristles and fluff. But as the team leaned in for a closer inspection, their expressions shifted from curiosity to shock. These weren’t just…
At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a nest of bristly, twitching fuzz tucked among the leaves at Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary. But when a group of ecologists leaned in for a closer look, their eyes widened in disbelief. Hidden within the brush, nestled together like tiny, living pincushions, were newborn western quolls — a species many feared would never return to this part of Australia again.
For months, conservationists at the sanctuary had been quietly working on a bold mission: to bring the western quoll, also called the chuditch, back to a region where it had once vanished completely. These cat-sized marsupial carnivores were once widespread across the Australian continent. But since European settlers arrived, their population has plummeted — pushed out by habitat destruction, predators like foxes and cats, and other human-driven threats.
