DESPITE the Greater Bilby’s ambassadorial role as Australia’s native Easter bunny, it is an endangered species that few people have seen in the wild.

Also know as the rabbit-eared bandicoot, the animal has long floppy ears, a pointy nose and a mysterious claw on the tip of the tail.

Once found across 70 per cent of Australia, bilby territory has shrunk to 20 per cent of the original size, with populations marginalised to remote desert habitats.

Murdoch researchers Professor Ralph Swan and Dr Kristin Warren are part of a team aiming to boost bilby numbers by discovering how disease affects the survival chances of wild and captive bred animals.

Murdoch is collaborating closely with Dr Tony Friend from Conservation and Land Management (CALM) and June Butcher from Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre (Inc).

The team is studying animals from a bilby captive breeding program run by CALM and Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre.

This captive breeding program releases animals into two 10-hectare enclosures in Dryandra Forest, 170 kilometers south of Perth, which are kept completely free from foxes and feral cats by electric fences. From these enclosures, bilbies are released into the fox-baited sections in outer Dryandra Forest.

The Murdoch team is using a three year ARC SPIRT grant to determine the prevalence and importance of parasitic, bacterial and viral diseases in these bilby populations as well as wild populations still roaming the Pilbara desert areas.

The researchers aim to determine the normal values for health indicators, such as blood cell counts, to help unravel the immediate and long term impacts of diseases in the population.

“Predation is a major killer of bilbies, and we want to learn whether the animals are more likely to be hunted when sick and weakened,” said Professor Swan.

“We would also like to establish if certain diseases are endemic to bilbies, or are being transmitted from other wildlife species.”

“Only limited disease studies have been reported in the past and mainly involve incidental observations with no continued monitoring to understand the implications for health and reproduction”, explained research officer Dr Warren.

“We are particularly interested in comparing the health and disease burden of captive-bred animals to those in wild populations.

Professor Swan and Dr Warren have worked on health management of captive animals for many years concentrating on rehabilitation of orang utans in south-east Asia.

Working closer to home with this bilby research, Dr Warren believes the field work is equally interesting and important.

She explained that during eight days looking for wild bilbies in the Pilbara, the research team drove over 1000 kilometres on sandy tracks looking out for the distinctive bilby footprints and active burrows.

“Unfortunately we never saw bilby footprints without feral cat tracks nearby,” said Professor Swan.

There are an estimated 30 million feral cats currently in Australia, which are thought to be a significant cause of wildlife destruction.