For the first time in more than a century, a small native marsupial known as the bettong — colloquially dubbed the "rat kangaroo" — is once again hopping through the scrubland of Dirk Hartog Island, a remote stretch of land some 850 kilometres north of Perth in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. The reintroduction of the endangered woylie, a brushtail variety of bettong, marks one of the final milestones in an ambitious decade-long effort to restore the island's pre-colonial ecosystem.
Poop Science Paves the Way for Bettong Reintroduction
The path back to Dirk Hartog Island for these tiny marsupials began in an unlikely place: the analysis of animal faeces. PhD researcher Rebecca Quah, from Edith Cowan University, led a molecular study of bettong droppings to determine whether the island's soil could support the fungi that the animals depend on as a critical part of their diet.
"Firstly, I had to decipher what sort of fungi the bettongs were eating … and specifically I was looking through their poop," Ms Quah said. "Poop is so useful for understanding so much about animals, not just their diets."
The study, published in the journal Ecosystems, shed light on the often unglamorous but essential science involved in relocating species. Feral goats had devastated much of the island's native vegetation over many years, making it far from certain that the bettongs' dietary requirements could be met. Ms Quah's faecal analysis provided the evidence needed to give the reintroduction the green light.
"There's so much you can do with poop," she said. "They are very sweet animals — like a really small kangaroo, a hoppy macropod sort of animal."
The Return to 1616 Project
The woylie reintroduction in 2025 is part of WA's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions' (DBCA) Return to 1616 project — a sweeping conservation initiative that takes its name from the year Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog became the first recorded European to set foot on the island's shores, known to its traditional custodians as Wirrawunna.
The project's goal is to wind back the ecological clock, restoring the island — the largest in Western Australia — to the state it was in before European colonisation and the invasive species that followed. Over the past decade, feral animals have been largely eliminated from the national park, enabling a steady succession of native fauna reintroductions.
Bettongs were once found across vast stretches of Australia, but feral cats and European foxes decimated their numbers as the nocturnal foragers proved easy prey. Today, most survive only within fenced sanctuaries under close conservation management. The largely predator-free environment of Dirk Hartog Island now offers a rare opportunity for a self-sustaining wild population to re-establish.
Boodies Next in Line as Project Nears Completion
With the woylie now on the island, attention turns to the boodie, or burrowing bettong — another variety of bettong whose name is drawn from the Noongar language. Boodies are scheduled for reintroduction in spring and are understood to be among the last species to be returned as part of the Return to 1616 program.
Their arrival would represent a landmark moment for one of Australia's most significant island restoration efforts — a project that has required years of painstaking work, from eliminating invasive animals to, as Ms Quah's research demonstrates, getting scientists' hands well and truly dirty in pursuit of a healthier ecosystem.
For those working on the ground, it is a labour that is beginning to bear visible results. Native wildlife is returning, the vegetation is recovering, and an island once transformed by pastoral use is slowly but surely beginning to look as it did more than 400 years ago.
