Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in far south-west New South Wales are showing significant success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000 seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs National Park.
Fifty 'founder' bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019. The aim was to establish a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century. Between 2021 and 2023, 107 bilbies were released from the breeding area into 9,570 hectares of fenced, predator-free habitat.
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC), which manages the project with the state government, conducted the first surveys and estimates the total population has now reached 1,840 bilbies. Rachel Ladd, an AWC wildlife ecologist, said excluding bilbies from feral cat and fox impacts allows them to breed up and persist in the environment. Motion-sensor cameras showed the animals have dispersed through the wider fenced area and now occupy most of the predator-free habitat.
The greater bilby is listed as vulnerable under Australian nature laws and is found in only about 20% of its former range. The Mallee Cliffs project is one of six large predator-free areas with bilby populations managed by the AWC. Across properties in NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the organisation's annual bilby census found numbers climbed from an estimated 3,300 in 2025 to 5,300 in 2026, more than four times the 2021 estimate of 1,230.
Ladd noted that bilbies are a boom and bust species, with population numbers expected to fluctuate with environmental conditions. At the Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary in the Northern Territory, the survey showed a rapid increase from 66 founder bilbies three-and-a-half years ago to an estimated 530, driven partly by above average rainfall. Ecologist Tim Henderson said bilbies, known as ecosystem engineers, are reshaping the landscape through their foraging and burrowing.
