The LED-based silk and steel lanterns feature animals include the marine turtle, platypus, greater bilby, corroboree frog, regent honeyeater, sun bear, Asian elephant, Sumatran rhino, Sumatran tiger and pangolin.
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While the red sand outside the reserve shows prints of rabbits and cats, the dunes inside are inscribed with indigenous tracks: the long heart-shaped back feet of the boodie, the sideways V of the Western barred bandicoot, the distinctive toenail marks of the greater bilby.
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The island is the home to an introduced population of the greater bilby.
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Breeding programs at the sanctuary include the southern cassowary, estuarine crocodile, northern bettong, common wombat, koala, nail-tail wallaby, eclectus parrot, black-headed python, and from September 2016 Greater Bilby.
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Threatened fauna species include malleefowl, emu, southern hairy-nosed wombat, western grey kangaroo, red kangaroo, numbat, greater bilby, boodie, woylie and short-beaked echidna.Australian Wildlife Conservancy: Yookamurra Sanctuary - Wildlife Species An attempted reintroduction of the greater stick-nest rat failed.
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Macrotis is a genus of desert-dwelling marsupial omnivores known as bilbies or rabbit-bandicoots; Unabridged they are members of the order Peramelemorphia. At the time of European colonisation of Australia, there were two species. The lesser bilby became extinct in the 1950s; the greater bilby survives but remains endangered. It is currently listed as a vulnerable species.
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Several introduced pest species occur, including the European fox, European rabbit, feral cat, feral goat and feral pig. Several mammal species that previously occurred prior to the arrival of Europeans are also being reintroduced into the park. These include the Crest-tailed Mulgara, Greater Bilby, Western barred bandicoot, Burrowing bettong, Greater stick-nest rat, Golden bandicoot and Western quoll.
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The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis), often referred to simply as the bilby since the lesser bilby (Macrotis leucura) became extinct in the 1950s, is an Australian species of nocturnal omnivorous animal in the order Peramelemorphia. Other vernacular names include dalgyte, pinkie, or rabbit- eared bandicoot. Greater bilbies live in arid parts of northwestern and central Australia. Their range and population is in decline.
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Vegetation includes grasslands, woodlands and shrublands, which can be subdivided into ten distinct vegetation communities, with over 100 species of plants recorded. Several threatened species of birds and other animals have been recorded on Newhaven. These include the grey falcon, night parrot, princess parrot, striated grasswren, grey honeyeater, mulgara, black- flanked rock-wallaby, greater bilby, marsupial mole and great desert skink. Newhaven is surrounded by Aboriginal lands.
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Public use of the Park Lands was controlled by a ranger who patrolled the parks, regulating sporting and recreational activities in the parks and supervising the depasturing of stock grazing there. A variety of now absent wildlife was still present in the park lands in the late 1800s, with the Greater Bilby reported as still being numerous in 1890. The former prevalence of the species - which went by the local name of pinky or pingku \- is recognised as the likely origin of the place name Pinky Flat.
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The vegetation found in the area is mostly spinifex and mulga with creeklines being surrounded by eucalypts. Mulga scrub and mulla mulla are found in dense scrubland in the northeastern plains with spinifex and sand dunes being found in the western end. The park is the home of the threatened Pilbara Pebble-Mound Mouse Pseudomys chapmani which is also found in the Millstream-Chichester National Park and the Karlamilyi National Park. The mulga habitat is a refuge for the critical weight range mammals such as Macrotis lagotis (greater bilby), Dasycercus cristicauda (mulgara) and dasyurids.
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A scientific description of the greater bilby was first published in 1837 by a Mr J. Reid. Reid based his description on a specimen that he erroneously stated to have come from Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), where the species has not occurred in historical times. As all bandicoot species were then placed in a broadly circumscribed Perameles, Reid placed the bilby there too. However, noting how different it was from other members of the genus, he added that "should more of the same form be discovered, the above characters would constitute a subgenus to which the name of Macrotis might be applied".
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The Scotia Endangered Mammal Recovery Project is a program of reintroduction of mammals that have become extinct regionally, in order to establish viable, self- sustaining populations. Species successfully reintroduced so far include: numbat, greater bilby, burrowing bettong, brush-tailed bettong and bridled nailtail wallaby, while an attempted reintroduction of the greater stick-nest rat failed. Threatened bird species present on Scotia include malleefowl, regent and scarlet-chested parrots, striated grasswren and black-eared miner.Scotia: Wildlife The reserve forms part of the 12,200 km2 Riverland Mallee Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International for its importance in the conservation of mallee birds and their habitats.
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Unlike its living relative the greater bilby, the lesser bilby was described as aggressive and tenacious. Hedley Finlayson wrote that this animal was "fierce and intractable, and repulsed the most tactful attempts to handle them by repeated savage snapping bites and harsh hissing sounds". A collector in the northern territory reported the name used by his Aboriginal informants, Urpila, that distinguished this species from M. lagotis (Urgata), and noted their particular habits. This species would not reside in the deep and narrow part of its burrow in cooler seasons, remaining a short distance from the entrance; this habit was exploited by hunters who would collapse the tunnel behind their prey to force it toward the soft sand covering the opening of the burrow.
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Reintroduction efforts have begun, with a successful reintroduction into the Arid Recovery Reserve in South Australia in 2000,Moseby K. E. and O'Donnell E. O. (2003) Reintroduction of the greater bilby, Macrotis lagotis (Reid) (Marsupialia: Thylacomyidae), to northern South Australia: survival, ecology and notes on reintroduction protocols Wildlife Research 30, 15-27. and a reintroduction into Currawinya National Park in Queensland, where six bilbies were released into a predator- proof enclosure in April 2019. Successful reintroductions have also occurred on the Peron Peninsula in Western Australia as a part of the Western Shield program, and at other conservation lands, including islands and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy's ScotiaAustralian Wildlife Conservancy Scotia Sanctuary and Yookamurra Sanctuaries.Australian Wildlife Conservancy Yookamurra Sanctuary There is a highly successful bilby breeding program at Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre near Perth, Western Australia.
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The zoo is taking part in numerous conservation efforts with endangered species, and has breeding projects for many Australian native species, including the greater bilby, the tammar wallaby, the yellow- footed rock-wallaby, and the eastern barred bandicoot, as well as many exotic species, including the scimitar oryx, Przewalski's horse, American bison, the addax, Barbary sheep, South African cheetah, southern white rhinoceros, black rhinoceros and the African wild dog. In 2006, the zoo began a breeding program for Tasmanian devils which are free of facial tumour disease. Previously widespread throughout the ranges of central Australia, the warru, or black- footed rock-wallaby, is South Australia's most endangered mammal, primarily due to predation by foxes and feral cats. However Monarto has had some success in breeding the wallabies since the capture of 15 of them in 2007, and has helped to establish a viable population (22) of the wallabies in a fenced area, known as the Pintji, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands lands.
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