4 SPECIES OF AUSTRALIAN QUOLL AND HOW THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL—AND OUR ECOSYSTEMS

Australia is fortunate to be home to wildlife that can’t be found in any other country on the planet. But did you know this includes not one, not two…but four unique species of quoll? Learn what makes these furry night explorers special, the crucial role they play in Australia’s ecosystem and the dangers that threaten their survival. Plus, discover how, together, we can turn the tide so quolls can thrive again.

Big quoll goals

WWF-Australia is committed to creating an environment where vulnerable wildlife are protected. Sadly, quolls are among over 2,000 Aussie animals and plants on the threatened species list and at risk of extinction. But never fear—we’ve set some big quoll goals to ensure that doesn’t happen. Working with our partners for almost 10 years has taught us a lot about breeding and rewilding these solitary explorers in areas once populated with them, like Booderee National Park. And we’ve made one of the focus areas of our bold Rewilding Australia vision, to have more quolls in more places by 2030.

You can help support our work by ensuring that quolls and other threatened Australian wildlife are protected. Send a message to your local member of parliament, calling for stronger nature laws and adequate funding to protect wildlife and the places they call home.

Four mighty quolls

1. The eastern quoll

EPBC Act conservation status: Endangered

The endangered eastern quoll is the only quoll that comes in two distinct colour patterns—orange-tan colour and jet black. Furry, feisty and inquisitive, this often-elusive marsupial eats grasses and berries and insects, but when pushed, can take down prey almost their own size.

Eastern quolls likely became locally extinct on mainland Australia around 50 years ago, following a century of persecution by people, but also hunted by the European red fox. You can still spot them in fox-free Tasmania, but worryingly, the island state is no longer the stronghold it once was. There are threats from the intensification of agriculture, dogs, cats, road mortality, and shifting weather patterns observed in Tasmania over the past 20 years.

2. The spotted-tailed quoll

EPBC Act conservation status: Endangered (southeast mainland population)

Australia’s biggest quoll is also known as the tiger quoll because of their ability to ambush prey—but there are no stripes to be seen. They have white spots running down their body and tail. Spotted-tailed quolls have distinctive communication methods, including body language, scent marking, and sounds like growls, hisses and screams. But their bite is perhaps even worse than their bark, as they’re one of our strongest predatory marsupials, second only to the Tasmanian devil.

Spotted-tailed quolls make their homes in the forests and bushlands of eastern mainland Australia and Tasmania, and are famed scavengers, travelling over six kilometres a night—especially if possum or wallaby is on the menu. But their populations have become increasingly fragmented. Threats from foxes, cats, and habitat loss from landclearing and logging, have left them on the brink.

3. The northern quoll

EPBC Act conservation status: Endangered

From biggest to smallest—meet the northern quoll. Australia’s smallest quolls have a pointy snout, red-brown fur, and white spots on their back, but not their tail. They’re good climbers, but prefer to forage and sleep on the ground. Like the other quolls, they’re mostly insectivorous but also feed on birds, small mammals and fruits.

Once widely found across northern Australia, the population of northern quolls has decreased rapidly following the introduction of cane toads in 1935, which can be lethal if eaten, leaving them Endangered. They now mostly live in rocky areas where they can evade predation from cats and foxes. Their threats also include road mortality and loss of habitat from agriculture and urban development.

4. The western quoll

EPBC Act conservation status: Vulnerable

The clue’s in the name—the western quoll now only lives in the southwestern corner of Western Australia. They have also been reintroduced to South Australia’s Flinders Ranges, where they appear to be persisting. Look out for the black brush on their tail if you’re getting them confused with the eastern quoll.

Western quolls are skilled ambush predators, lying in wait to pounce on insects, frogs, lizards, birds, and small mammals, using their agility and sharp claws to snatch their meal. They spend much of the day sleeping in hollow logs or burrows, which helps them lower their body temperature and save energy.

Once found across 70% of mainland Australia, the western quoll is now near threatened, with primary ongoing threats being cats, foxes, road mortality, landclearing, and overgrazing of rangeland landscapes.

Australia’s ecosystem regulators

Quolls may be small, but they have a huge impact on our ecosystem. Their predatory diet helps regulate a suite of other species within our landscape and can even help manage pests like mice and rats. They’re also skilled foragers, removing carrion from our landscapes, which helps keep down the flies! So protecting these small predators helps protect everything that we rely on, from healthy farms to healthy forests.

To keep an eye on their whereabouts and their diet—and therefore our ecosystem—we’ve adopted a strategy that uses Indigenous Ecological Knowledge that Indigenous Australians have used for millennia—monitoring tracks and scat. Rob Brewster, WWF-Australia’s Rewilding Program Manager and quoll-ity expert, explains that if there are fewer insect parts in quoll scat than expected in summer, it can indicate what's happening to insect populations. Similarly, if there are fewer animal parts than expected in winter, that’s another important learning.

Scat analysis, where we analyse the DNA within a sample to investigate quoll diet, is just one of the techniques we’re implementing as we work to rewild eastern quolls to mainland Australia—a decade-long labour of love. WWF-Australia’s Head of Regenerative Country, Darren Grover, was there in 2018 as 20 eastern quolls took their first steps on mainland Australia’s south coast in 50 years. Over two years, 60 quolls bred in captivity and transported from wildlife centres in Tasmania and NSW were reintroduced to Booderee National Park, thanks to the incredible efforts of a host of partners. Despite heavy losses early on from a range of threats, including road mortality, domestic dogs and foxes (and even a native predator—pythons!), breeding success over multiple years showed researchers that the eastern quoll might once again have a future in the wild on mainland Australia.

Sadly, by January 2021, we learned that these wild eastern quolls were likely to disappear from the mainland once more. But not before we’d gained valuable lessons about how to better transition them from breeding programs to the wild—using more savvy quolls in much higher numbers, and by implementing better management strategies for foxes.

A hopeful future for quolls

As part of our mission to rewild Australia, we’re working with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to eventually return eastern quolls to almost 5,000 hectares of fox and cat-free fenced safe havens. We started that journey in April 2024, by rewilding 19 eastern quolls into a 82-hectare refuge in Booderee Botanic Gardens, and we will be rewilding eastern quolls to Bannockburn Rewilding Sanctuary, Jervis Bay’s second feral-free safe sanctuary, before the end of 2024.

Here in this semi-wild environment, our hope is these ‘forest fairies’ will safely learn valuable skills for the long-term. In doing so, we’ll be helping to reverse their mainland extinction, so they can once again fulfil their important role as ecosystem regulators, and create a richer world for both people and nature. We’re also advocating for landscape-scale habitat restoration that will be vital in supporting their long-term future.

And in Tasmania, we continue to partner with the Tasmanian Quoll Conservation Program, Tasmanian Land Conservancy, and University of Tasmania to test whether rewilding strategies can be used to supplement and bolster locally declining populations of eastern quolls. We’ve also partnered in an ambitious project—Marna Banggara, with exciting plans to eventually reintroduce the western quoll on Yorke Peninsula.

How can you help us achieve our quoll goals?

It’s now more critical than ever to build a world where humans live in harmony with nature. With your generous help, we’re hopeful that future generations will have the privilege of spotting a quoll in the wild.

If you’d like to help our spotted scavengers thrive and rewild Australia, there are a lot of ways to turn the tide on the extinction crisis:

• Add your voice to the petition, urging your local MP to strengthen our nature laws and provide adequate funding to protect threatened species like quolls from extinction.
• Find out if there are quolls in your local area by using WWF-Australia’s My Backyard Tool and discover what you can do to better protect them.
• Keep your pet cats and dogs contained so they can’t impact our wildlife.
• Drive with extra care between dusk and dawn, when so many of our wildlife are out and about.