Australia’s deserts are quietly staging a comeback story that’s as dramatic as any wildlife documentary – but here’s where it gets controversial: the heroes are tiny marsupials, and the villain they’re learning to live with is one of the world’s most hated invasive predators, the feral cat.
For more than a century, many of Australia’s unique small marsupials – including bilbies, bandicoots and quolls – have been largely absent from vast stretches of the outback’s dry interior. Once common, these species were hammered by a combination of land clearing and the deadly efficiency of feral cats, which were brought to Australia by European colonisers. Unlike native predators, cats were incredibly quick, agile and unfamiliar, and the local mammals had no evolutionary history with them, leaving them poorly equipped to recognize or escape this new threat.
Attempts to completely eliminate feral cats across the landscape have repeatedly fallen short, so a team of researchers has decided to try something radically different: instead of aiming for a totally cat-free world, they want to see whether small marsupials can learn, over time, to coexist with their long-time nemesis. The idea is that, under controlled conditions, these animals might adapt their behaviour – and perhaps even their bodies – enough to survive regular encounters with cats that would once have wiped them out.
One of the leaders of this effort, Prof Richard Kingsford from the University of New South Wales, calls the project a grand-scale experiment and says there are already promising signs. In their carefully managed area, animals are not just surviving; they are breeding, and their numbers are steadily increasing. That detail alone hints at something big: if these species can grow their populations in a landscape where cats are present, even at low densities, then the old assumption that they can only persist behind predator-proof fences may not always hold true.
The heart of the project is a 100-square-kilometre “training zone” located within the much larger Sturt National Park, which covers about 3,200 square kilometres in north‑western New South Wales. Nearby, there are also two fully fenced, cat‑free areas where conservation teams have reintroduced six different small marsupial species, from crest‑tailed mulgaras to bilbies and quolls. These species once lived in the region a century ago but were wiped out by cats and foxes, which found these small mammals to be easy, bite‑sized prey.
That painful history raises a fascinating question at the core of the project: how do you help native animals “wise up” to a predator they never evolved alongside? In other words, can fear and caution toward cats be learned or even passed down through generations, rather than waiting for slow genetic evolution over millennia? This is the part most people miss when they think about conservation: it’s not just about removing threats, but also about helping wildlife adapt.
The training zone has been cleverly positioned so that two of its sides align with existing dingo fences. These fences, originally built for other reasons, now double as partial barriers that keep out many – though not all – cats. That design is intentional: the goal is not a perfectly safe bubble but a place where the danger is real, yet carefully limited, allowing animals to encounter predators without being wiped out.
Inside the zone, the team keeps cat numbers low using a combination of targeted shooting and sophisticated devices that can distinguish between native animals and cats. When these devices detect a cat, they spray a lethal toxin onto the cat’s fur, which the cat then ingests while grooming. This technology allows cats to be controlled without accidentally poisoning the very marsupials the project is trying to protect.
Thanks to these efforts, cat density inside the training zone has dropped to roughly three cats per square kilometre. Outside the zone, the situation is far more dangerous, with estimates suggesting there can be about ten times as many cats in the surrounding landscape. That contrast creates a kind of “middle ground”: not safe enough that marsupials can be careless, but not so dangerous that every encounter ends in tragedy.
On a national scale, the stakes are enormous. Feral cats in Australia are thought to kill more than two billion native animals every year, from reptiles and birds to small mammals. Numbers like that make it clear why conservationists are desperate for new approaches – simply doing more of the same is unlikely to be enough.
Within this experimental desert, Dr Bec West serves as the principal ecologist for the Wild Deserts project. She lives in an old homestead inside the national park with her partner and their three young children, placing her family right at the centre of this long-term ecological experiment. That everyday, on-the-ground presence means she and her team can closely monitor changes in the landscape and in the animals themselves.
Since 2024, the project has released dozens of western quolls, hundreds of bilbies and hundreds of golden bandicoots into the training zone. All three are nationally threatened species, and more are on the way – burrowing bettongs are expected to be added in the near future. The releases are carefully staged so that the animals can gradually establish territories and find food, shelter and safe places to hide.
West is quick to acknowledge a hard truth: some of these animals will be killed by cats. But she also points out that predation is a natural part of ecosystems, and the aim is not to create a perfectly risk‑free world. Instead, the project seeks a balance where predators and prey both exist, but prey species are no longer pushed to the edge of extinction by an overwhelming, unfamiliar threat.
Monitoring has already produced hopeful results. In a recent month, the Wild Deserts team trapped 57 individuals – a mix of quolls, bilbies and bandicoots – within the training zone. Many of the bilbies and quolls had been living there for at least a year, and the bandicoots had managed to survive for three months. That may not sound long, but in a harsh desert full of predators, every extra month of survival increases the chances of breeding and passing on successful behaviours.
To keep track of what happens when humans are not watching, the team reviews images from about 50 motion‑activated cameras scattered around the training zone. These cameras capture who is moving where and when, providing crucial clues about how often marsupials bump into cats and how they respond. Recently, the footage has shown more bilbies and quolls than cats, a pattern West describes as a significant win and clear evidence that the marsupials are reclaiming their place in the desert.
This leads to a key question: how do these small mammals actually learn to live alongside cats? Some individuals may pick up new behaviours by watching others – noticing, for example, that certain smells, shapes or movements spell danger. Over time, those who are more cautious or quicker to react are more likely to survive and reproduce, gradually shifting the overall behaviour of the population.
Experiments in another desert region in South Australia have already shown that bettongs become more alert and vigilant when cats are present. When they know a predator is around, they spend more time scanning, staying close to shelter and breaking up their foraging with frequent checks of their surroundings. Such behavioural shifts may seem subtle, but they can make the difference between life and death.
In another long‑term study focusing on bilbies, researchers compared one group that regularly encountered cats with another group that did not. After five years, bilbies that had grown up in the cat‑exposed environment had developed noticeably larger feet and were quicker to flee when humans approached. Those changes suggest that the animals had become more wary in general and may have gained a physical advantage for escaping threats more efficiently.
West, who has been involved in some of these studies, notes that larger feet could help bilbies sprint faster or maneuver more effectively on loose sand. Even small improvements in speed or agility can tip the balance when a predator is only a fraction of a second behind. It also hints at a powerful idea: exposure to cats might be driving rapid evolutionary or developmental changes that improve survival.
Within the training zone itself, the reintroduced marsupials have now spread across the entire area, rather than clustering only near release points. That expansion shows they are finding enough food and shelter to establish themselves widely, not just hanging on in a few safe pockets. As they move, they are also likely mixing genes between different family groups, which can make populations healthier and more resilient.
Crucially, these animals are breeding, and their offspring are growing up in an environment where cats are a constant, if limited, presence. That means younger generations are learning from day one that caution is necessary, instead of being introduced to predators suddenly and unprepared. The long‑term hope is that these “predator‑savvy” animals could eventually be used to help re‑establish populations beyond the training zone.
Small marsupials such as bilbies, bandicoots and bettongs are often called “ecosystem engineers” because of the way they reshape the land. As they dig for food or create burrows, they churn and aerate the soil, forming small pits that can trap water, leaf litter and seeds. These tiny disturbances create micro‑habitats that help seeds germinate and give native plants a better chance to grow.
The difference they make is already visible near the training zone, especially in the two cat‑free fenced areas. There, with marsupials able to forage and dig without constant fear of cats, the ground cover has been transformed. Native plants are now thriving, and the once sparsely vegetated desert surface has become more complex and textured.
West describes the change as so dramatic that the landscape is almost unrecognisable compared to its previous state. The ground is now peppered with small pits and turned soil, where seeds accumulate and new plants take root. Walkers even face a practical hazard: the surface is so uneven from all the digging that there is a genuine risk of twisting an ankle.
All of this points to a provocative idea that may spark debate: instead of trying to purge feral cats entirely – a goal many scientists consider unrealistic at a national scale – projects like Wild Deserts suggest a future where some native species adapt to living with moderate levels of cat predation. Is it acceptable to allow some predation if it means building tougher, more adaptable wildlife populations in the long run?
Some conservationists might argue that allowing cats to remain on the landscape is too risky and morally questionable, especially when they have already driven so many species to the brink. Others may counter that in a world where complete eradication seems nearly impossible, teaching prey species to become smarter, faster and more cautious is not just pragmatic but essential. And this is the part most people miss: true recovery may mean learning to live with certain threats, not eliminating them entirely.
So what do you think: should conservation focus on strict exclusion of invasive predators wherever possible, or is it time to embrace the controversial idea of “training” native wildlife to coexist with them? Would you support more projects like this in other parts of the world, or do you worry it could normalize the presence of destructive species like feral cats? Share where you stand – strongly agree, strongly disagree, or somewhere in between – and why.
