this
is a number one of less than a thousand
individuals left in the australian wild
researchers are trying to save this
extremely endangered species with its
long slender
tongue collecting data is crucial
but the method takes a lot of getting
used to
[Applause]
a numbat is not a bat it is in fact a
marsupial
like koalas or kangaroos and is only
found in australia
[Music]
the number is also known as the bandit
anteater
but it doesn't eat ants
although ants do sometimes cause trouble
[Music]
numb bats eat nothing but termites
twenty thousand of them
a day
[Music]
every morning the termites come to the
surface to get warmth from the sun
and the numbats are waiting
marsupials are creatures of the night
the numbah
is a rare exception its need for
termites is so great
that it's active by day
these daytime habits make numbets unique
they're also extremely rare and at risk
of becoming extinct in the wild
that's why researchers are trying to
save them and to do so
they need to pry into their secret lives
[Music]
but in a small forest in australia's far
west
one numbah is sick of the unwanted
attention
meet lena a numbat with attitude
scientists fit the animals with collars
to track their every move
today lena would like to put an end to
the spying
[Music]
ranger brian needs to catch leena to
change her collar
the batteries are low she's been evading
him in this bushland for three weeks
and now the situation is critical
brian has spent five years collecting
invaluable information from lena
data used to save numbats in the wild if
her signal stops now it would be a great
loss
to her species lina's radio collar is
fitted with a transmitter that sends
very high frequency signals to handheld
antenna attached to a receiver
the pinging sound indicates her location
marsupials are supposedly less
intelligent than other mammals
but not this one she's managed to lose
him
this is dawn lina's younger sister she
also wears a collar
when numbah mothers like dawn are
tracked to their nests their babies can
be counted and collared
too only by knowing how many numbers
there are
how they live and how they die can
researchers take measures to save them
numbers are extremely endangered and the
fact that there are now only
two naturally occurring populations left
including this one here in dryandra
makes their chance of survival even more
fragile
the golden age of numbats was 200 years
ago
they lived across australia in semi-arid
regions where eucalyptus forests thrived
old fallen trees provided hollow logs
for shelter
nesting and plenty of termites then
the europeans came the invaders chopped
down trees for agriculture and
introduced voracious predators
[Music]
like cats and foxes
foxes wiped out entire populations in
some regions
but today it's the cat that's
threatening the last remaining numbats
[Music]
cats kill 1.5 billion australian animals
every year driving scores to extinction
there are fewer than a thousand numbats
left in the wild
but there are 6.3 million feral cats
across the country
there is cause for hope however in and
around the dryandra woodlands
cats are being eradicated over a hundred
have been removed in the last few years
ranger brian's back on track this is his
last chance to get lena
her signal's getting weaker by the hour
soon
it could just disappear but lena makes a
major error
she goes inside a log
lena has certainly uh learnt my process
of trying to extract her
and so as i've been changing her collars
over the years she's been getting more
and more
contradictory really just trying to get
an entry point
for my for my hose so that i can um
blow a bit of air on her nose and
hopefully convince her to leave the log
blowing air through a hose has its
downsides
it's a disturbing noise
[Applause]
but lena stays put
she has learned to ignore completely the
the hose and the
the elephant sounds and all the rest of
it too so
so yeah she's just proved very difficult
as she's got older to
extract
this might seem like an extreme way to
catch a numbat
but since they only feed on termites
they can't be lured into traps with food
like other small mammals
the termites would run away or die
[Applause]
it's just a short drive to the ranger
station where brian will change lina's
collar
while she's in he'll also check her
pouch to see if she's bred this year
this is crucial information for
understanding whether number populations
are recovering
lena's four teats are swollen good news
for ranger brian and the numbers of dry
andra
the new collar is fitted in a manner of
minutes and lena's signal
is loud and clear
lina has only been away from her
territory for an hour
and brian returns her to the location
where she was captured
in the last five years the population of
numbats in dryandra has jumped from just
50 to around 400.
and now there are 404
if the forest stays protected and cats
keep being eradicated
lena and her kind will continue to
recover and the numbats of dryandra will
face
a brighter future
there's more to come about australian
marsupials so stay tuned for our next
upload and don't forget to subscribe
and if you want to see more conservation
work check out our playlists