Thirteen mammals Australia thought it had lost locally are breeding again

Ten years ago, New South Wales made a bet: fence out the feral cats and foxes, and the mammals they wiped out might come home. The results are now breeding in three reserves. Thirteen locally extinct mammal species have been reintroduced across the state's feral predator-free areas, and some species absent for more than a century are raising young safely inside the fences. The network of 10 predator-free areas is designed to cut extinction risk for 33 locally extinct species and help secure 45 more threatened ones, in a state where around half of surviving mammal species are threatened. The partnership between government and conservationists is already looking beyond the fences, trialling predator control so releases may one day hold in the open landscape too.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program