Ecological and Cultural Aspects of the Reintroduction of Mala 'Lagorchestes hirsutus' to Uluṟu

Abstract

Mala or the rufous hare-wallaby 'Lagorchestes hirsutus' is a small macropod once found across vast areas of arid and semi-arid mainland Australia. Mala became extinct in the southern part of central Australia in the 1950s, and from the mainland entirely in the early 1990s. The removal of a number of animals prior to the disappearance of the last mainland populations permitted the establishment of a captive breeding colony, and the subsequent gradual recovery of the species. As part of long term plans to return a suite of locally extinct species to Uluṟu - Kata Tjuṯa National Park (an internationally recognised World Heritage Area within the former range of mala), traditional owners (Aṉangu) and Parks Australia selected mala as the priority taxa for reintroduction. An inability to control introduced predators prohibited a wild release of mala, and consequently a 170ha predator-proof enclosure was constructed to facilitate the translocation. In 2005, 24 mala sourced from Watarrka National Park were released into this enclosure, providing an opportunity to conduct demographic, behavioural, and dietary studies to determine the most appropriate conservation management protocols for the species. Further, traditional ecological knowledge of mala could be documented, and Aṉangu attitudes towards the return of mala to Uluṟu explored.