Native animals reintroduced to WA island

Native animals will be reintroduced to Western Australia's Dirk Hartog Island as part of the state government's plan to restore the island's natural ecosystems.

Dibblers will be released onto a remote island off Western Australia's south coast to create a new population of the small endangered carnivorous marsupial. Source: PERTH ZOO

Ten locally extinct mammal species and one bird species will be reintroduced to an historic island off the coast of Western Australia as part of an ecological restoration project.

Dirk Hartog Island off the Gascoyne coast was the site of WA's first recorded European landing by the eponymous Dutch explorer in 1616.

WA Environment Minister Albert Jacob said grazing by sheep and goats and predation by feral cats had a big impact on the island's habitat and native species. Restoration began in 2012.

"With the eradication of these introduced animals, native species such as the western barred bandicoot, woylie, dibbler and boodie can be re-established on the island - a real win for conservation," Mr Jacob said in a statement on Sunday.

"The long-term plan is to return the island's natural ecosystems to how Dirk Hartog would have seen them, with thriving native mammal populations."

Rufous and banded hare-wallabies will be the first species to be reintroduced to Dirk Hartog Island.

Chuditch, mulgara, greater stick-nest rat, desert mouse, Shark Bay mouse and the heath mouse and two more threatened hare-wallaby species will also be returned to the island.