Perth Zoo breeds and raises Numbats through a partnership that also sees many of them returned to protected wild habitat in Western Australia’s south-west.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi, my name is Vicki, I'm one of the Numbat keepers here at Perth Zoo. Perth Zoo's been involved in the captive breeding program since 1987 and we didn't start breeding until 1992. But today, we've managed to breed over 268 baby Numbats that have been successfully released back into the wild.
The Numbat is a unique marsupial for a couple of reasons. It is one of Australia's only diurnal marsupial, that means it's active during the day. Most of Australia's marsupials are active at night. So we're pretty lucky that the Numbat is active during the day. It's also unique because of its diet. It only eats termites. It eats up to 20,000 termites a day! And that's one of the challenges for us here at the zoo, is to trap those termites and bring them into the zoo so that we've got a good supply for our whole Numbat colony.
The Numbat is currently listed as an endangered species and there's less than a thousand left in the wild. The work that we do here at the zoo is critical to saving the Numbat from extinction.
One of our favorite Numbats here is Kara. She's the oldest living Numbat here at the zoo. And she's the most prolific breeder as well so she's produce the most babies so far. She's over 10 years of age and sometimes she's on display, not always, but when she's here she sleeps a lot, but she does come down the front and do her lap of honor past everyone says 'hello' and then goes back to her box and has a little sleep, but she'll do that several times during the day. Occasionally, she'll come and visit my shoes because she knows my shoes have been in the enclosures out the back where the breeding goes on. And there's lots of hormonal messages on my shoes and she gets a little bit excited. But then she bundles herself off and she goes back to her nest box and has a little sleep. So she is one of our favorites here at the zoo. And if you do come into the zoo. You quite often see her because she's quite happy about being right down the front where the public are.
With the only Numbat breeding program in the world, wander up to the Numbat presentation and find out how we care for these specialised little marsupials and how we cook a special ‘termite custard’ to satisfy their voracious appetite!
Numbats thrive on the termites they find as they forage fallen logs on the floor of their native woodland habitat. Perth Zoo breeds and raises Numbats through a partnership that also sees many of them returned to protected wild habitat in Western Australia’s south-west. It’s critical that we teach them not only to love the food they need to survive but also how to hunt for it.