MALA

A mother and young mala.

Each night I have been assisting Jennifer and Bonny who are gathering information on the Mala. We do this by each sitting in a small tent and at designated times throughout the night taking readings on a number of mala which are wearing radio tracking collars. Since we are at different locations, spread around the area, the reading can be plotted to show exactly where each mala is feeding. 

Commonly known as ‘Mala’, the rufous hare-wallaby (Lagostrophus hirsutus) were once found in western and central Australia, usually in spinifex desert country. Two sub-species live on Dorre and Bernier Island off the Western Australia coast. The mainland numbers were decimated by foxes, feral cats and competition with rabbits and by the 1980s only two small groups remained. A single fox wiped out one of these groups and bushfires the other. Now the only mainland mala are in captivity. Since 1993 a team have been working to breed and reintroduce the mala to the wild.

A collared mala.

The only mainland mala are now 45 individuals at the Scotia Sanctuary, 15 in Alice Springs Desert Park, 214 in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (NT), 32 in Watarrka National Park (NT), and 26 in the Francois Peron National Park (WA), a total of only 332 individual mala.

The telemetry station

The mala are nocturnal and feed on grasses and seeds. During the day they live in scraps under spinifex grasses. The mala weighs about 1.2 to 1.3 kilos, though it is the female which is usually slightly larger than the male. Mala can breed up to three times a year in captivity,
    having one offspring per time.