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| The greater stick-nest rat |
The greater stick-nest rat, or wopilkara, seems to me more like a guinea pig than a rat. It is gentle and playful and lives in a nest of grass which it surrounds with sticks. The nests may belong to several families and can grow as wide as 1.5 metres and a metre high. The rats were found across most of central Australia but their nests were often down trodden by introduced cattle and the animals became easy prey to foxes and feral cats. By the 1930s they were extinct on the mainland. Only a small pocket survived on the Franklin Islands. Since then new populations have been established on other islands off the coasts of West and South Australia, and they are now being reintroduced to protected sanctuaries on the mainland. There used to be a lesser stick-nest rat but it has already become extinct, the last specimen being captured in 1933.
A colony of Greater Sick-nest Rats have
already been translocated to Mount Gibson where a smaller feral-free enclosure has
already been built to cater for them. Once the larger enclosure is completed
the stick-nest rats will be transferred to there. I was able to see some of
these animals and their nests the other night and they are fascinating animals. Some of the nests are monitored by camera traps. When reviewing a selection of these photographs we were dismayed to see one of the rats taken by an owl. To help the rats, and take the pressure off the growing population, we collected logs and sticks and built 'walk-ways' between nests and watering/feeding spots.
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| One of the rats posing for volunteers |
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| A rat's nest |
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| The greater stick-nest rat enclosure |
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| Collecting logs for walk-ways |
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| one of the rat walk-ways |
