Have you ever found your lawn riddled with holes or heard a little sneeze from your backyard bushes?
Those are signs you might have a resident bandicoot. Bandicoots are nocturnal, rabbit-sized marsupials known for their pointy snouts, thin tails and large hind feet. Due to these features, they were originally misnamed after a type of rat from India, the pandi-kokku, or “pig-rat” (Bandicota sp.).
Bandicoots are native to Australia and New Guinea, but are recognised as a globally threatened group of animals.
Despite seeming small and innocuous, bandicoots have long been maligned by humans, particularly as digging mammals that rip up farms, parks and even suburban gardens.
Our new study suggests this fraught relationship has lasted over decades – but for reasons you may not expect.
A brief history of bandicoots
For millions of years, various species of bandicoot have roamed the Australian continent, from desert to coastline.
Tragically, since European colonisation, eight of the 15 existing bandicoot (Peramelidae) species have become threatened or gone extinct. The populations that remain have all declined in numbers due to pressures from invasive predators, such as cats and foxes, as well as habitat destruction.
However, humans have also directly contributed to their decline.
Our latest research takes a closer look at how humans and bandicoots have interacted throughout recent history.
We did this by analysing more than 3,000 newspaper reports published in New South Wales between 1804 and 1954. These reports chronicle how people’s concerns about bandicoots evolved over time as an example of a human-wildlife conflict. These conflicts arise when the behaviour and needs of wildlife are at odds with those of people.
Our findings suggest there are three main reasons humans and bandicoots have had a troubled history.
1. A source of fascination – and food
In the early years of European colonisation, new arrivals enjoyed hunting Australia’s unusual animals. Bandicoots were trapped or shot for sport, food or fur. Hunters often sent their skins back to Europe for display, prompting some European artists to feature them in comical ways.
Bandicoots were also prized for their meat, with one newspaper article describing roast bandicoot as “one of the most deliciously delicate dishes going”. There were even reports of escaped convict prisoners surviving on bandicoot meat.
2. A pest to control
From the early 1800s, farmers and landholders grew increasingly frustrated with bandicoots because of their digging habits. In the bush, bandicoots forage using their long noses and claws to dig up grubs, roots and mushrooms buried in the soil.
But from the 1830s, bandicoots throughout regional NSW were reportedly digging up maize and potatoes. People were soon using the term “bandicooting” to describe theft of any garden produce.
Farmers and landholders used various strategies to keep bandicoots out, including putting up fences, training patrol dogs and even coating crop seeds in tar and ashes.
But the most popular strategy was lethal control. Poisons, traps and guns were used to legally kill many native species under the Pastures and Stock Protection Act (NSW). From the 1880s until 1930, people could present the scalps of caught animals in exchange for cash. The Bathurst protection board received nearly 19,000 bandicoot scalps in 1906 alone.
3. A vehicle for disease
By the 1920s, the war on bandicoots shifted to the suburbs where residents grew increasingly worried about ticks, small parasites which feed off the blood of their hosts.
Early research into the most common species in eastern Australia, the paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus), did not single out bandicoots as a key host. But that all changed in 1924, when veterinary researcher Ian Clunies Ross collected ticks from bandicoots and concluded long-nosed bandicoots (Perameles nasuta) were their favourite host.
We now know bandicoots are just one of many animal species that host paralysis ticks, such as rats and possums. But once Ross’ claim was widely published in Sydney newspapers, the damage was done to the bandicoot’s reputation.
When a deadly new disease was discovered in the 1930s, bandicoots quickly became the prime suspect. Q fever was first found in workers at a Brisbane abattoir. After an infected worker thought he saw a bandicoot walking into a cowshed at night, bandicoots were suddenly to blame. Today, it is well-known that farm animals are the main spreaders of Q fever.
From conflict to co-existence
Many Australians still have a complex relationship with bandicoots, regarding them as pests to avoid or even eliminate.
This highlights the long-held misunderstanding we have about bandicoots. Bandicoots actually play a vital role in Australian ecosystems by digging up vast amounts of soil, spreading beneficial fungi and reducing the risk of bushfires.
So how can we better support our bandicoots?
For starters, we can fund more research into their behaviour, diet and role in the environment. Studying their nutritional needs may help us understand why they venture onto farms and into backyards.
We must also protect their habitat. Bandicoots are ground-dwelling mammals who like to nest in shrubs and grasses in the daytime. Conserving even small pockets of bushland can provide much-needed habitat.
When they venture out after dark, bandicoots are vulnerable to being hit by cars or killed by invasive predators like cats and foxes. If you have a pet, keeping them indoors at night is one way to keep bandicoots safe.
Most importantly, we need to set the record straight about bandicoots. Through education, we can correct misconceptions and teach Australians about the critical role bandicoots play in nature. After misunderstanding them for decades, it’s time we learn to love these little diggers.
Annabel Ellis, PhD Candidate, Behavioural Ecology and Conservation Lab, University of Sydney; Dieter Hochuli, Professor, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, and Peter Banks, Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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