Mala or Rufous Hare-Wallaby

(Lagorchestes hirsutus)

I met my first mala in October 2008, and had the joy of releasing the captive-bred animal into a large fenced enclosure where she could get used to living in the bush. It was Polly Cevallos, CEO of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI)–Australia, who first told me the heartwarming story of the rufous hare-wallaby, usually known by its Aboriginal name, the mala. She put me in touch with Gary Fry, director of the Desert Park in Alice Springs, where the mala are being restored. Two years after a first phone call, I arrived in the place I had wanted to visit ever since reading Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice, in the heart of the Australian continent.

It had been a scorching-hot day, but it was cooling off by the time we reached Gary’s house. I was traveling with Polly and the director of JGI’s Roots & Shoots program in Australia, Annette Debenham. We dumped our bags, said a quick hello to Gary’s wife and son, and met Dr. Kenneth Johnson, who had set up the mala captive breeding program in the 1980s. Then we all set off for the enclosure. Two of the Desert Park staff were already there with the mala, invisible in a cloth “pouch.” I sat on the dry grass, and the mala was gently placed on my knee.

Presently a small face peered out. Very slowly she emerged, hopped out of the bag onto the ground, and stopped right there, a couple of feet away from me, looking around. She was beautiful, a small, delicate kangaroo, with shaggy soft grayish brown fur tinged with red. Eventually, investigating her surroundings, she moved slowly away, though she did not go far. I noticed how her tail, hairless like that of a rat, trailed the ground behind her (Ken told me later that this is how the Aboriginals identify mala tracks in the bush). Soon we left her to settle into her new temporary home. Like many other Australian mammals, malas are nocturnal: She would be able to explore during the night and feel comfortable sleeping the next day. And indeed, we got the report next morning: She had eaten the food left out and was sleeping in the shelter set up for her.

That evening, during a wonderful dinner cooked by Gary’s wife, Libby, Ken and Gary told me the story of the mala. At one time, there may have been as many as ten million of these little animals across the arid and semi-arid landscape of Australia, but their populations, like those of so many other small endemic species, were devastated by the introduction of domestic cats and foxes—indeed, during the 1950s it was thought that the mala was extinct. But in 1964, a small colony was found 450 miles northwest of Alice Springs in the Tanami Desert. And twelve years later, a second small colony was found nearby. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these two populations were studied and monitored by scientists from the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. Very extensive surveys were made throughout historical mala range—but no other traces were found.

Ken told me something of the heartache of the team working with the mala during those years. At first it seemed that the little animals were holding their own. But then in late 1987, the first disaster struck: Every one of the individuals of the second and smaller of the wild colonies was killed. From examination of the tracks in the sand, it seemed that just one single fox had been responsible. And then, in October 1991, a wildfire destroyed the entire area occupied by the remaining colony, and all the mala died. Thus the mala really did become extinct in the wild.

How fortunate that, ten years before, Ken and his team had captured seven individuals that had become the founders of a captive breeding program at the Arid Zone Research Institute in Alice Springs. And that group had thrived. Part of this success is due to the fact that the female can breed when she is just five months old and can produce up to three young a year. Like other kangaroo species, the mother carries her young—known as a joey—in her pouch for about fifteen weeks, and she can have more than one youngster at the same time.

Working with the Yapa People

In the early 1980s, there were enough mala in the captive population to make it feasible to start a reintroduction program. But first it was necessary to discuss this with the leaders of the Yapa people (yapa is their name for “Aboriginal”). Traditionally the mala had been an important totemic animal in their culture, with strong medicinal powers for old people. It had also been an important food source, and there were concerns that any mala returned to the wild would be killed for the pot.

And so, in 1980, a group of key Yapa men was invited to visit the proposed reintroduction area. Many of them, including the principal owner of the “Mala dreaming,” took some persuasion to make the 120-mile trip to the site, since he believed mala to be “all finished up.” But he did come in the end, this knowledgeable old man, and shared his vast understanding of the species with the group. It turned out that they were all as concerned for the future of the mala as Ken and his team, and the possibility of a food hunt was not even mentioned. The skills and knowledge of the Aboriginals would play a significant and enduring role in the project.

Ken and his team went ahead and built a fifty-by-fifty-yard enclosure out in the desert, and twelve mala from the successful breeding program were moved there, given some time to get acclimatized, and then set free. One year later some were still alive, and thirteen more were released. Unfortunately, through a combination of drought and predation by feral cats, all of them were killed or disappeared.

After this, with the help of the local Yapa Aboriginals, an electric fence was erected around 250 acres of suitable habitat about three hundred miles northwest of Alice Springs so that the mala could adapt while protected from predators. By 1992, there were about 150 mala in what became known as the Mala Paddock and another 50 in the Alice Springs colony.

However, all attempts to reintroduce mala from the paddock into the unfenced wild were unsuccessful. Over a two-year period, a total of seventy-nine were released; all disappeared or were killed (the evidence pointed overwhelmingly to cats and some foxes as the culprits). And so the reintroduction program was abandoned: The Tanami Desert was simply not safe for mala.

Ken and his team now faced a situation where mala could be bred, but not released. In 1993, a Mala Recovery Team was established to set new goals for the program. First, the team concentrated on finding suitable predator-free or predator-controlled sites within the mala’s known range. The first place selected was a new endangered species enclosure at Dryandra Woodland in Western Australia—an area where, before it had been converted into the “wheat belt,” mala had been common. Initially, captive-bred animals would live in a large enclosure; as their population increased, selected individuals would be radio-collared and released into suitable conservation reserves or national parks in the area.

Finally all arrangements had been completed, and in March 1999 twelve adult females, eight adult males, and eight small joeys were sent off from the Mala Paddock on a very long journey. Early in the morning, they were loaded into a station wagon for a bumpy three-hour ride along bush tracks to the nearest airstrip. Here a delegation of Aboriginals had gathered to see them off, a mark of their intense interest in the mala program. From there the precious cargo traveled on a chartered plane to Alice Springs, on a regular commercial flight to Perth, and finally by truck to their final destination. They arrived about four in the afternoon, and were released into their new home at seven o’clock. I can just imagine how anxiously the bags were opened—how would the little animals have survived that tough day? But all was well. The mala at once started feeding on fresh alfalfa, then hopped off to explore their new home.

The second translocation of mala from the Tanami Desert, a few months later, was to Trimouille, an island off the coast of Western Australia. First it had been necessary to rid the island of rats and cats—a task that had taken two years of hard work. Finally the island was ready to receive the mala, and the Aboriginal traditional owners had given their blessing to the project even though it involved sending some of their totemic animals far away from their “dreaming home.” Twenty females and ten males were selected for the long journey. Once again, all arrived safely.

Six weeks after their release, a team returned to the island to find out how things were going. Each of the malas had been fitted with a radio collar that transmits for about fourteen months, after which it falls off. The team was able to locate twenty-nine out of the thirty transmitters—only one came from the collar of a mala that had died of unknown causes. So far the reintroduction had gone even better than expected. Today there are many signs suggesting that the mala population on the island is continuing to do well.

Reintroduction to the Sacred Lands

During my visit to Alice Springs, Gary told me that his part in the story started with the plan to reintroduce a number of locally extinct species into the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The 1,142-foot-high Uluru-Ayers Rock is the most sacred place for the Aboriginals. With Polly and Annette, I had flown over the area, and been amazed by the sheer size of this huge outcrop of red rock surrounded, for miles in every direction, by the flat expanse of the Simpson Desert.

In 1999, parks staff and other biologists met with key members of the local Anangu people to discuss which species should be reintroduced into the Uluru area. As with the Yapa aboriginals, the mala had played an important role in Anangu culture, and there was a real wish that it be brought back.

“This little wallaby,” Gary told me, “was the most preferred of all species for Anangu women and second most preferred for senior Anangu men.” Gary also learned that even after the mala had disappeared from Uluru, the Anangu had kept their memory alive and strong, for the mala are an important part of the creation stories. Indeed, Gary told me that the loss of the little wallabies from Uluru had been of great significance for senior and powerful Anangu people, and brought them deep sadness.

Jim Clayton, an inspired park ranger based in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, worked with the Anangu to map out where the enclosure would be, encouraging them to help in the building and maintenance of the all-important fences that would protect the mala from introduced predators. And Gary tried to persuade the Anangu to set aside a large area of their tribal land. In a big-enough enclosure, he felt, the mala would be able to get on with it, needing little assistance from humans apart from maintenance of the fence.

Some time passed during which Gary heard nothing. And then, finally, Jim called: “We had some difficulty mapping the area,” he said, “because we had to miss some sand dunes, and some stands of desert oaks … How does 170 hectares [approximately 420 acres] sound?”

It sounded great! An enclosure of this size was just the “fillip” (an Australian/British phrase for “boost”) that was needed for the program, Gary told me. He felt very strongly about the outcome of the reintroduction not only for conservation of the species, but also for the conservation of the culture of the Anangu.

Six years later to the month, at 7 AM on September 29, 2005, twenty-four mala were released into the newly constructed, predator-free paddock in the Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park. Many Ananga were present, and the press was well represented. It was a fantastic occasion, the culmination of years of planning and hard work.

Just as I was completing the manuscript for this book, I received an e-mail from Peter Nunn, a staff member at Alice Springs Desert Park. “I thought you would love to know that the Mala you released into our Free Range area at the Alice Springs Desert Park is doing really well,” he wrote. “So well in fact that she has a young joey growing in her pouch! I was lucky enough to have her wander straight past me when I was spotlighting up there the other night, and she is looking wonderful. I hope that great news puts a big smile on your face!”

And, indeed, it did.

Captive-bred California condors released into the wilds of Baja California, Mexico.(Mike Wallace)