Cultural knowledge handed down across generations of Martu people in WA’s Western Desert region has revealed the previously hidden decline of one of Australia’s most iconic marsupials – the endangered northern quoll.

Spurred by the mining boom and associated ecological surveys, western science only began seriously charting the northern quoll’s presence in the Pilbara and surrounding deserts in the late 1990s to early 2000s – meaning documented knowledge of the species’ historic distribution and behaviour has been sparse.

Now Martu Elders are helping to fill those gaps, sharing valuable cultural knowledge that suggests northern quolls (wiminyji in Martu language) were once far more widespread in the region than previously believed, before suddenly declining in both population and range last century.

Researchers from the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, The University of Western Australia and Kanyiminpa Jukurrpa (KJ) held conversations with Martu rangers and Elders during which Elders told how wiminyji used to be ‘everywhere’ but were now seen so rarely that Martu people became emotional if they saw one.

Dr Harry Moore, research scientist at DBCA and adjunct research fellow at UWA, said the Elders’ accounts suggested the sharp decline in numbers and range had happened across the span of just two or three generations.

“Martu Elders described wiminyji as disappearing around the mid-20th century – still known within their parents’ generation but absent from their own,” Dr Moore said.

In a paper published this week in Wildlife Research that documents Martu Elders’ testimony, Elder Heather Samson recounted her father’s instruction about wiminyji: “This is the one you got to take care of when I’m gone; this is the very important one.”

Another Elder, now deceased, told the researchers she remembered wiminyji from when she was a young girl but hadn’t seen any in 50 years until one was captured during a 2016 survey led by co-author Dr Judy Dunlop, a DBCA research scientist now at Curtin University.

The paper describes the Elder’s deep sadness as she patted the animal, apologising to it that there weren’t more wiminyji on Country and that they had not been better cared for.

Dr Moore said that, similarly to other parts of northern Australia where the decline of northern quolls had been better documented, Martu Elders attributed the local decline to factors including invasive predators, habitat destruction and ‘wrong way fire’, or altered fire regimes.

“The change in fire regimes after Martu people and other desert mob came off the land is recognised as one of the main processes that has caused historic declines in these species,” he said.

“When the sort of small-scale intensive burning undertaken by Aboriginal people disappears, what you often get is really big intense fires and that can have significant impacts on desert fauna.”

He said the Martu accounts revealed the scale of the northern quolls’ decline was greater than previously believed, and more recent.

“Previously we’ve assumed, based on our limited Western knowledge, that the decline of northern quolls in the Pilbara hasn’t been recent, or that that the decline has only been very little,” he said.

“This new evidence from the Martu suggests they have declined much more than we had assumed and that obviously has conservation implications – why have they declined? Potentially because of fire and predation.

“These things really do have an impact on northern quolls and if we’re not careful, when you tie that in with other impacts in the Pilbara, like mining, there’s a real chance further decline could occur.

“It’s a bit of a wake-up call.”

Dr Moore said the conversations had also provided key insights into the northern quoll’s diet and preferred habitats – revealing that where once they lived across sandy, savannah and rocky habitats, their range had shrunk in more recent decades to mainly rocky habitats, likely because these provided more protection.

“I think what surprised me was how intimate the Martu Elders’ knowledge was of the species, even though many of them had never seen them,” Dr Moore said.

“It really demonstrates how powerful that intergenerational transfer of Indigenous cultural and ecological knowledge is and adds to the growing body of evidence around the critical role Indigenous knowledge can play – not only in filling gaps in scientific and historic knowledge, but in helping us to plan conservation strategies for threatened species.”

Preview image of Aboriginal rock art featuring northern quolls used with permission from Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation

Image above used with permission from Dr Judy Dunlop.