00:00So this is one of our boys that's going.
00:04A small marsupial facing a big journey.
00:08And he is going to go and create a good founder population at Tibimbilla.
00:12Precious brush tailed rock wallabies bundled up
00:16into backpacks, carrying the hopes of a species.
00:20The southern population, which is the animals that we're focusing on,
00:24are critically endangered. There's barely, probably 60
00:28or less in the wild. Taking off from Victoria's Mount Rothwell
00:32sanctuary, the ground dwellers spent a few hours in the air
00:36before touching down in Canberra.
00:40Their comfort's everything. So the backpacks have been done so that
00:44they sit there on the seats and they're really calm. They're upside down so they're in the foetal position
00:48which reminds them of being in the pouch. The six wallabies are
00:52destined for the ACT's Tibimbilla Nature Reserve, where they'll
00:56join a breeding program.
01:00Six individuals is not a massive amount of animals
01:02to be translocated. It's certainly
01:04critically important in sharing the
01:06genetic load around different
01:08sanctuary sites so we can build those populations
01:10up to where they should be. The species
01:12hasn't been seen in the wild in the
01:14ACT since 1959.
01:16We want to get them back out there.
01:18That's where they belong. So that
01:20is our ultimate aim. So this is just
01:22one part of a really long plan.
01:24The wallabies will spend 30 days
01:26in quarantine before joining
01:28the rest of Tibimbilla's small
01:30but growing colony.
01:32We hope they look after each other a little bit because
01:34I don't think they realise how critically endangered they actually are.
01:36Bouncing back from the brink
01:38of extinction.
01:40the
02:03by
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