species that was in danger of going extinct suddenly has hope. After their attempts to reproduce the species appear to have been successful, a team of biologists in Australia is overjoyed. Ecologists at Australia’s Mount Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary recently made a startling discovery.

They discovered a litter of young, spiky animals in the sanctuary. But these are not just any creatures. They belong to the species “western quolls,” which are a specific type of marsupial carnivore. The species was once widely distributed across Australia, but its numbers have drastically decreased since the first European settlers arrived.

These days, the western quolls, often called chuditchs, are restricted to small groups in Australia’s southwest. This marsupial species, which is roughly the size of a cat, is important to the ecology. They aid in managing populations of several birds, reptiles, and tiny invertebrates.

New hope. Researchers have spent the last few months trying to bring the marsupials back to the Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary, where they were once extinct. Now that baby mammals have been found, it is evident that the researchers have been successful. The animals appear to be doing well there and are having no trouble procreating.

“Through regular monitoring, we can see the quolls are doing well at the sanctuary and encountering the first pouch young is a positive sign that they have adjusted to the new environment,” said Georgina Anderson, AWC Senior Field Ecologist.

“One quoll that we’ve named Aang is a regular at camera traps we set up at the release sites. He is one of our largest and most striking quolls with a personality to match—often making rounds of multiple sites to collect the chicken we use as lures and disrupting our bait canisters,” she added.