These guard dogs in training have their work cut out for them.
Two 10-week old maremma sheepdog puppies have joined the team at Werribee Open Range Zoo as part of a guardian dog trial to help bring the eastern barred bandicoot back from the brink of extinction.
They are the first working dogs to join the program and have started training for their very important role as ‘bandicoot bodyguards’ to protect the species from introduced predators such as foxes.
The dogs will undergo two years of intensive training before being sent to nearby Tiverton Station, a fenced population that looks after endangered wildlife.
Another four dogs will be trained under the trial, which will run until 2019.
Program co-ordinator Dave Williams said the puppies would be trained in a special facility at the zoo, where they would be gradually introduced to sheep, bandicoots and other native species before their official duties began.
Nigel Sharp, who is leading the development of the trial site at Tiverton, said eastern barred bandicoots were no longer found in the wild in mainland Australia, although there were about 1150 in fenced populations, including Tiverton.
“Breeding programs and predator-proof sites have been critical to establishing an insurance population for the eastern barred bandicoot,” he said.
“But now we have the opportunity to take this species off the extinction list.”
