Precious Pookila

Sweet release Dr Phoebe Burns studies the wild Pookila that live at Wilsons Promontory National Park in Victoria.

NO ordinary MOUSE

A tiny new critter has taken up residence at Melbourne Zoo, and it’s no ordinary mouse. Meet the Pookila, one of Australia’s most amazing native rodents.

WORDS Gus Goswell

he Pookila is a tiny, endangered native mouse with a big future ahead of it thanks to a brand new conservation breeding program at

Melbourne Zoo.

Zoos Victoria Native Rodent Biologist Dr Phoebe Burns fell in love with the Pookila a decade ago, and that love only continues to deepen the more she studies it.

“At first, convincing people to love native mice can be a hard sell,” Dr Burns says. “I say mouse and people immediately think of the stinky little pest invading their home. But the Pookila is something else completely. First of all, the Pookila doesn’t smell.

TAnd sadly, it’s not likely to turn up at your house.” That’s because wild Pookila numbers have gone down in recent decades and it is now Endangered in the wild in Victoria. In fact, seven out of the 12 known Victorian Pookila populations are extinct, leaving five wild populations at sites across the Gippsland region in Victoria’s east – including Wilsons Promontory National Park. Habitat loss, drought, climate change, competition from non-native species and feral predators are all contributing to the Pookila’s current plight.

“The Pookila might be similar in size to the introduced house mouse we all know, but it’s also so different.”

DR PHOEBE BURNS

Zoos Victoria Native Rodent Biologist

Dr Phoebe Burns in the field A Pookila is released back into the wild

Weighing the Pookila

Did you know?

The Pookila Captive Breeding and Reintroduction Program is a collaboration between the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Gippsland Water, Moonlit Sanctuary, Parks Victoria, Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia, Zoos Victoria and members of the national Pookila Recovery Team.

If you haven’t heard the name Pookila before, perhaps you’ve heard this species’ previously used common name – the New Holland Mouse. These days, this mouse is known as the Pookila – a name derived from the Ngarigo word for mouse, bugila, which was adopted by the Federal Government in 1995 as the Indigenous name for the species.

And, according to Dr Burns, this is a native rodent that deserves to be a household name.

“The Pookila might be similar in size to the introduced house mouse we all know, but it’s also so different,” Dr Burns explains. “It has larger eyes, rounded ears, a bi-coloured pink and dusky brown tail, and of course no mousey odour at all. It’s just gorgeous.”

The many years Dr Burns and fellow scientists have studied the Pookila have now led to a brand-new conservation program for the species. The Victorian Pookila Captive Breeding and Reintroduction Program will see genetically diverse breeding pairs matched and housed at Melbourne Zoo and Moonlit Sanctuary in Pearcedale, with the eventual goal of releasing the offspring back into the wild. Dr Burns explains that wild population declines have led to a severe lack of genetic diversity, requiring urgent intervention. Twenty-two mice carefully collected from the five remaining wild populations form the basis of the new conservation breeding program, all with the goal of strengthening existing populations and creating new ones.

“Here in Victoria, we probably have only a few thousand Pookila left in the wild, and that is quite a catastrophic decline,” Dr Burns says. “Working with our conservation partners, we want to boost numbers in the wild back up to a sustainable level where they can be safe into the future.

“We are going to be pairing our animals based on how genetically different they are so that their babies are going to have the best, most diverse, genetics and then we can reintroduce those animals back into the wild to boost genetics in the wild populations.”

And it’s not only genetic diversity influencing which mice get paired together. Individual personality differences have also been observed and considered. The team has found some Pookila are early risers, others like to sleep in, some are shy, others are confident, some dig their own burrows and others like to sleep in nest boxes. Clearly there is still so much more to learn about these remarkable rodents.

With the mice now settling into their new relationships, the future is looking brighter for the Pookila in Victoria.

“It’s wonderful to have two great facilities where we can breed the mice and build up our numbers so that we have animals to release back into the wild,” Dr Burns says. “It is really exciting to be able to make a difference in the long-term conservation of this gorgeous native species.” ZN

YOU CAN HELP

To donate to Zoos Victoria’s Fighting Extinction programmes, Click here