Recently, Hannah Thomas started as a part-time Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby Project Officer for Wildlife Queensland.

Where Paul Revie is our new glider guru, Hannah is Wildlife Queensland’s new macropod mage! Her role will be to monitor populations of these wallabies throughout the Logan Local Government Area, using motion-sensor cameras.

‘Brush-tailed rock-wallabies inhabit rugged, rocky escarpment areas with plenty of caves and crevices where they can shelter, as well as places with abundant native grasses and forbs for them to feed on,’  Hannah explains. ‘I’ll mostly be out in the field, investigating sites to assess habitat quality and to survey for any brush-tailed rock-wallaby activity or presence.’

She’ll also be identifying threats to these wallabies across these sites and informing Logan City Council on how they can best protect these elusive marsupials.

‘I’m excited to be working on such a beautiful and unique species and hopefully contributing to halting and preventing any further decline,’ adds Hannah, who is also about to start her PhD at the University of Queensland, investigating biodiversity offset areas.

Before coming on board at Wildlife Queensland, Hannah spent a year as a field ecologist with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, assisting with biodiversity surveys and threatened mammal reintroductions across several AWC sanctuaries. Wildlife Queensland hopes to secure more funding to extend our brush-tailed rock-wallaby program into and beyond 2022, and we’re excited about following Hannah’s progress and watching her improve outcomes for one of Australia’s rarest rock-wallaby species.