BY ROSS BUCHANAN
NATIONAL Bilby Day is one of several fauna and flora commemoration days held during September during National Biodiversity Month.
Celebrated on the second Sunday of September, National Bilby Day was the brainchild of late Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) officers Frank Manthey and Peter McRae, who co-founded the Save the Bilby Fund and famously became known as the “Bilby Brothers”.
The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is an iconic Australian species, and the program to conserve it has strong Ipswich connections.
Remarkably, National Bilby Day is the only gazetted national day dedicated to a native species, a powerful recognition of just how important the bilby is to our natural heritage. It was established thanks to Frank’s tireless efforts in promoting bilby conservation.
The greater bilby (colloquially called “the rabbit-eared bandicoot”) is a highly vulnerable species threatened by habitat destruction and predation from introduced feral predators, especially cats and foxes.
It is one of Australia’s most iconic marsupials. Possessing powerful digging claws, bilbies live in deep burrows which have complex networks that provide shelter from predators and extreme temperatures.
At the time of European colonisation of Australia, there were two bilby species – the lesser bilby (Macrotis leucura), was officially declared extinct in the 1950s.
Frank, a ranger, and Peter, a scientist, were both working in the QPWS Charleville Office when they developed the idea of fencing a special area in Currawinya National Park, on the Queensland-NSW border 170km south-west of Cunnamulla.
The Bilby Brothers’ vision was to establish a dedicated area with a specifically designed predator-proof fence.
They established the Save the Bilby Fund in March 1999, started fence construction two years later and then started the arduous process of totally eliminating all foreign predators within the 25 square kilometre enclosure.
In 2005, the first captive-bred bilbies were released into the wild.
Later, Frank partnered with Darrell Lea to promote the replacement of Easter Bunnies with Easter Bilbies, with part of the proceeds going to the Save the Bilby Fund.
Ipswich has strong connections to the bilby conservation program. Frank lived in Ipswich between 2002 and 2016 and promoted bilby conservation to Ipswich City Council, which established the Frank Manthey Bilby Burrow at the Ipswich Nature Centre in Queens Park.
So, next Easter, don’t but Easter Bunnies. Buy Easter Bilbies instead.
