The phone rang. It was Rachel from Mudgee wanting to know if I knew where Sue was. I replied that I thought Sue was in Queensland visiting her daughter. Oh…said Rachel. Sue’s the only one who breeds “live” food (baby rats…Sue has pet snakes, and she feeds them freshly killed baby rats), and the National Parks and Wildlife ranger has just rung and said someone has just brought some baby quolls into the vets. They’re being checked out then he wants one of us to care for them, till they’re big enough to be released.
Yikes! I said, quolls! They’re endangered! What do we do if we can’t find Sue? Hang on till I find my mammal book and I’ll see what else we can feed them. I asked Rachel could she take them overnight, if we couldn’t locate Sue. I asked her if she knew how old they were, because if they were tiny they’d need bottle feeding. Otherwise we might be able to make do with some dog food until we could organise something more permanent. Rachel said she could take them overnight, as long as they were in something they couldn’t break out of, she had baby chickens she was rearing, plus a couple of joeys, and some kittens. She didn’t really want any of these devoured by the quolls.
A little interruption while I explain what quolls are. Quolls are also called native cats. They are carnivorous marsupials, vaguely related to Tasmanian Tigers and Tasmanian Devils…and antechinuses. Quolls are the biggest of these carnivores that still exist on the mainland of Australia. They are around the size of cats, and are considered vulnerable in the wild. No one in our area had ever had any in care, although I had seen an adult that had been brought into the vet, with a large abscess on his face. He was not a happy chappy, and neither was the vet when he had finished checking him out; it was quite a task to examine and treat him without having any parts of his anatomy removed. The quoll was given a large injection of antibiotics and taken back out into the bush for release…
After checking out my book, I reckoned these were likely to be Spotted Tail, or Tiger Quolls. They would eat just about anything, but their particular favourite was chooks (chickens). They are very happy climbing, and are expert hunters of birds; so it follows if they can manage to get into someone’s chook yard at night, it’s like their equivalent of takeaway….they just walk in to the chook house and start eating while the chooks are asleep and haven’t got a clue in the world that anything is going to happen!
Right….after that little interlude, back to the story….A little while later, Rachel rang back. She had just had another phone call from the ranger….he was about to go down and take photos of the little creatures. You can tell how often we get things like this by the excitement it was causing. He would ring her back shortly with all necessary information.
Right….deep breaths….calm down…in half an hour or so, we’ll know what’s going on. A little while later Rachel rang back again. She said, we don’t have to take them, they’re not quolls. I sat there stunned! What are they then? The ranger has no idea she said. I couldn’t believe it…no idea at all? Then we started to get excited again. Perhaps they’re Tasmanian Tigers! We could be rich if they are! (I’m not quite sure why….) Oh yes she agreed! (Even though Tasmanian Tigers are extinct, rumours abound that they still exist both in Tasmania and on the mainland. In fact I’ve even heard of “strange sightings” in our district.)
Rachel hung up, promising to let me know as soon as she knew anything. The next day came, with no further news. The ranger was having a day off, but his office promised that he would email pictures of the creatures as soon as he came in. In the meantime we heard the the little animals had been taken home by one of the vet nurses, until they were formally identified. When we heard this Rachel and I breathed a sigh of relief; they can’t be anything really nasty, or no one would have taken them home….
Another day came, and Rachel rang again. I’m sending you the pictures, you won’t believe what they are! Ring me back once you get the email! I opened up my email account, and there were the pictures. She was right, I couldn’t believe it; I was dumbfounded! I rang her back. They’re PUPPIES! How could anyone in their right mind think they were quolls? These are fluffy little puppies! Cute little brown fluffy puppies!
Good grief!….
Mamaroo's Diary 