'Taking back the desert': can Australia's small marsupials learn how to live alongside their predator, the feral cat?

Scientists are excited by progress so far in a bold project to see if native species can train themselves to survive alongside catsSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton's free Clear Air newsletter hereIn the middle of the Australian outback's arid deserts, many of the country's distinctive small marsupials - the bilbies, bandicoots and quolls - have been missing for a century or more, wiped out by land clearing and the hunting prowess of feral cats. Felis catus - introduced by European invaders and settlers - was too fast and too agile for the native mammals that had not evolved with this voracious and adaptable new predator.While efforts to rid the landscape of cats have so far failed, a group of scientists have entered into a bold project to see if small marsupials can train themselves to survive alongside the cats that drove their species almost to extinction. Continue reading...