Cat vs bilby: an Easter tragedy. But this furry, long-eared icon can be saved Bilbies eat nearly anything. Problem is, feral cats eat bilbies. Original pic: Stephen Cooper THE cats are winning. Don't they always? Thousands upon thousands of fearsome feral felines are ambushing bilbies in the dead of night, in the heart of a desert, in a brutal assault on a defenseless Australian icon. If something doesn't change soon, these long-eared, loveable marsupials could soon be wiped out altogether. Bye-bye bilby, bye-bye. To understand why feral cats are wiping out bilbies, first you've got to know about the rats. You know those heavy Queensland rains we've read so much about in recent summers? All that water has caused grass to grow, which has caused thousands, if not millions, of native rats to descend on normally arid parts of western Queensland. The ravenous rodent in question is Rattus villosissimus, aka the long-haired rat, aka the plague rat. These hursuit, horrible herbivores chomp their way through grasses and other small plants which have sprouted in the desert. They breed so rapidly during the good times that their population is described in scientific terms as "eruptive." One minute they're nowhere. The next, they're everywhere. And when that happens, those mongrel feral cats are never far behind. I tawt I taw an evil kitty. I diiid, and they all belong in cages like this guy. Image: Paul Hutton Source: For bilbies, an invasion of feral cats is the equivalent of a murderous bikie-gang moving in. There goes the neighbourhood. And pretty soon, there goes the bilbies with it. Bilbies are really, really smart in ways you never knew. But feral cats are vicious. And out there in the mulga country, brawn trumps brains. Bilbies are smart because they build spiral burrows in which they retire just before dawn after foraging each night. After entering their burrows, they pile dirt across the entrance to prevent intruders. The ingenious spiral shape means they can trap more air without digging beyond two metres deep, to ensure they don't suffocate while sleeping. The unique burrow shape also stops the dirt cascading upon them. No wombat was ever that smart. Alas, when the bilbies emerge after dark to eat their customary diet of bugs and plants at night, those foul ferals are waiting, like kids with switchblades at a darkened railway station. The murderous moggies kill, and they kill without mercy. And they are doing it so successfully that most experts believe there are now less than 2,000 bilbies in Australia. Numbers plunge after a cat invasion. Just three Australian states have bilby populations - Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Queensland has the largest, with up to 1,600 in good times. That may have just dipped to as few as 400, scientists say. You talkin' to me? But the bilbies have a chance. Their chief advocate is a bloke named Frank and someone should make him a cape with a great big B for "Bilbyman" on the back. Frank Manthey runs Save the Bilby Fund. His organisation has raised millions to protect bilbies by raising money for research, bilby sanctuaries and the re-introduction of populations after captive breeding. Frank lives in Ipswich these days. Despite being well into his 70s and suffering a serious cancer scare last year, he is on a crusade. He wants to save bilbies. To help raise awareness for his fund, he visits many schools with a bilby for company in his car. "They're lovely animals," he says. They don't make any sound. If I go to a motel, they'll scratch all bloody night tryin" to dig a burrow in their cage. When I take 'em out on a school visit, they're asleep as soon as they're back in the car because daytime is when they're asleep. They change when it gets dark. You never, ever pet "em after the sun goes down "cos they'd bite your fingers off." But I love 'em. They're the second fastest breeding mammal on our planet. They have a 12 day gestation period, and when the baby is born it looks like a baked bean with four legs. Joeys spend 80 days in the pouch and a female can breed within six months. My question is, if you've got an animal without a special diet, which doesn't drink water [bilbies, like koalas, obtain liquid from their food] and which can breed as fast as that, how can we possibly lose it? In his younger days, Frank worked mustering cattle out on the Diamantina and the Cooper and other river systems you mostly read about in olden days tales of lost explorers or modern day tales of lost European tourists. Diamantina Shire boasts just three settlements. The smallest of these, Betoota, has an official population of zero. It is Frank Manthey's aim to stop the bilby ending up that way. Here's Frank and his little mate Lester. Frank's the one in the shirt. Money raised by the Save the Bilby Fund enabled a sanctuary to be built, surrounded by a special cat-proof fence in Currawinya National Park in south-western Queensland. The fence cost $550,000, but was damaged in recent flooding rains. That's when those bastard cats got in. For the sanctuary to be effective again, Frank Manthey believes he must now eradicate feral cats as aggressively as possible. "I'd like to get a helicopter with night vision and shoot the bloody things," he says. He has lobbied the government for resources to take on the feral cats. He even went down to Canberra at his own expense and argued his case directly to Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke. Mr Burke subsequently wrote a letter to Frank in February saying that $3.96 million had been allocated to develop a suitable feral cat bait. While the scientists work on the bait, the bilbies continue to be mauled to death. And Frank Manthey runs out of patience. "I'd like to know whether Gina Rinehart or that mad bastard on the Gold Coast has a chopper," he says. Frank reckons three or four nights is all it would take to kill the cats in the bilby enclosure. After that, he'd be happy to talk about bait. Frank Manthey fears for a world over-run with technology where young people are disconnected from nature. He signs off his emails with a quote from Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki which reads: We are one brief generation in the long march of time; the future is not ours to erase The good news is, you can do your bit to safeguard the bilby's future. You can donate any amount, no matter how small, to the Save the Bilby Fund, or become a friend of the Fund for just $20. Here's a bilby it's actually OK to eat. See below for details Source: You could also buy yourself or your family some chocolate bilbies from Pink Lady chocolate, whose bilby range is selling in Myer and elsewhere. Mmmmm... Envirolicious.