This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Have you ever found your lawn riddled with holes or heard a little sneeze from your backyard bushes? Those are signs you might have a resident bandicoot.
Bandicoots are nocturnal, rabbit-sized marsupials known for their pointy snouts, thin tails and large hind feet. Due to these features, they were originally misnamed after a type of rat from India, the pandi-kokku, or "pig-rat" (Bandicota sp.). Bandicoots are native to Australia and New Guinea but are recognized as a globally threatened group of animals.
Despite seeming small and innocuous, bandicoots have long been maligned by humans, particularly as digging mammals that rip up farms, parks and even suburban gardens. Our new study suggests this fraught relationship has lasted for decades—but for reasons you may not expect. For millions of years, various species of bandicoot have roamed the Australian continent, from deserts to coastlines.
Tragically, since European colonization, eight of the 15 bandicoot (Peramelidae) species have become threatened or gone extinct. The populations that remain have all declined in number due to pressures from invasive predators, such as cats and foxes, as well as habitat destruction. However, humans have also directly contributed to their decline.
Our latest research takes a closer look at how humans and bandicoots have interacted throughout recent history. We did this by analyzing more than 3,000 newspaper reports published in New South Wales between 1804 and 1954. These reports chronicle how people's concerns about bandicoots evolved over time as an example of human-wildlife conflict.
These conflicts arise when the behavior and needs of wildlife are at odds with those of people. Our findings suggest there are three main reasons humans and bandicoots have had a troubled history. In the early years of European colonization, new arrivals enjoyed hunting Australia's unusual animals.
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