Issue link: http://ssaansw.uberflip.com/i/847291
22 Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc. The wet sclerophyll forests high in the hills of the Barrington Tops, with their tall snow gums and grassy understorey, provide similar conditions to that of Tasmania. Here Devil Ark is playing a key role in creating insurance populations of genetically diverse, disease free, healthy Tasmanian devils to mitigate the possible threat of extinction due to the highly contagious devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). But that is not all that is happening in the Barrington Tops. The team at Aussie Ark is thinking big and ambitiously establishing a life raft for seven keystone threatened and endangered native species comprising: the Tasmanian devil, brown bandicoot, eastern quoll, eastern bettong, long-nosed potoroo, Parma wallaby and red-legged pademelon. The eventual aim is to reintroduce these environmental engineers to the wild, to help restore the natural balance of Australia's diverse ecosystems in habitats they once roamed. SSAA NSW has been exclusively invited to provide pest animal management services as part of the plan for establishing semi-wild, fenced release sites that are free from introduced predators. Ongoing focus on the protection of these key species, as well as other already established species, is just one way the SSAA NSW volunteers, as 'boots on the ground', will contribute to the conservation effort to preserve some of Australia's unique mammals. SSAA NSW will be conducting both shooting and non-shooting activities as part of our involvement. We are only in the very early stages of developing our action plan, so keep an eye out in future editions of the NSW Shooter Quarterly Review for details about how you can contribute. Conservation through Hunting Protecting and preserving biodiversity