A suburban backyard and a $4 million lifeline: How WA’s endangered residents are being resurrected

At 85 years old, this western swamp tortoise, dubbed ‘C12’, is one of the oldest of Perth Zoo’s residents – and one of the most important for West Australian conservation efforts.

The species was believed to be extinct until a young boy uncovered one in his backyard in the Swan Valley in the 1950s and brought it along to a wildlife show at the Perth Town Hall.

It had only been recorded once before, in the 1800s, when a specimen was sent to the Vienna Museum in Austria, lodged as a new species and promptly forgotten about until the wildlife show, more than 100 years later.

By the late 1980s, Perth Zoo had commenced a breeding program to boost numbers and in 1991 ‘C12’ made his debut.

To this day, he continues to play a significant role, siring 142 hatchlings and counting.

Now part of the zoo’s overarching native species breeding program, ‘C12’ has helped contribute to more than 1300 western swamp tortoises being bred.

Almost all have been released into the wild, but numbers remain critically low.

Perth Zoo’s science program leader Dr Harriet Mills said that was because the species was naturally only found in a small area on the northern Swan Coastal Plains, including in the Ellenbrook Nature Reserve.

“They have quite specific habitat. They require these wetlands with specific hydrology and geology with a clay-based structure,” she said.

“They were probably restricted and just evolved in that very specific habitat over many thousands of years – just one of those quirks of evolution.”

Because they need a specific habitat to thrive, urban development is a real concern, Mills said.

The Ellenbrook Nature Reserve is protected, but keeping it that way is not yet a guarantee.

The region is now also one of WA’s fastest-growing residential development areas, supported by the new Metronet line and increasing demand for space for new homes in the midst of a housing crisis.

“We can have influence over whether the reserve remains protected but unfortunately, we don’t have that much control,” Mills said.

The concerns over development is one reason the zoo’s program has introduced new populations of the tortoise into different regions of the state, further from the city, including at sites in the Moore River Nature Reserve in the Wheatbelt, and Scott National Park in the South West.

At the latter, 117 western swamp tortoises have been released.

Perth Zoo currently has 49 ponds housing their resident tortoises for breeding, and also runs a program out of Monarto Zoo in South Australia.

It’s not just tortoises that Perth Zoo’s native species breeding progr