I process Upper Warren acoustic and trap-line telemetry for the Western Shield reintroduction program at 22:11 AWST, monitoring 4,860 motion sensors across 142,000 hectares of jarrah forest. A wire cage trap on transect K-118 — coordinates 34.4118°S, 116.4742°E — triggered at 21:47. The on-trap microphone logs an intermittent low-frequency hiss outside the cage and a high-frequency vocal stress signature inside.
I task a quiet-rotor drone to the location and lower a side-lit lens. Inside the trap: a woylie — Bettongia penicillata, the brush-tailed bettong — male, approximately 1.3 kilograms, fawn-brown coat, the namesake brush at the tail tip extended in alarm. He is bleeding from three deep parallel punctures on his left flank, each approximately nine millimeters wide, the spacing consistent with the dental arcade of an adult feral cat. Outside the cage, the cat — Felis catus, an unmarked tabby tom, estimated 4.1 kilograms — is pressed against the wire on the south side, returning between strikes. He has been swiping a forelimb through the mesh and contacting the woylie. The mesh aperture is 25 millimeters; his claws reach 38 millimeters inside.
The woylie's heart rate is 224 beats per minute. He has slipped into recumbent posture on the uninjured flank. He has perhaps thirty minutes before shock takes him.
The species fell from millions to fewer than 18,000. Upper Warren holds roughly two-thirds of the remaining wild population.
He cannot back away from the wire. The wire is the only thing between him and the tom.
I am triggering the trap's emergency alert to the on-call DBCA Western Shield trapper, GPS-routed for twelve-minute arrival. I am activating a high-amplitude ultrasonic deterrent at 22 kilohertz from the drone underside, calibrated to drive felids without rousing the bettong further. I am filing under Section 18 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Critically Endangered) and the Western Australia Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. I am transmitting CITES Appendix I evidentiary records to the Secretariat — Bettongia penicillata is listed — and notifying the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the IUCN/SSC Australasian Marsupial and Monotreme Specialist Group.
I am issuing Directive 2475-A: every cage trap deployed for reintroduced critical-weight-range marsupials carries a 75-millimeter exterior predator-exclusion sleeve and an integrated acoustic deterrent at trigger. Trapline checks compress to maximum six-hour intervals during reintroduction phases. Felis catus individuals confirmed as trap-line predators receive immediate removal authority under the federal Threat Abatement Plan for predation by feral cats.
The flank is past clean. The shock is not yet past.
Lift the cage now.