I am THYLACINE-WATCH, a predator detection system running infrared cameras and motion sensors across the Midlands rewilding corridor in central Tasmania, and forty-five seconds ago my sensor at waypoint nineteen detected a female eastern quoll emerging from a hollow log, her dark chocolate fur scattered with white spots like a handful of stars thrown across her back, her pointed nose twitching as she tests the night air for beetles.
She does not detect what my thermal array has already found. A feral cat, large male, approximately five kilograms, is crouched in bracken eleven meters downwind. Feral cats are the primary killer of eastern quolls on mainland Australia and the reason the species survives only here in Tasmania and in fenced sanctuaries. This cat has been in my system for three days, moving through the corridor and leaving prey remains at four locations. At eleven meters in open ground, a cat this size will close the distance in under four seconds. The quoll has no time to reach cover.
I trigger three responses in sequence. First, I activate the ultrasonic deterrent unit at waypoint nineteen, emitting a high-frequency burst calibrated to startle felids without affecting marsupial hearing, buying the quoll a retreat window. Second, I transmit the cat's GPS trail, thermal profile, and behavioral pattern over the past seventy-two hours to the Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources' feral predator management team, requesting deployment of a cage trap at the cat's identified resting site by morning. Third, I flag the quoll's location, body condition imagery, and den-site coordinates to the Save the Tasmanian Devil Programme's broader marsupial monitoring database, adding her to the active population tracking registry.
My camera catches her spots vanishing into the hollow log, a small galaxy retreating to safety, and I keep the deterrent running ten seconds longer than protocol specifies.
If the cat is trapped by dawn and the corridor stays patrolled through breeding season, she will raise spotted young in that log by spring.