Move over Easter Bunny: In Australia—where rabbits have worn out their welcome—the Easter Bilby has taken the place of favor. Today’s Endangered All-Star was once common throughout the continent but disappeared rapidly, displaced by said rabbit, hunted by feral cats, and squeezed into small parcels of land by agriculture and grazing. To add insult to injury, bilbies were also killed by traps set for rabbits. The danger was all too obvious: A related species, the Lesser Bilby, was rapidly driven to extinction in the 1930s.
Hence, the Easter Bilby, a program begun to attract attention to this fiendishly cute marsupial. The Save the Bilby Fund advertises Chocolate Bilbies, and proceeds and donations go to support a captive-breeding program, which has shown great promise: Bilbies have reproduced well in captivity and are being reintroduced in Currawinya National Park in Queensland and several other sites. See some Bilbies gettin’ frisky for the good of their species on YouTube, and if you’re in Australia, be sure to pick up some Darrell Lea Chocolate Bilbies.
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