It's 5am in Tasmania's central highlands, witching hour for most of the creatures that call the Silver Plains property, off the Midland Highway, home.
Wombats, wallabies, rabbits, roos and possums are all out in force.
Most people would be asleep, but ecologist David Hamilton and his team have risen early to see if their hard work has paid off.
Yesterday, Dr Hamilton walked corner to corner of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy's Silver Plains property, setting small traps for the nationally endangered eastern quolls to wander into overnight.
Traps were set in sheltered areas, covered with a hessian bag and grass, and baited to entice the animals.
The bait of choice for Dr Hamilton: cat food.
According to the scientist, being trapped is not something the marsupials necessarily avoid.
"We actually find that some of the quolls can get quite trap-happy," he said.
"They're used to the traps being there and then they're ready to come out and have a feed in the evening, and then we have a measure of them in the morning and then let them go."
Dr Hamilton also sets extra traps for curious Tasmanian devils, who are also a little bit "trap-happy" too.
He doesn't want them taking up the quolls' space.
Scientists as matchmakers
Last November, 20 captive-bred eastern quolls were released at Silver Plains in the hope they would breed with the local quolls to shore up the population.
Today, during mating season and about a year from their release into the wild, the scientists are looking to know who is still around.
"The idea of what we're doing just now is coming back a year on to see who is still around, how many of them have made it to this point and to try and get some samples from the juvenile cohort," Dr Hamilton said.
"The best way we can get a handle on that is looking at how much genetic representation — so how many genes the animals bred into captivity — have got into the population at Silver Plains."
As with most reintroduction programs, the stakes are high.
Tasmania is one of the last strongholds for the nationally endangered animal, which is extinct on the mainland.
One by one, Dr Hamilton and his team check the traps that were set the day before.
The best-case scenario is for the team to find a juvenile quoll, which will provide them with clues as to whether the introduced population is breeding among itself or even with the wild population.
Luckily, it doesn't take long to come across a trap with a quoll light enough to suggest a youngster is hiding inside.
The scientists tip the quoll into a dark bag. Removing any visual stimulation for the animal helps it stay calm.
Next it is weighed, confirming it is indeed a recently born quoll.
Its teeth and head are measured, then Dr Hamilton gives it a poke and a prod to check whether it's of a healthy weight and size.
Next is the all-important tissue sample. Dr Hamilton takes a small piece from the fatty part of the quoll's ear, which he assures doesn't hurt the animal.
The quoll is also microchipped to help with future tracking.
Why breeding programs don't always work
Jessica Morrison is the honours student pulling together the research.
"It's pretty awesome to see them. I see my project coming together when I do see them," she said.
"Those samples, they'll be sent to a lab in Melbourne … and then I'll get the [genetic] sequence back and I'll analyse that and I'll basically match up the genetic pairs and see who's the mum and who's the dad."
She said there were several reasons why reintroduction programs such as this — even with the absence of most predators — could fail.
"Sometimes animals, if they're not in their ideal area or habitat, they can just be focusing on survival and not have that extra energy to reproduce as well," she said.
"It will be interesting to see whether they are doing really well out here and have that extra energy to reproduce as well."
Helping hand
Conservationists are at a crossroads when it comes to eastern quolls, because there are still enough in Tasmania to turn the species' fate around.
"A lot of conservation programs will come in when it is too late, when you've almost lost a species from the wild," Dr Hamilton said.
"But, in this case, we're wanting to look at what can happen before that point, so we're coming in where there are still quolls around, there's lots of individuals to interact with and to learn from."
If the program at Silver Plains sees promising results, there is potential for it to be replicated in more high-risk settings, where predators might be about, or somewhere closer to human settlements.
Ms Morrison said the program would also be able to tell whether reintroduction could work in zoos and other captive environments.
"It shows us how well captive-bred individuals will do in the wild, so whether supplement breeding in parks or zoos will actually help the wild population of quolls or whether that's kind of a little bit of a no-go in terms of their conservation," she said.
