The biggest carnivore marsupial in mainland Australia was spotted in the Gresford area.

Kane Ryan was down by the Allyn River fishing for bass when he heard something rustle in the nearby vegetation. He took his phone out to film what he thought was a fox or rabbit, when a spotted-tailed quoll appeared.

The quoll had no idea that Kane was there. Unfortunately, a car came past, startled the small mammal and it scurried away.

​“It’s the first time he has ever seen one,” Kane’s father Andy Ryan said 

“I’m 47 and have spent a lot of time in the bush/outback and have never come across one.”

The sighting was unexpected because the quoll, while known to be in the area, does not have a large local population.

According to the Office of Environment and Heritage, spotted-tailed quolls are efficient hunters, eating everything from insects to small wallabies. They are also considered a vulnerable species due to loss of habitat through poisoning, trapping and shooting.

In January last year Katina Stowe woke to a loud scratching noise in the early hours of the morning.

“I said ‘what are you’ and it bolted into my bathroom,” Miss Stowe said.

“It’s knocked over ornaments and shampoo bottles. It trashed my bathroom. I googled ‘possum with spots’ and it came up with spotted quoll.” Watch the video and read the full story.

In 2016 a group of researchers filming near Bulahdelah were stunned to discover a tiger quoll.

The tiger quoll – or spotted-tail quoll – has been pushed to the brink of extinction in NSW and, favouring hollows and thick forest, wasn’t thought to exist in the Bulahdelah Plain Wetland.

But after training a motion triggered camera on a scant wildlife trail, a MidCoast Council team of ecologists found the shock discovery stored in the gadget’s memory. Read on.