On Wednesday, the eastern barred bandicoot’s threatened species status was downgraded to endangered.

The small rabbit-sized marsupials were considered extinct in the wild due to predation from introduced species like foxes as well as land clearing, but three decades of conservation efforts and captive breeding programs has seen the population swell.

Today on Please Explain, environment writer Miki Perkins joins Nathanael Cooper to look at how Australian scientists have brought the bandicoot back from extinction.