[9] Mainland populations were reported in historical accounts to prefer building nests over slight depressions in the ground or above the burrows of other animals, which were used as escape routes.

[8] The population on Reevesby Island is highly associated with the invasive exotic weed African boxthorn, which provides shelter from predators due to its thorny foliage, and food in the form of leaves and fruit.

[16] Before the sharp decline in population in the late nineteenth century, the species was found south of a line from Shark Bay to the meeting of the rivers at the Murray–Darling basin and above the 28° southern latitude.

The drastic reduction in the range of this mammal is associated with the collapse of mammalian fauna in Australia between about 1875 and 1925, which is often linked to the decline of aboriginal land management and burning practices, widespread land clearance and agriculture, the introduction of foreign grazing animals including sheep, cattle and rabbits, and invasions by exotic predators like the European red fox and feral cats.

The susceptibility of this species to a theorised epizootic event, an unidentified disease spreading from Western Australia, was estimated to be high in modelling of mammal's relative immunity.

[18] A reintroduced population at Arid Recovery, a fenced reserve at Roxby Downs in South Australia, persisted for over 20 years,[19] but is now believed to be locally extinct, following periods of drought, high temperatures, degradation of food plants by over-abundant burrowing bettongs, and the reintroduction of the predatory western quoll.

[22] Reintroduction attempts began at a fenced landscape within NSW's Mallee Cliffs National Park in September 2020,[23] with the species observed as persisting during formal monitoring in 2023.

[29][30] Most failures have been blamed on inadequate habitat, food or release protocols, or excessive predation by monitors, raptors or feral cats.