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What do you do if you want to save animals from extinction?

In the Bible, Noah's plan was to put animals in an ark to save them from a flood - and it looks like these researchers in Australia have a similar idea.

This 'ark' won't be an actual wooden boat though.

Called the "Great Southern Ark", the plan is to create a wildlife sanctuary to protect rare animals from predators. This kind of project is known as "rewilding".

It's taking place on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, where 27 of the 29 mammal species who used to live there have disappeared.

Some of those 27 species are now extinct, but about 20 animals including bilbies, quolls and numbats (and yes, those are real animals!) will be reintroduced to this site from other habitats around Australia.

The project is jointly supported by the South Australian and federal governments, World Wildlife Fund and Greening Australia, who plan to reintroduce the animals over the next few years.

The first species to be reintroduced will be a population of woylie — or brush-tailed bettong.

Woylies excavate tonnes of soil each year in search of food, and in doing so, help spread native plant seedlings.

This then creates a better habitat for other species that rely on native plants. For this reason they're known as an "ecosystem engineer" species.

Soon after it'll be the turn of red-tailed phascogales — small carnivorous marsupials — to be introduced, as well as bandicoots.

A fledgling owl population will be supported with nest boxes.

Some species depend on the activity of others in order to survive in this kind of environment, which is why the animals will be introduced one at a time.

While fencing off the ark area is a good solution for this particular area, director Rob Brewster says this wouldn't work elsewhere in Australia.

"One of the big problems in Australia is that our key threats to a lot of these mammals are still operating in the environment. Foxes and feral cats are operating 24 hours a day," he said.

"A fence is good for the 1 per cent of Australia that you can actually put a fence around."

"But rewilding parts of mainland Australia that can't be fenced is a different challenge altogether".

One suggested solution to this problem has been to reintroduce Tasmanian devils to try and reduce the numbers of predators like cats and foxes

Tasmanian devils disappeared from the mainland along with Tasmanian tigers around 3,200 years ago.

If the "great southern ark" proves successful, the WWF's Darren Grover hopes rewilding projects like this can help to restore some of Australia's ecosystems.

"We hope to use the peninsula as a model for other parts of the country where animal species have faced mass extinction," he said.