Tracking eastern pygmy possums
From the Autumn 2007 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
Can you imagine catching a creature that weighs 25 grams, is just eight centimetres long, nocturnal and extremely agile? And then tracking this animal through the bush?
Scientists from NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), together with staff from Forests NSW, have spent the last 18 months doing just that, in a project to catch and track tiny eastern pygmy possums.
NSW DPI researcher, Dr Brad Law, said 53 of the possums had been caught in McPherson State Forest, not far from Gosford on the New South Wales Central Coast.
“Eastern pygmy possums (Cercartetus nanus) in this area prefer banksia woodland habitat, feeding on nectar and pollen with their long, brush-tipped tongue,” Brad said.
Brad explained that the possums are a recent addition to the list of threatened fauna in NSW, with very little known of their ecology in forests.
“Without targeted research, it would not be clear how this species should be managed when their favoured forests are logged, and what the impact of logging might be,” he said.
The project has been set up with exactly this in mind – it is an experiment with control sites and logged sites, tracking possums before and after logging to reveal where they den, estimate home range size and identify how their habitat recovers after logging.
Brad said that two additional sites were included because they were logged four years ago. Already, trap rates are high at these sites and preliminary data on den use and foraging movements suggests the possums survive and breed in the thick understorey regenerating after logging.
The pre-logging phase of the project is almost complete and already much has been learnt about the habitat requirements of the possums. The project will re-commence after logging has finished.
Communications, Maitland
