Ecologists are reporting some incredible findings in their small mammal monitoring programs in state forests with reports of an explosion in breeding populations.
Forestry Corporation’s dedicated statewide team of ecologists collaborate with researchers across a range of agencies and institutions to monitor the health of small mammals at multiple monitoring sites across New South Wales each year.
Over the course of 2023 incredible results have been noted and recorded in relation to quoll, bandicoot, and potoroo numbers.
Forestry Corporation’s Manager, Biodiversity and Strategy Justin Williams said the key findings were that motion sensor cameras had captured more than 545,000 images of small mammals over a 290-day survey period.
“Our ecologists have been doing an extensive amount of survey work to ascertain what’s happening with native wildlife populations post the Black Summer bushfires,” Mr Williams said.
“This is another great sign of the recovery of the forests and those species that live in them. It is a great reminder of the resilience of our Eucalypt Forest species to fires,” he said.
The 40 survey sites in state forests detected both Spotted-tailed quoll, rodents, a range of diurnal birds and reptile encounters.
Forestry Corporation Senior Ecologist Chris Slade said the ecology team has collected an enormous amount of images of vulnerable species.
“We are seeing a fantastic result with our small mammal monitoring program on the far South Coast of New South Wales,” Mr Slade said.
“It has been running for over a decade now and we have been tracking the occupancy of various ground dwelling species such as the Southern brown bandicoot, Long-nosed potoroo and Long-nosed bandicoot.
“We have watched the real climate impact on those species where they were starting to decline during the drought leading up to the bushfires, we had in 2019 and 2020 and since then there has been an absolute explosion in the occupancy rates.
“Every site sampled this year has a Southern brown bandicoot present as well as a huge increase in occupancy rates for the rest of the species that are found in that part of the world.
“It is an amazing result for the species and the findings are a really great advocate for long-term monitoring programs,” he said.
Mr Williams said the important research was giving ecologists a crucial insight into the health and resilience of wildlife across the forest estate.
“The Southern brown bandicoot adds to this story, as we have been closely monitoring this species in state forests for more than a decade,” Mr Williams said.
“From our 40 long-term monitoring sites, Southern brown bandicoots have recently been found to occupy every site, whereas three years ago, following the drought and fires they were being detected at less than 10 per cent of sites.
“It has been a remarkable population explosion for bandicoots and other small mammals, which are breeding at fast rates primarily due to the high rainfall,” he said.
In their monitoring surveys, ecologists use a range of technology to gauge the health of wildlife populations in state forests.
This technology includes baited lure stations fitted with motion sensor cameras, audio file recorders, which track cockatoos, owls and marsupials including koalas and sound recorders, which pick up ultrasonic files for echo-locating bat species.
Forestry Corporation’s team of 17 ecologists statewide undertake a variety of survey work related to activities such as harvesting operations and pre-road works, in addition to their broader wildlife monitoring programs across the forest estate.
