Kangaroo Island\u2019s endangered dunnarts took a huge hit after the Black Summer bushfires tore through 98 per cent of their habitat.<\/p>\n
Before the fires, the population of tiny marsupials on the island was estimated to be around 500. Now, their numbers are unknown, according to UniSA scientist Associate Professor Sophie (Topa) Petit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWild animals are very difficult to count,\u201d Dr Petit told InDaily.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they were captured or seen regularly, it would be a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is why researchers were thrilled by a recent \u201cremarkable\u201d discovery \u2013 the small, carnivorous marsupial that was thought to be a ground-dweller, can climb trees.<\/p>\n
The discovery was part of the Kangaroo Island Nest Box Project, a large-scale citizen science initiative led by Dr Petit and Peter Hammond from the Kangaroo Island Research Station.<\/p>\n
As part of the project, volunteers deployed more than 400 pygmy-possum boxes and 350 bat boxes to help wildlife recover and to better understand those animals\u2019 nesting ecology following the catastrophic 2019-2020 bushfires that almost destroyed half the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis finding was accidental,\u201d Dr Petit said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur target animals were pygmy-possums and bats.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, between 2022 to now, the team recorded three separate sightings of the dunnart resting in wooden pygmy-possum boxes attached to eucalyptus trees on a property in Karatta, on western Kangaroo Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost species of dunnarts are not known to hang out in trees that we know of,\u201d Petit said.<\/p>\n
But in one instance, the dunnart was even observed resting on a bed of finely shredded wood \u2013 possibly material it had collected itself to form a nest.<\/p>\n
Petit said it was an important discovery, \u201cnot only because the ecology of this threatened species is poorly known, but also because it is evidence of yet another species using tree hollows, which are very important to biodiversity conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammond agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing I expected to find in one of our pygmy-possum nest boxes \u2026 was a dunnart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a wonderful surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kangaroo Island Next Box Project was a finalist for the 2024 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science. It has brought together scientists, local landholders and community volunteers to build, install, and monitor hundreds of nest boxes across the island\u2019s fire-affected landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kangaroo Island\u2019s endangered dunnarts took a huge hit after the Black Summer bushfires tore through 98 per cent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-240962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}