Bandicoot update
July 13, 2012
Following our previous post on the Long-nosed Bandicoot, the good news is that Chris Cobern, the Landcare Fire Recovery Coordinator, has successfully recorded a live bandicoot on a remote camera between Kinglake West and Flowerdale, close to where the roadkill bandicoots have recently been found.
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This is really fantastic! Its just lovely to see these gorgeous & elusive animals. What’s even more fantastic is to witness this explosion in local bandicoot numbers. Given the number and frequency of Long-nosed Bandicoots you’re recording (diggings, cameras, roadkills) they must be at their highest population levels for many, many years. This explosion of numbers has happened, coincidentally, several years after both the fires and the ‘end of the drought’, and in the absence of any large-scale predator control programs. It would be interesting to try to unravel this one.
I hope we have some in Strath Creek. What is their preferred habitat?
From what I can gather they prefer damp areas with dense patches of cover, especially along streams in diverse vegetation communities including heaths, grasslands and wet forests.
Another road-kill bandicoot found near Kinross Farm on 30th July.
And another road-kill found today (6/8/12) on the Whittlesea-Yea Rd at Kinglake West where it crosses over the Stony Ck.
Another sad record to be entered in the Biodiversity Atlas! I think that makes 7 now.
I have recently found more evidence of bandicoots in the mid and upper sections of the Stony Ck (much of it un-burnt in 2009). The area we are finding these road-kill may be a bottleneck where they move and disperse between the Stony Ck and into the forested areas of the King Parrot Ck and the Wallaby Creek catchment.
It’s a shame council and DSE recently dismissed the native vegetation removal that occured along the Stony Ck near where we are finding these victims as not important. Could there be a link?
The wider the corridors the better especially along waterways.
May be there is a link between the removal of understory and the road kill – very sad. What can we reasonably do to support the bandicoots?