Outback photos highlight common issue 'deceiving' Aussies city-dwellers
While the common brushtail possum is thriving in some cities, it's a different story in the country's arid centre.
For the first time in a decade, remote monitoring cameras have captured stills of an animal thought to have vanished from an outback town. The four pictures immediately excited ecologists as they trawled through thousands of images captured around Cunnamulla, 750km west of Brisbane.
The marsupial they show is abundant in coastal cities including Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane — it’s the common brushtail possum.
Ecologist Dr Helena Stokes explained to Yahoo News the common brushtail’s adaption to urbanised areas has masked its wider decline across arid parts of the country. “It’s a deception that they’re super common, and they have declined substantially from a large part of their range,” she said.
Facts you should know about brushtail possums:
Common brushtail possums have vanished from 50 per cent of their range since European settlement.
While they prefer fruit and leaves, they will also eat insects, bugs, worms, and eggs.
Possums were introduced to New Zealand to create a fur industry, but there they are now considered a pest.
Abundant animals vanishing across Australia
Across Australia, once abundant animals are now in decline. Koalas are listed as endangered in NSW, Queensland and the ACT, and face significant threats in Victoria and South Australia.
Bogong moths that were once witnessed in their billions are also now listed as endangered, and Christmas beetles are now a rare sight during the festive season.
Localised extinction is also a reality for common wombats along with western grey and eastern grey kangaroos, which are being displaced by developers creating new housing estates on the farmland they once called home.
What threats do brushtail possums face?
So far, only one common brushtail has been detected, but Stokes and her colleagues at Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) are on the hunt for more as they flick through the last few months of data. The individual was detected in September, and it’s possible it was just walking through the town, and has not taken up residency there.
It’s not just Queensland where common brushtails have sharply declined. AWC translocated 40 individuals back to a 9,540-hectare predator-proof sanctuary at Newhaven in the Northern Territory in August. They hadn’t been seen there for 60 years.
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The northern brushtail possum has fared worse than its “common” cousin, which is listed as vulnerable to extinction. Although despite its decline, the government is continuing to bulldoze its habitat for new housing projects.
Looking at the common brushtail possum, Stokes thinks the problems they face are similar across the country. “They’ve been decimated across a lot of their range by feral predators like foxes and cats. There’s been quite a lot of habitat clearing as well, particularly in southwest Queensland,” she said.
“But a real common factor to both the Northern Territory and semi-arid areas of Queensland is the hot, dry weather and the drying climate as well.”
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