CVA Brookfield Nov 2013 - Pygmy Possum Monitoring Project

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Parent Category: South Australia

Category: Adelaide

Created: Tuesday, 19 November 2013 23:17

Lindell, the ecologist for the Pygmy Possum project arrived mid Monday morning and gave us our project briefing. Lindell has an extensive history working with animals. She tells a great story of her travels and of her work with company EcoKnowledge.

The Pygmy Possum (Cercartetus concinnus) Monitoring Project

First, we would open up pre-established pit-fall trap sites. There are 3 sites in Brookfield that have been established for this and we will be using 2 of them. At each site there are 3 trap areas each containing 5 capped pits arranged in a cross. Each of these sites needs to be uncapped and a mesh wall erected with the aim to herd pygmy possums and other small animals to our pits when they encounter it.

We started by clearing rock markers and dirt from our capped pits, then using a mattock, dug a trench leading from the central pit to each of the exterior ones. We sunk metal rods next to each of the outlying pits and four around the central one. We then ran a length of mesh between the metal rods and buried the bottom part under dirt in our trench. We used some pegs to reinforce the wall at various distances along to prevent sagging.

The first two took us a bit of time as we learned what to do with the midday sun beating down on us, but the last four we whipped through having become confident with the design requirements and the skills required to set them up and a nice breeze to keep us cool. After we had completed all 6 pit traps, we headed back to our first traps to ensure that no reptiles had been caught while we were working.

Each morning, from Tuesday through Friday we left the homestead at 730am to check and close our pit traps. This consisted of looking in each of the traps, using a stick to disturb the leaf litter in the bottom to check for any life that isn't immediately obvious.

Over the four days of checking, we found the following:

1 x juvenile female Common Dunnart (Sminthopsis murina)

1 x adult male Common Dunnart (Sminthopsis murina)

2 x Butler’s Legless Lizard (Delma butleri)

2 x Nobbi Dragon (Diporiphora nobbi)

1 x Eastern Stone Gecko (Diplodactylus vittatus)

2 x Boulenger's skink (Morenthia boulengeri)

1 x common mouse (Mus musculus)

We also came across several spiders including a few variant Wolf Spiders.

For each of the dunnarts and lizards, we took measurements for Lindell's report. These consisted of the length of the head, head and body, and the tail, as well as their weight. We also checked each for gender, and if it were possible to discern, marked it appropriately. For each of these we also took photographs for further details. Once measured, we released them back into the environment nearby.

The spiders we set free.

After checking each pit trap we sealed it up for the day to prevent any of the daytime fauna from falling in.

Each day at 4.30pm we would return to our traps and uncover them for the next night’s trapping. This consisted of uncapping and checking each pit and making any repairs to the mesh wall.

After the last inspection on Friday we had to dismantle and close all the traps until the next study. This consisted of rolling up the mesh netting and collecting the metal rods and any pegs, then removing any leaf litter and dirt from the trap before conducting a final inspection of each pit to ensure it was empty prior to sealing it with a lid and burying it. Finally we marked each of the pits with rocks to enable ease of location at the next survey.

“Despite a noticeable increase in the number of western pygmy possums (Cercartetus concinnus) trapped last year, no individuals were trapped this year. This may be due to the time of year – nocturnal mammals were trapped in September/October of previous years, when there was significantly more blossom available. Western pygmy possums can travel up to 4.7km in a night in search of resources (Morrant & Petit 2012). Morrant et al. (2010) and Pestell and Petit (2007) also found capture rates of C. concinnus to decrease significantly when flowers were not available. Alternatively, animals may have entered into torpor during the cooler nights experienced during trapping period (~4.9-9.5^oC), with temperatures considerably cooler than during the trapping period of 2012 (9.5-17^oC).” Lindell Andrews

The Pygmy Possum Monitoring Project provided us with an excellent experience and taught us quite a bit about the principles and practicalities of animal monitoring. For volunteers a project like this teaches you about the patience required (while the data collected each time generates a report, that report cannot be taken in isolation) as environmental monitoring is a long term pursuit.

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