Project: 3.2.2.1
Using reintroductions to understand causes of mammal declines and extinctions at Booderee National Park
Project Leaders: David Lindenmayer, Natasha Robinson
Research in Brief
Over the last century Booderee National Park has suffered large declines and extinctions of many native species, especially mammals. Active management
has stabilised declines of many species and created conditions considered suitable to trial reintroductions of at least three regionally extinct mammals.
This project will support Parks Australia in planning and monitoring the releases.
The reintroductions and existing monitoring will also be used to identify the causes of declines and extinctions of mammals at Booderee. The project
will 1) examine factors needed for re-establishment and persistence of reintroduced mammals 2) consider possible impacts on local ecosystems and how
to mitigate them, and 3) determine best-practice translocation procedures for selected mammals. Findings will benefit threatened mammal conservation
within and beyond the park.
Checking traps in the field. Photo: Natasha Robinson
Why is the research needed?
Like large areas of south-eastern Australia, over the last century Booderee National Park has seen large declines and local extinctions of many species.
Species that have become extinct within the park include the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus), southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obselus obselus),
the long-nosed potoroo (Potorous tridactylus), the greater glider (Petauroides volans), yellow-bellied glider (Petaurus australis),
tiger quoll or spot-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus maculatus). Several of these became locally extinct as recently as the 1980s and the greater
glider in the early 2000s.
Parks Australia are actively managing threats in the park, such as through extensive introduced predator control. However many species have continued
to decline in recent decades, even though some are still common outside of the park. Reasons for these declines are not currently well understood.
Monitoring and research is needed to understand the causes of these declines and the most effective management responses.
A program of long-term biodiversity monitoring began in 2003. This has yielded considerable insight into the effectiveness of different conservation
strategies, allowing management approaches, including for fire and invasive animals to be adapted by findings. In response, local populations of some
species like the endangered eastern bristlebird (Dasyornis brachypterus) have improved. Conditions are now also considered suitable for the
reintroduction of a number of locally extinct species including the eastern quoll, bandicoot, potoroo and glider.
How will the research help?
This research will directly benefit the management of threatened species within Booderee National Park, but also management of threatening processes
and species conservation more broadly.
The project will provide guidance to Parks Australia regarding mammal reintroductions, including habitat suitability, criteria for establishment and
persistence, effective translocation procedures and knowledge of ecological interactions in the release environment. This information will be necessary
for evaluation of each reintroduction and future decisions concerning management of habitat, threats and species.
The project team will provide targeted monitoring of mammals that are reintroduced to Booderee National Park by Parks Australia. This will provide
information about their on-going health, how they use habitat and causes of any mortality. The findings will provide valuable information to guide
future reintroductions. This will improve the success of future reintroductions and ultimately will ensure the greatest chance of establishing healthy
wild populations of these animals in the park.
The project will also examine what factors are required for successful re-establishment and persistence more broadly, and determine optimal reintroduction
strategies, including best-practice translocation procedures for selected mammals. Additional research conducted in association with the mammal reintroductions
will be used to test causes of declines, threats to persistence and factors limiting re-establishment of each species.
Collectively long-term data from Booderee and elsewhere will also be used to investigate causes of selected mammal declines and extinctions more broadly.
Long-nosed potoroo at Booderee National Park. Photo: Natasha Robinson
What research activities are being undertaken?
The project is working closely with Parks Australia who are leading the reintroduction of several mammal species to Booderee National Park including
the eastern quoll, southern brown bandicoot, the long-nosed potoroo and possibly also the greater glider.
Prior to Parks Australia making a decision regarding greater glider reintroductions, the project will investigate habitat suitability and potential
impacts of reintroducing the species on existing species and ecosystems. It will also undertake habitat surveys and provide recommendations to guide
the reintroductions, in particular recommending the location of release sites.
The team will provide intensive monitoring of the animals that are reintroduced to the park including GPS and radio tracking, motion cameras,
and live trap surveys. The findings will help park managers to understand the survival, dispersal, home range, habitat preference and species interactions
of released individuals.
In addition, research is currently investigating the genetic diversity of the already reintroduced bandicoots, their long term genetic viability and
potential source populations for future translocations.
The team will also compile long-term data on the greater glider from Booderee National park, the Victorian Central Highlands and other regions and
analyse it to investigate the causes of the current widespread declines, threats to persistence and limitations to reintroductions.
Who is involved?
This is a joint project of the Australian National University and Parks Australia. Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community have been consulted and support the
project. Additional partners in the reintroduction projects include Taronga Conservation Society, Forestry Corporation of NSW, Rewilding Australia
and WWF Australia.
Where is the research happening?
Field work is being undertaken in Booderee National Park, Jervis Bay Territory. Existing data from other regions is also being used.
When is the research happening?
The project will run from January 2018 to December 2020.
Further Information
For more information contact Dr Natasha Robinson - natasha.robinson@anu.edu.au
Top image: Eastern Quoll. Photo: Rewilding Australia
Related Projects
Mitigating and managing barriers to fish passage and improving river connectivity
Project: 3.3.7
Native fish populations in the Murray Darling Basin are estimated to be at 10% of pre-European numbers. One significant cause of declines is barriers to fish movement, which can lead to population fragmentation and loss of access to key habitat. Barriers can be created by physical instream structures, cold water pollution and changed hydrological conditions.
Adaptive reintroduction strategies for the northern corroboree frog
Project: 3.3.6
The critically endangered northern corroboree frog is one of many frogs in major decline due to chytrid fungus. A common management response is to establish captive breeding programs paired with reintroductions. However, reintroductions into the sites where the last wild populations persisted has met limited success due to the continued effects of chytrid fungus. This project will develop and trial innovative new translocation and reintroduction approaches, to reestablish wild populations of the northern corroboree frog in the ACT.
Recovering malleefowl with adaptive management of feral predators
Project: 3.3.5
The distribution and abundance of malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata) has declined markedly since the arrival of Europeans to Australia. The main identified threats include habitat loss and fragmentation, herbivore grazing, changed fire regimes and invasive predators.
The conservation of Greater Glider populations in the Victorian Central Highlands
Project: 3.3.4
Greater gliders have declined in many parts of south-eastern Australia, with local extinctions in some areas. They require tree hollows for dens and so are found in forests with large old hollow-bearing trees. The project focuses on greater glider populations in the mountain ash forests of the Victorian Central Highlands. This project aims to 1) quantify how populations in the focus region are changing across space and over time; and 2) identify the factors underpinning the observed changes.
Adaptive Management for threatened mammals in the Victorian Central Highlands
Project: 3.3.2
Many species of mammals and birds are dependent on the Mountain Ash forests of Victoria’s Central Highlands, including the Critically Endangered Leadbeater’s Possum and Vulnerable Greater Glider. This project will use analysis of existing long-term monitoring data and new field-based experimental research and radio-tracking to strengthen the scientific evidence base of strategies to secure the longterm conservation of these and other species dependent on these forests.
Practical adaptive management to improve threatened species conservation programs
Project: 3.3
Adaptive management is a widely supported framework for conducting environmental management in the face of uncertainty. Challenges persist in putting this approach into practice, particularly in the case of conserving threatened species. Many threatened species recovery efforts fail because appropriate management actions are either not implemented, the outcomes of that management are inadequately monitored, or management is poorly informed and not as effective as it should be.
Evidence-based management protocols for recovery of multiple threatened woodland birds
Project: 3.2.6
Eastern Australia’s temperate woodlands have been significantly cleared, with 80% of their former extent already gone, and the classically Australian woodland bird community that is inseparably bound with them disintegrating.
Arid Zone Monitoring: Surveys for vertebrates across arid and semi-arid zones
Project: 3.2.5
Monitoring animal populations in Australia’s sandy deserts is challenging. Desert species can be patchily distributed, at low densities, and have boom-bust cycles. As a result, we know little about the distribution, abundance, and status of desert wildlife. This project is working with indigenous and non-indigenous partners to collate and analyse this information, to produce a collective picture of the distributions of desert species and their threats, and how these are changing over time.
Thermal imaging for biodiversity monitoring
Project: 3.2.3.2
Traditional techniques for monitoring wildlife such as spotlighting are often too expensive, inefficient or impractical for widespread use. New technologies and new advances in survey methods have the potential to provide data that are more accurate for lower costs.
Using drones for biodiversity monitoring
Project: 3.2.3.1
This project will trial the performance of drones with thermal cameras to provide tangible advice to managers about when they should be used to augment traditional ecological monitoring approaches. It will also develop a framework for designing drone-based surveys, and evaluate the statistical and technical trade-offs between different survey designs.
Bioacoustic monitoring of breeding in glossy and red-tailed black-cockatoos
Project: 3.2.3
Breeding success is a key limiting factor in population recovery for the threatened glossy black-cockatoo and south-eastern red-tailed black-cockatoo. Monitoring is important to guide conservation actions, however these species are difficult to monitor using traditional methods. This project will develop novel bioacoustic methods to monitor breeding in these species.
A tool for evaluating biodiversity monitoring programs in national parks
Project: 3.2.2.3
Monitoring is crucial for determining trends in plant and animal populations and their response to management. However, decisions about how much to invest in monitoring, and where, when and how to allocate monitoring effort, are complex. This project will further develop a computer simulation tool (SPOTR) for evaluating the performance of biodiversity monitoring programs.
Monitoring Threatened Species on Indigenous lands: Bilbies in the Martu Determination
Project: 3.2.2.2
Martu people are traditional owners of over 14 million hectares of the western deserts, one of the last strongholds of the greater bilby. The project is combining Indigenous knowledge and Western scientific techniques to create and establish bilby monitoring and data management programs that will be implemented by Martu Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa Rangers.
Using reintroductions to understand causes of mammal declines and extinctions at Booderee National Park
Project: 3.2.2.1
Over the last century Booderee National Park has suffered large declines and extinctions of many native species, especially mammals. Active management has stabilised declines of many species and created conditions considered suitable to trial reintroductions of at least three regionally extinct mammals. This project will support Parks Australia in planning and monitoring the releases.
Improving threatened species monitoring
Project: 3.2
This project aims to improve the design and implementation of cost-effective monitoring for threatened species. The project will assess the extent and quality of monitoring across threatened species, and seek to understand what contributes to good monitoring. The project will include a series of case studies that can act as exemplars of sound design, appropriate integration with management actions, and effective engagement with the community.
Developing a threatened species index
Project: 3.1
This project will develop and evaluate a set of indices that can provide reliable and robust measures of population trends across Australia’s threatened species. This will support more coherent and transparent reporting of changes in biodiversity across national, state and regional levels.-
Now hiring: The missing mammals of Booderee
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Fifteen years of comprehensive biodiversity monitoring in Booderee National Park has revealed a major ecological surprise: localised collapses of populations of many of the park’s mammal species over the period. At many long-term sites across the park, the number of native mammals almost halved between 2003 and 2016.
-
Bundles of quoll joy in Booderee
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Fifteen tiny quoll pouch-young have been born to three female eastern quolls from a pioneer group of 20 animals released into Booderee National Park. In a big win for the reintroduction project, these are the first eastern quolls known to be born in the wild on the Australian mainland for more than 50 years.
-
Threatened species returning to Booderee National Park
Tue, 05 Sep 2017Booderee National Park is welcoming the return of locally extinct mammals. Long-nosed potoroos and southern brown bandicoots have already been reintroduced to Booderee after being locally extinct for up to a century, and now preparations are underway to welcome a third threatened species, the eastern quoll, back to the park.
-
Reasons to be cheerful - Conservation success stories from Booderee National Park
Wed, 05 Jun 2019The Threatened Species Recovery Hub is celebrating great conservation outcomes from projects taking place in Booderee National Park for two Endangered species: the eastern bristlebird and the southern brown bandicoot (eastern subspecies). The Australian National University’s David Lindenmayer and Chris MacGregor give us the scoop on the bristlebird and Natasha Robinson shares the good news about the southern brown bandicoot.
