A little pygmy possum has been found on Kangaroo Island for the first time since bushfire destroyed most of their habitat in last summer’s devastating blaze.
There were fears the pygmy, considered one of the smallest possums in the world, had all but disappeared from the South Australian island.
But conservation group Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife found the little pygmy as part of a larger conservationist effort across the island in the wake of the 2019-20 bushfire. Almost half of the 440,500-hectare island was burnt in December and January.
Fauna ecologist Pat Hodgens told Guardian Australia the discovery, on the west of the island, was significant.
“This capture is the first documented record of the species surviving post-fire,” he said. “The fire did burn through about 88% of that species’ predicted range, so we really weren’t sure what the impact of the fires would be, but it’s pretty obvious the population would have been pretty severely impacted.”
The little pygmy possum, weighing less than 10 grams, is found in Tasmania and sometimes mainland South Australia and Victoria in addition to Kangaroo Island.
The creature is usually a difficult species to study, considering its size and limited range. Hodgens said there was a data deficiency when it came to understanding the possum.
He said he was optimistic the little pygmy possum would now survive on Kangaroo Island but work was needed to protect what was left of the population. The biggest threat now was feral cats – with several pygmy possums found in their stomachs.
“Right now they’re highly compromised as a species,” the fauna ecologist said. “They’re still not out of the woods because right now they’re at their most vulnerable – as the bushland regenerates they’re still very exposed to natural and introduced predators.”
Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife surveyed 20 different sites on the island and found southern brown bandicoots, native bush rats, brush-tailed possums, tammar wallabies and the more common western pygmy possums, as well as the one little pygmy possum.
Two people died and almost 90 homes were destroyed in bushfires that ripped through nearly half the island last summer, killing a significant amount of wildlife.
“It impacted all walks of life across the island and in our community,” Hodgens said. “It’s still, nearly a year on, really early for us to even guess what the impact has been on a lot of these species.”
Hodgens said it could be years or even decades before the local fauna recovered their populations.
“There’s still a whole lot of species where we don’t know how their populations have fared during the fires and we don’t know how they’re going to fare in the long term.
“We owe it to these species to do everything we can to protect them and ensure that they are around for future generations.”
