Community & Business
31 January, 2023
Talk to shine light on digging animals
MOST of us have seen various holes in the ground and wondered what animal might have produced the disturbance, but a free talk to be held on Thursday night at the Big Pub at Malanda will provide the answers.
Dr Leonie Valentine is a conservation scientist who loves wildlife and the complex interactions between species and ecosystems.
She manages the Species Conservation team for WWF-Australia and will be presenting the first Tree Kangaroo and Mammal Group talk for 2023 on Thursday night.
Dr Valentine says we commonly encounter bandicoot diggings but there are also many other species who create soil surface disturbance.
“The list of digging mammals is quite long and the results from their work may be quite surprising,” she said.
“From tiny subterranean marsupial moles to the robust hairy-nosed wombats, digging mammals once occurred right across the Australian mainland, and on many islands, too.
“In the last 200 years, most of Australia’s unique digging mammals, including many bandicoots, bettongs and potoroos, have undergone drastic population reductions and range declines due to habitat loss, predation by cats and foxes and altered fire regimes.”
But recent conservation efforts have been directed at returning some of the Australia’s threatened mammal species to fenced reserves and offshore islands.
Anyone interested in attending are welcome to come along to the Big Pub at Malanda at 7.30pm.
