Sorry to state the obvious (or I think so, even maybe more likely). It is
also possible for an animal to have been struck by a car somewhere and then
carried on the car e.g. wedged behind a bull bar and then at random fallen
off, quite some time later, when on travelling on a rough road or discovered
by the car driver at a later stop and simply removed from the car and dumped
on the road at that spot. Most drivers would do that and would not wish to
carry around a dead animal or particularly care what species it was. Or
someone picked it up, intending to use it or eat it or get it identified
then decided it was too smelly and chucked it out at that point.
Though I wouldn't doubt Jerry's info and conclusion that raptors find
species first, then humans catch up.
Philip
-----Original Message-----From: Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Friday, 9 January 2015 12:05 PM To:
Cc: Jerry.Olsen
Subject: FW: A wonderful start to 2015 - one or two new
native mammal species for the ACT
Thanks Jerry. Sending edited version to the bird list. To Canberrabirds:
For info. Have omitted the attachments.
-----Original Message-----From: Jerry.Olsen
Sent: Friday, 9 January 2015 11:15 AM
To: 'Geoffrey Dabb'; Maconachie, Michael Subject: FW: A
wonderful start to 2015 - one or two new native mammal species for the ACT
Hi Geoffrey & Michael
Might be interesting to a few COG folks though Don isn't quite correct. We
found both bandicoot species in WTE nests. More evidence that raptors find
species first, then humans catch up.
Regards
Jerry
Dear all
After years of searching for, but not finding bandicoots in the ACT we
suddenly find there are possibly two species here with wild populations.
Searching for bandicoots intensified after bones and fur of the threatened
Southern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) were found at wedge-tailed eagle
nests in Canberra Nature Park in 2002 and 2003 by Jerry Olsen and Esteban
Fuentes. The largest and most recent survey was in 2012.
As a wonderful start to 2015, Namadgi ranger Martin Ball has told how he
stopped on Corin Road to check a roadkill that didn't look quite like 'just
another rabbit' and when it proved to be something unusual, a large male
bandicoot, he did the right thing by photographing it in situ, recording the
GPS coordinates, putting the carcass on ice at Tidbinbilla, and notifying
Conservation Research.
The location on Corin Rd was only about 6 km from the enclosures at
Tidbinbilla where Southern Brown Bandicoots (Isoodon obesulus) had been
placed a few years ago. (This species is listed as endangered or vulnerable
in all 3 states where it occurs and by the Commonwealth but has not been
nominated in the ACT.) A number of the captives had subsequently escaped
(and maybe others have been escaping since). Phone calls and emails back
and forth this week with TNR to discuss the possible origin of the Corin Rd
carcass, revealed that TNR staff have been sighting bandicoots outside the
enclosure system. Either escapees have established a wild population (a
notoriously difficult thing to do because of fox and cat predation) or there
is a trickle of escapees which are seen by staff before the fox sees them,
or the sightings are of a native wild population perhaps the same as the
roadkill.
Before freezing the Corin carcass, TNR staff noted that it was bigger (1.7
kg) and had softer fur than most of their captives. They also produced a
frozen carcass of a male Southern Brown Bandicoot which had been found dead
in the TNR enclosure.
When the two frozen but very smelly carcasses arrived at CR, the eagle eyes
of Mel Snape spotted some features of the Corin carcass which correspond
with Perameles nasuta, the long-nosed bandicoot - the bandicoot species
common on the south coast and some inland areas. However this carcass was
30% bigger than the maximum size given in the latest text. Because of the
uncertainties, both carcasses were taken to the Australian Wildlife
Collection at CSIRO for expert identification. The identifications of two
species were confirmed earlier today, Isoodon obesulus and Perameles nasuta.
Although it probably seems to most people so unlikely that Perameles could
be here in the ACT, living within a few kilometres of the Tidbinbilla
enclosures, it appears that there may be:
. An Isoodon population in an unknown location from which the bones
and fur originated in 2002 and 2003;
. A Perameles population in Namadgi from which the roadkill
originated; and
. A wild bandicoot population in Tidbinbilla, either Perameles like
the nearby Corin carcass, or Isoodon like the nearby captives.
Cheers, Don
Don Fletcher
Snr. Ecologist, in Conservation Research, Environment and Planning
Directorate, ACT Government. t 6207 2104, m 0408 995 385.
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