Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270:body:0:p11
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 29833–32614

north-eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales have not located any Leadbeater's possums (Lindenmayer et al. 1991d). Despite the lack of Leadbeater's possums recorded, further surveys are warranted given the large area over which the historic and subfossil records are distributed, much of which has not been sampled.
Modelling of the habitat distribution of Leadbeater's possum in 2022 (DEECA unpublished) using the additional recent records estimates the potential habitat to be likely less than 300,000 ha. This is a larger area than previous estimates such as that of the Victorian Leadbeater's Possum Advisory Group (2014b) which at the time considered there to be just over 200,000 ha of 'potential habitat' (defined as montane ash forest and snow gum woodland). 166,150 ha of the 300,000 ha has burnt since 2000 (DEECA unpublished). This includes 68,000 ha (34% of LPAG-defined area) burnt in 2009 that was not suitable for Leadbeater's possum for several years after the fires. Since then, some of the regrowth has been recolonised and some timber harvesting regrowth is also now being used as foraging habitat.
An occupancy model which factored in the impact of the 2009 bushfires suggested that the current 'strongholds' for the species are in the south of the Central Highlands, notably the Baw Baw Plateau and its southern slopes, the Toorongo Plateau south of the Upper Yarra Catchment, state forest near Powelltown, parts of Toolangi State Forest and southern parts of the Upper Yarra National Park (Lumsden et al. 2013). The model was not able to predict occupancy at a fine scale, partly because onsite habitat variables were not able to be incorporated (Nelson et al. 2017). Despite these limitations, it is useful to provide a general indication of the area that might have been occupied at the time: the total area with at least a 50% probability of occupancy by Leadbeater's possum was 35,764 ha; that with at least a 30% probability of occupancy was 93,825 ha.
The former Victorian government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) surveys in 2016 and 2017 at 149 sites, using a randomised sampling design across state forest and national parks, detected Leadbeater's possums at 37% of sites (ARI unpublished data). If these sites are representative of the whole area, it may suggest that 37% of the 300,000 ha of potential habitat within the Central Highlands core area is occupied (no sampling was undertaken in the new extension area to the east), equivalent to 111,000 ha.
Another approach for estimating the area of potential habitat has been undertaken by the University of Melbourne through detailed modelling of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to identify and map large old trees across the full extent of the Central