Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270:body:0:p8
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 21670–24762

are likely to provide some benefit to many other species, particularly other hollow-dwelling mammals and birds, such as the sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa), listed as Endangered under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (FFG Act), and greater glider (southern and central) (Petauroides volans) listed as Endangered under the FFG Act and Endangered under the EPBC Act.
Conservation measures taken for the Leadbeater's possum may also be expected to benefit its main mountain ash forest habitat which was listed as a Critically Endangered ecosystem using IUCN criteria (Burns et al. 2015). The Yellingbo population has conservation significance as a relictual part of the distribution with importance for the longer-term evolutionary potential of the species, and because the small site at which it occurs (Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area) also supports the other Victorian faunal emblem, the helmeted honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops cassidix) and has been the subject of substantial conservation effort extending over several decades.

    3               Background information informing recovery action
Leadbeater's possum has been the focus of substantial research effort extending for at least 30 years. This recovery plan does not attempt an exhaustive synthesis of this substantial literature, but rather aims to identify the key areas where it may inform the recovery effort, and the remaining gaps must be filled to optimise this effort. More detailed accounts of the species' biology are available elsewhere (Smith et al. 1985; Menkhorst and Lumsden 1995; Lindenmayer 1996a; Lindenmayer et al. 2015b; Harley 2016).

3.1                 Description
Leadbeater's possum is a small (100–160 g), nocturnal, arboreal possum. It has some superficial resemblance to the far more abundant and widespread (but not closely related) sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) but is notably distinct from that species in not possessing a gliding membrane and having a club-shaped tail.

3.2                 Distribution
Leadbeater's possum is endemic to Victoria. Its former distribution is poorly resolved, with a sparse fossil and sub-fossil record, and uncertainty about the locations of some historic records (Harley 2004c). Its current habitat critical, montane ash forest, has had a very dynamic distribution over the last 20,000 years, including periods of very severe contraction in extent relative to its current range (McKenzie 2002; Worth et al. 2014).

3.2.1             Former distribution
Leadbeater's possum was formerly more widespread. Fossil deposits are known from near Buchan (in east Gippsland) and the Wombeyan Caves and Marble Arch in south-eastern New South Wales (Harley 2004c). Sub-fossil deposits (about 100–400 years before present) demonstrate that it formerly occurred in foothill and montane forests of south, central and east Gippsland (Bilney et al. 2006; Bilney et al. 2010; Bilney 2014). The species has not been reported as living individuals from these areas, however further surveys are warranted.
Of its known distribution since European settlement,