Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270:body:0:p51
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 139919–143023

remaining habitat for the lowland Leadbeater's possum has been built at Yellingbo to reduce browsing impacts of deer and wallabies on vegetation and seedling recruitment. It is likely that restored habitat will be dispersed across a collection of sites 30–80 ha in size, and thus ongoing genetic management through periodic transfer of individuals among translocated possum populations will be necessary.
The most significant habitat restoration to date is ~28 ha of revegetated swamp forest at Haining Farm, 9 km from Yellingbo. Predator exclusion fencing is being planned for this site in order to remove cat and foxes ahead of the release of lowland Leadbeater's possums.
In 2017 to 2018, given ongoing population declines and challenges with captive breeding and habitat restoration, a revised recovery model was developed based upon wild-to-wild translocation to intact suitable habitat. Expert elicitation indicated that new translocation sites had higher probability of success than focusing recovery measures at Yellingbo. However, there was high uncertainty regarding the likelihood of translocation success. Despite extensive searches, based on habitat modelling and expert advice, to identify potential translocation sites no large patches of intact, high quality lowland swamp forest suitable for translocation were identified.
Section 3 Background information informing recovery action summarises a very substantial evidence base resulting from decades of intensive research on Leadbeater's possum and its environment. This research effort has been, and will continue to be, a crucial component of conservation management for this species. The historic and ongoing research effort is not reviewed here (see instead, for example, Smith et al. (1985); Lindenmayer (1996a, 2009); Harley (2016)), but this section briefly notes some recent research activity that targets key knowledge gaps that, if filled, may substantially increase conservation management effectiveness. This includes:
    * a substantial survey effort across the known range of the species to help assess patterns of habitat use and abundance (DEECA, Zoos Victoria);
    * an assessment of colonisation rates of nest boxes and artificially excavated hollows;
    * extensive and substantial survey effort to assess the extent of suitable habitat and occurrence of Leadbeater's possum in Victorian areas beyond the known range, in part to identify options for future translocations (Zoos Victoria, University of Melbourne, DEECA);
    * an assessment of the extent to which predation by cats may be a significant threat to the species (following on from the work of McComb et al. 2019);
    * high resolution aerial photography and remote sensing technology (including LiDAR) is being used for the fine-scale detection and dynamic modelling of particular critical habitat features, notably hollow-bearing trees and midstorey density, across the Central Highlands range, to allow high resolution mapping of habitat suitability and improve spatial habitat models (University of Melbourne, DEECA);
    * a radio-tracking study to