The fires burnt 1.39 million hectares of forests and parks in Victoria, impacting nearly 80 per cent of the Long-footed potoroo’s known habitat.
Five years on, a remote camera monitoring program has confirmed that the elusive marsupial is recovering.
DEECA Natural Environment Programs Officer, Elizabeth Wemyss said Long-footed Potoroos are only found in three places in the world, one of which is in north-east Victoria.
'There was a real concern about the ability of the potoroos to survive and recover from the fires,“ she said.
In October 2020, the monitoring team took remote sensing cameras into some of the burnt areas to find out if the potoroos had survived.
“We really didn’t know what we were going to find,“ Ms Wemyss said.
“There were fears that the population may have been completely devastated.”
To their relief and excitement, potoroos were detected at 35 of the 120 sites.
“I can’t describe how happy we were to find potoroos existing in this landscape when we collected the cameras. It was such a relief.”
Monitoring has been repeated annually and in combination with a targeted fox control program, potoroo detections are increasing each year.
“It has been such a wonderful feeling retrieving the cameras and realising that the potoroos not only survived the initial impacts of the bushfires, but now five years on are increasing in numbers and range,” Ms Wemyss said.
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