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Early on a crisp morning in Jervis Bay Village, four teams of researchers and environment volunteers set out as part of a landmark research project underway in the surrounding Booderee National Park.
The study, which is set to run for at least a decade, aims to establish retrospective and prospective data on the effects of bushfire on animals in different habitats.
The beautiful Booderee is the ideal place to do this for a number of reasons — more than half of the Park was severely burnt by bushfires in December 2003, and it also has more than eight distinctly different vegetation types within the borders of the park, ranging from lush forest to windswept heathland.
The stunning regrowth of the bush bears testament to its ability to recover from bushfire, but what of the unique Australian animals living within it?
Professor Lindenmayer and Associate Professor Cunningham hope the long-term study will provide some solid data on the rehabitation, population growth and demographics of animals after fire, which can then be used to predict and manage the bush following fire (and even fire management practises like backburning) in the future.
Only in its early days — the study began in late 2002 — the ANU Reporter travelled with Professor Lindenmayer and his team on one of the early morning trips around Booderee, gaining an insight into the diversity of Australian flora and fauna and this innovative field project.
6am
Professor Lindenmayer and volunteers from the environment organisation Earthwatch prepare to inspect eight ‘trap line’ sites before the sun gets too high.
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After 13 years of analysis, Professor Lindenmayer and Associate Professor
Cunningham have discovered a host of new insights into Leadbeater's possum.
Read more
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Trap lines are a series of different types of traps along a 20-metre line of 20-centimetre high black plastic staked into the ground. Animals run into this wall of plastic and, railroaded, turn and scamper alongside it, hoping to find its end. Beside this black plastic are ‘pit fall’ traps — garbage bins and plastic buckets placed in holes in the ground — which the escaping animals fall into and spend the rest of the night until the traps are cleared by the research teams the next morning.
Other traps placed in the vicinity include: 10 Elliot traps, a narrow rectangular trap with bait inside that attracts the animal, but which closes once the bait is tasted; and six large cage traps, which also have bait inside.
The irresistible bait, enjoyed especially it seems by bandicoots, is a simple but effective concoction of oats mixed in peanut butter.
6.15am
The volunteers and researchers, divided into four teams of three, leave the village. The 120 traps are located along 32 trap line sites, which are set up about 15 metres off the side of a road or fire trail. Bandicoot expert Mr Chris McGregor leads one team, diamond python researcher Mr Damian Michael another, and Mr Mason Crane the third. All three are from the Centre for Resource and Environment Studies at ANU, and members of the research team led by Professor Lindenmayer and Associate Professor Cunningham.
Booderee National Park has more than eight different vegetation types and a diverse range of flora, making it an excellent place to study the effects of fire and fire patterns on animals in different habitats. Trap line sites are placed in all types of habitats and rotated regularly — part of the experimental design wholly developed by Associate Professor Cunningham.
6.25am
An area of dry rainforest thinned of trees by the bushfire is the first trap line site visited this morning by Professor Lindenmayer and his team.
 The very first two cage traps contain the only two possums caught overnight. The first, a male, is the son of the female in the second cage. Both have been captured before as indicated by a small white mark placed on the animal’s ears. This site will be cleared today — all the traps will be picked up and another set up in its place in another habitat — but the male possum doesn’t want to leave the cage, the glob of peanut butter and oats is just too good.
An Elliot trap further up the line contains an antechinus — a little mouse-like marsupial, pictured below, infamous for its suicidal mating orgies. This antechinus hasn’t been captured before and certain details are recorded including sex, age (juvenile, sub-adult, adult) and sub-species.
The male possum needs a little more coaxing before he scampers off as we leave.
7am
The next site is a similar rainforest habitat to the last, but faces west, and at this time of the morning is quite dark. The bushfire has caused some trees to fall, creating decaying trunks that are an important feature for the habitats of forest-floor-dwelling animals like antechinuses and bandicoots.
“The way we approach bushfire as a rule is short-sighted and narrowly-focused,” Professor Lindenmayer says.
“The way we should approach bushfire is by looking at it as a pattern or series of long-term events and its effects as a whole. At the right time in a population cycle, it might be beneficial for some species.
"The way we approach bushfire as a rule is short-sighted and narrowly-focused"
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“We know, for example, that pygmy possum populations decline significantly after bushfire — but that banksias, which are a main food source for the possums, flourish after fire, providing an abundance of food for a growing pygmy possum population. Also, fire-hollowed trees that have fallen over provide them with excellent shelter from predators, but in some forests in south-eastern Australia they are salvaged from the forest floor for commercial use.
“It’s these sorts of interrelationships that we need to look at and that’s why this study is important.”
The first of six bandicoots captured today is in a cage trap at this site. Bandicoots, rarely-seen creatures with a comic long snout, are flighty and nervous creatures and Professor Lindenmayer struggles to hold this one long enough for an Earthwatch volunteer to mark its ear — it bounds off faster than we can say lightning.
7.35am
The third trap site is in a very different habitat - dense banksia scrubland on a sandstone plateau overlooking the sparkling blue waters of Jervis Bay.
In the first pitfall trap we find a she-oak skink, but reptiles and insects don’t come under this part of the study, so its details are not recorded. There is excitement when a small mouse-like animal is found in one of the pit fall traps — yesterday a rare eastern chestnut mouse was found in a similar spot — but it turns out to be a more common baby bush rat.
8am
The fourth windswept heathland site proves to have one of the biggest yields of the day. Three more bandicoots, none of which have been captured before, and an antechinus have been trapped overnight.
"The information we’re gathering is important to the people here who run and maintain Booderee"
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The high number of bandicoots being captured seems to indicate that the population is robust, and that a fox-baiting program implemented after the fire by the park management committee is helping native species recover.
Professor Lindenmayer cooperates closely with this committee of the local Wreck Bay Aboriginal community and park rangers.
“The information we’re gathering is important to the people here who run and maintain Booderee — if the rangers want to change an aspect of management, they want to do it based on sound and comprehensive information, so from that aspect these long range studies are important too,” he says.
8.45am
The fifth site yields the highlight of the day — a female pygmy possum on the cusp of reproducing age. This tiny possum is found in a trap next to a rocky outcrop, an environment favoured by the species, and at a scrubland trap site furthest from a road. The possum has about another third of its body size to grow yet (at full adulthood it will be no bigger than the palm of a hand of a five year-old child).
This tiny mum-to-be bears a considerable weight in helping establish a strong pygmy possum population following the bushfire. Whispering encouraging words about reproduction, Professor Lindenmayer lets the possum go on the outcrop after it is marked.
9.30am
The sun is beginning to gather strength as the team approaches site number six, an open heathland overlooking the water.
 Inspecting the traps early is important to release the animals before they become heat stressed, although at this site a nobbi dragon caught in a pit fall trap needs to be placed on a rock in the sun after spending all night in the chilly ground.
Although there are few animals at this site today, there are a wide variety of wild flowers in oranges, pinks and whites.
Heathland is the most difficult place to set-up the traps, as the soil layer is only a couple of inches thick and hides a solid slab of sandstone. Much effort is exerted finding the right spot to put the pitfall traps.
10am
Down towards the idyllic Murrays Beach, which hugs the inside curve of southern Jervis Bay, is the second last trap site of the morning.
The forest canopy has been opened up by fire, and two-metre high Grass Trees have overgrown, lending it a bright greenish tinge. No animals here, and the trap line is retired, like the first.
10.30am
The last site is scrubland, where another two bandicoots have been trapped overnight.
 “One of the surprising things about this bandicoot community is that preliminary statistics are showing there are two male bandicoots for every female,” Professor Lindenmayer says.
“It’s too early for us to tell why, but we hope this study will change all that, giving us insights into the changes in demographics for all species over time and providing a dataset which researchers can refer to and compare in decades to come.”
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