{"id":18561,"date":"2022-10-09T05:21:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T05:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=18561"},"modified":"2022-10-09T05:21:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T05:21:44","slug":"predator-poo-key-to-lost-potoroo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2022\/10\/09\/predator-poo-key-to-lost-potoroo\/","title":{"rendered":"Predator poo key to lost potoroo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new technique is being trialled by ecologists on the NSW\u2019s far south coast to find the elusive long-footed potoroo, and it stinks.
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Minister for Environment James Griffin said scientists are searching for evidence of the critically endangered species by searching through the poo of their predators, which include cats, foxes, dingoes and quolls.
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\u201cWhile it\u2019s a crap job, this new technique is also an innovative way to find out whether the long-footed potoroo is still present in the South East Forests,\u201d Mr Griffin said.
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\u201cWhile we know this species inhabited forests in the State\u2019s south-east in the early 1990\u2019s, the long-footed potoroo has not been detected since then in NSW and we\u2019ve never done a long-term survey to confirm whether they still exist.
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\u201cFinding long-footed potoroo DNA in predator scats would confirm the species still exists in NSW and be a huge step forward for our conservation efforts.
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\u201cWith the species on the brink of extinction and traditional survey methods failing to find the animal, there has never been a better time to think outside the box and trial this detection method.\u201d
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The long-footed potoroo is one of several likely locally extinct species that will be reintroduced to the NSW Government\u2019s\u00a0Nungatta feral-free rewilding site<\/a>\u00a0in South East Forest National Park, near Bombala.
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Not to be confused with the long-nosed potoroo, which is still found in some areas of the NSW south-east, the long-footed potoroo was last recorded through hair samples in the early 1990s.
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Over the next year, scientists from the NSW Government\u2019s Saving our Species program will collect 1,000 predator scat samples from South East Forest National Park.
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They will use environmental DNA technology (eDNA) to analyse scats and confirm if the long-footed potoroo still exists in their known habitat.
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This work is part of the NSW Government\u2019s Saving our Species program, which is backed by a $175 million commitment over 10 years.
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Department of Planning and Environment Senior Threatened Species Officer Dr Joss Bentley has so far collected 100 scats from the South East Forest National Park.
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\u201cI can\u2019t say picking up poo is the most glamourous thing I have done in my career, but it\u2019s an important new technique that may help us find species that are difficult to survey,\u201d Dr Bentley said.
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\u201cWe hope to eventually collect 1,000 scat samples and have partnered with EnviroDNA in Melbourne.\u00a0 We expect the results within 12 months with the best-case scenario identifying evidence of this elusive species.
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\u201cEither way the results will still give us an excellent understanding of the animals currently living in these forests and complement our existing understanding of species distribution, which will help inform the south coast\u2019s first rewilding project.\u201d
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For more information, visit
https:\/\/www.environment.nsw.gov.au\/threatenedspeciesapp\/profile.aspx?id=10661<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new technique is being trialled by ecologists on the NSW\u2019s far south coast to find the elusive long-footed potoroo, and it stinks.\u00a0Minister for Environment James Griffin said scientists are searching for evidence of the critically endangered species by searching through the poo of their predators, which include cats, foxes, dingoes and quolls.\u00a0\u201cWhile it\u2019s a … Continue reading “Predator poo key to lost potoroo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18562,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions\/18562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}