Helping to fight extinction of Mt Buller’s Mountain pygmy possums, from left, vet Phillipa Mason, keeper Tammika McIvor, vet nurse Kim Hollis and keeper Paula Watson.
MOUNTAIN pygmy poss- ums may have their own little personalities… but get them in a bunch and even a mother would have trouble telling them apart!
Hence the barcoding last week of six of Healesville Sanctuary’s newest arrivals.
In a series of delicate procedures, the sanctuary vet and endangered species teams microchipped the six-week-old juveniles – three male and three female, so they can be monitored as they grow and take their place in the captive breeding program at the sanctuary.
With numbers believed to be as low as 2000 in the wild – there are populations at Mt Hotham, Mt Buller and Mt Kosciusko, the Mountain Pygmy Possum is listed as critically endangered.
The sanctuary’s captive breeding program is focused on the Mt Buller population where numbers are now less than 50 animals after a significant decline over the past decade.
The sanctuary has had three successful breeding seasons since 2008 with the project aimed at boosting the wild populations, maintaining a captive insurance population and ultimately, getting Australia’s only hibernating marsupial off the endangered list.
