Targeted field testing of wildlife road-crossing structures: koalas and canopy rope-bridges
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Published source details
Goldingay R.L. & Taylor B.D. (2017) Targeted field testing of wildlife road-crossing structures: koalas and canopy rope-bridges. Australian Mammalogy, 39, 100-104.
Published source details Goldingay R.L. & Taylor B.D. (2017) Targeted field testing of wildlife road-crossing structures: koalas and canopy rope-bridges. Australian Mammalogy, 39, 100-104.
Actions
This study is summarised as evidence for the following.
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Install rope bridges between canopies Action Link |
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Install rope bridges between canopies
A study in 2012–2016 in a forest site within a university campus in New South Wales, Australia (Goldingay & Taylor 2017) found that northern mountain brushtail possums Trichosurus caninus and common ringtail possums Pseudocheirus peregrinus used canopy bridges but koalas Phascolarctos cinereus and squirrel gliders Petaurus norfolcensis did not. Twenty-two passes of northern mountain brushtail possums and two of common ringtail possums were detected on rope bridges. Koalas were detected 75 times and squirrel gliders three times in two nearby trees but were not detected on rope bridges. The trial was conducted in a 30 × 100 m eucalyptus-dominated forest patch. Rope-bridges of four designs extended 8–11 m between different pairs of trees. One rope bridge had 8-cm gaps between rope strands, one was made of woven-mesh with 1-cm gaps between strands, one was a ladder wrapped around internal wires to produce a sausage shape and one consisted of a woven mesh bridge with rope-ladder sides. One or two camera traps were used to monitor each rope-bridge and single cameras were used on two nearby reference trees, for 2.8–3.1 years/tree, between December 2012 and February 2016.
(Summarised by: Ricardo Rocha)
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