Small mammals and fire in the Carlisle

In 2021, PhD student Mark le Pla deployed remote monitoring cameras at 120 sites across the Carlisle Heathlands to study how Long-nosed Potoroos were using and moving though this heathland before and after a prescribed “planned burn”.

In 2026, a major bushfire impacted the same area, giving us the opportunity to also study the impact of bushfire on Long-nosed Potoroos and other small mammals in the Carlisle Heath.

In addition to the cameras, Mark’s PhD project also involving the use of GPS collars, and monitoring of foxes and cats. Ultimately he found the Long-nosed Potoroos in the Carlisle were able to persist in the landscape after a planned burn, so long as the burn was patchy enough to leave enough vegetation to protect the potoroos from predation by foxes and cats.

The question we are now trying to answer is what happens after a bushfire.

We redeployed cameras at all 120 sites – half of which had been burned in the bushfire and half not. This gives us a solid control to study what the population is like in both the burned and unburned areas and compare this to the baseline data collected by Mark in his PhD.  

Initially we will use the data to study how small mammal occupancy and activity have been impacted at each site. We can also report on the prevalence of predators, with the intent of informing appropriate management action 

The cameras will also be redeployed every 12 months for the next three years to monitor small mammal recovery trends, with the intent of informing appropriate post-fire management actions to aid small mammal recovery.