A very good morning to you too Aidan.

I was wondering, maybe there is a synister and secretive connection between us not yet recognised.

Ai-Dan and Diver Dan.

Are you the alter ego?

A theory which may identify two of the four corners, leaving me wondering of the other two. Maybe the other two are a TV set and an empty chair.

Dan.

Steel Redux
You might be interested to know that the loggers have to leave the old stags which are the homes of the possums. Then after the coops have been replanted, the young gumleaves provide food in abundance for the leadbeaters possums.
You don't want to believe all the BS that is spouted by these university armchair academics. Mark actually does know what he is in about.
David

VK3AUU,
How much evidence is there of Leadbeaters possums in replanted logged areas?

Aidan

"How much evidence is there of Leadbeaters Possum in replanted areas?"

Since 2014, 535 new LBP colonies consisting of 3 to 11 individuals has been found. This includes possums in regenerating areas as soon as 6 years after logging or bushfire, as long as there is nesting habitat. The animal is being found to be far more resilient and numerous than has been expected prior to 2014. Further to this, a recent study has detected 6 colonies living in mixed species forests up to 15 km outside their previously known range in which they were thought to be restricted to mountain ash forest and snow gum woodland. It is for these reasons that the forestry sector is railing against efforts to portray LBP as exceedingly rare as a lever to close a timber industry.

Garry in Liffey

"Mark keeps side-stepping the 'mountain ash' issue: in my view he does not mention that of the reserved and non-reserved 'mountain ash forest types', most of it in Victoria is already gone".

Well, most of the mountain ash forest in which the Leadbeater's Possum lives is contained in Victoria's Central Highlands Forest Management Area where it still occupies 97% of its modelled pre-European range. So your claim that most mountain ash in Victoria 'is already gone' doesn't ring true I'm afraid.

Steele Redux

"The program was about the absurdly high extinction rates in Australia. I would much rather hear from an ecological researcher than for you to trot out the line that logging is somehow good for leadbeater possums".

As I said in my article, if the program was meant to be about the 'absurdly high extinction rates', why did it spent half of its time on forestry which in Australia is acknowledged to have never been responsible for any extinction?

Your other point about the supposedly unimpeachable veracity of ecological researchers is clearly a view that is shared by the ABC and its audience, except when the science challenges their values. In this case the ecological researchers are advocating for forest management change to close a timber industry, so the ABC and most of its audience supports them.

And therein lies the problem, because ecological researchers advocating a complete overhaul of forest management have no practical expertise in broadscale forest management such as dealing with fire, and in most cases have little or no knowledge of the forestry policies, plans and practices which govern such management. That is why a series of ecological research papers are wrongly claiming that 80% of the mountain ash forests are designated for logging, when the actual figure is 30%, and by so doing are grossly overstating the threat that timber production poses to the possum.

Ultimately, following the advice of researchers in this instance will lead to perverse unintended consequences. Leadbeaters possum, like many other animals, is undoubtedly threatened by unnaturally frequent severe fire, natural decline of older hollow bearing trees, and feral carnivores, but simply closing a timber industry founded on a minor portion of younger regrowth forests will actually hinder its conservation by removing the most experienced practitioners from the fire management workforce while effectively allowing forest access to eventually become unusable, thereby making rapid fire attack far more difficult.