Trail cameras monitoring ‘feral’ cats record ‘great surprise’ in Australia. See it
Scientists in Australia watched the feed from trail cameras set up throughout a wildlife sanctuary. They were looking for “feral” cats — but the “notorious” animal that passed by left them shocked and excited.
It was the park’s first such sighting in over a decade.
Ecologists set up motion-sensor trail cameras at Bowra Sanctuary “to monitor feral cat activity,” the Australian Wildlife Conservancy said in a Dec. 2 news release. To their surprise, the cameras recorded “a chance encounter with a brushtail possum.”
Photos show the gray brushtail possum approaching the trail camera. Overall, it looks softer and furrier than the opossums found in North America.
The brushtail possum is relatively common and “notorious for its late-night shenanigans in many suburban and city areas” of Australia but “scarce in the semi-arid zone of southwest Queensland” where Bowra Sanctuary is located, the conservancy said.
The recent sighting is the sanctuary’s first record of brushtail possums in a decade.
“I actually did a double take at the images,” Helena Stokes, an ecologist with the organization, said in the release.
“We haven’t had any signs of possums living on (the) sanctuary in a long time, then sanctuary managers recently found some scat we suspected to be from a possum, and then the photos turned up a couple of weeks later,” Stokes said. “It was a great surprise.”
The possum was photographed in an “unusual habitat,” a dry area with little shelter for it, Stokes said. “The individual might have just been roaming around searching for food or passing through the area.”
The organization’s work at Bowra Sanctuary is ongoing.
“Much in the way of other native mammals, brushtail possums are the victims of predation by feral cats and foxes,” Stokes said. “Populations have declined or been exterminated across much of outback Australia.”
“It will be interesting to see whether we pick up any further records (of possums) within the next year,” Stokes said. “Sanctuary managers have recently increased feral cat and fox management efforts, which we hope will benefit possums and other native mammal species on (the) sanctuary.”
Bowra Sanctuary is in the Queensland outback and a roughly 640-mile drive northwest of Sydney.
