Mike Stevens, Grampians Wildlife Trust
The Grampians is highly significant as it is the single inland population of Long Nosed Potoroo in Victoria1. Until 2003 there was thought to be only a single population on private property at Pomonal1 with oral history existing of Potoroo visiting peoples veranda’s along at Waterhole Road. This population was found by John Seebeck during a Christmas field trip in 1970 by members of the Mammal Survey Group of the Field Naturalists Club of the Victoria2.
Yet, in the space of only 8 years , 5 new colonies were found.
The first, in the head waters of the Glenelg River (north of Syphon Road). The second (and only two weeks later), Wimmera Reserves Ranger-in-Charge John Harris picked up a road kill on Grampians Road in the button grass heath of the Wannon Divide. In summer 2009, the first ever widespread use of remote digital camera was deployed across the Grampians extending the range of the Glenelg River Potoroo population from the Big Cord – Syphon Road crossing to just south of Strachan’s huts3. The third population was discovered in spring 2009 with three sites along the Wannon River, south of Yarram Gap Road.
In 2011, the fourth population was accidentally found using remote digital cameras following a Bandicoot tip-off on private land in the Victoria Valley (southern Grampians). The fifth population was found near the brush-tailed rock-wallaby release site and likely a transient animal emerging from the button-grass heath surrounding Moora Moora reservoir. A common theme is all Grampians populations have been found in long unburnt heath dominated by wet, sedgy, button grass heathlands.
However, the 2006 Grampians bushfire burnt the Glenelg and Great Divide populations. The 2013 Vic Valley Complex fire burnt the Victoria Valley population. And although never surveyed, a population likely lived in the button grass heathlands of the Wartook basin that were catastrophically burnt in 2014.
This leaves only a small unburnt section of the Glenelg, the Wannon and Moora Moora reservoir populations. The Ming Ming swamp would be a likely undiscovered population and wet gullies of the lower slopes of the southern Victoria range.
It is safe to say the spring-fed, button grass, heathlands on the sandy outwash slopes of the Grampians ranges would have had interconnected populations. The major river systems of Mt William, Wannon, Fyans, Glenelg, McKenzie would have connected to the vast swamp systems to the south (Heifer etc), east (Fyans and Lonsdale) and west (Rocklands). Not just Potoroo but other species such as quoll and bandicoot would have been abundant.
The brilliant wetland restoration work that is happening throughout Halls Gap could provide an opportunity to secure local Grampians potoroo genetics by establishing an additional potoroo population back through the Fyans valley as a community wildlife restoration project. The reintroduction could be supported by an army of local resident fox and cat assassins.