Endangered Long-Footed Potoroo found on Brown Mountain

Long-Footed Potoroo stages own rescue
The Greens Victoria have learned that footage taken in a controversial Brown Mountain logging coupe has been confirmed by independent fauna experts to be of a long-footed potoroo, previously denied to be present by Department of Sustainability and Environment biodiversity assessors.

“The minister must intervene and stop logging on the site permanently”, Greg Barber said today.

In a media release on Friday 21 August, under the banner "Permanent Protection for Brown Mountain" Victorian Minister for the Environment, Gavin Jennings, stated that areas around Brown Mountain Creek were not old growth and that DSE staff found no threatened species such as the long-footed potoroo and Orbost Spiny Crayfish.  This entitled these areas to be "harvested" at any time.

One of the irrefutable facts about endangered species is that they are, by the nature of their predicament, rare and therefore difficult to find, requiring patience and determination by fauna surveyors.  Fortunately for the rare and endangered species of Victoria, such a person continued to film at various locations around Brown Mountain, including at the disputed Brown Mountain Creek area, between two logging coupes.

It remains to be seen whether the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment acknowledges the presence of the potoroo.

Greg Barber today called on Gavin Jennings to act immediately and decisively to end logging at Brown Mountain.

click here to watch the 5 second footage of the long-footed potoroo taken at Brown Mountain.

click here to read the media release from Department of Sustainability and Environment, issued on the same day that the footage was found.

click here to read the fauna survey report commissioned by the Department of Sustainability and Environment.

click here to read the news as reported in the Herald Sun 24 August 2009