BLACK BOBUCKS AT "10 MILE SCRUB" (NEAR CAPE LIPTRAP)

It's the 15/9/2006 and we have changed over some of our cameras in Gippsland. What did we find? Bobucks galore in the scrub on a property close to Cape Liptrap on the Bass Coast. These guys are much darker than the ones at Bald Hills, Koonwarra or Gurdies. As you can see below, they're almost black.

One thing these images make very evident is that a black animal like this one could easily be mistaken for something else. In the evening, in poor light, if a critter like this were lurking in the scrub, a casual observer would be hard put to ID it at all. If this were the only image, even our camera might be a little ambiguous. It's only when the critter raises its head, you can see clearly it's a Bobuck.

What's the selective advantage of their dark colour? In the mountains it's surely adaptive to the winter cold. But what about down here, on the coast? Why is a there a small population of dark ones here but not, so far as we can tell at this stage, at Koonwarra or Bald Hills? We did photograph one dark animal at The Gurdies and that's on Westernport. Is there a connection between dark colour and proximity to the sea? Don't know.

Very surprisingly, it's starting to look as if the Bobuck is the dominant large marsupial ground animal around South West Gippsland. Actually, it's more than surprising! It's surely impossible? I mean, they'd have had to have been discovered long before now if that were true. An almost-black Bobuck is not an animal you would miss easily. Nor mistake for, say, a Common Brushtail Possum. So why aren't people seeing them, or at least reporting them, more often?

We can say with certainty by now they're more numerous than wombats. And we are seeing more of the Gippsland Bobuck than Common Brushtail Possums. Although the Common Brushtail Possums do seem to thin out as you go further north west, towards the Gurdies and back thereof. That's only an impression at this stage: perhaps all we're seeing is bias in the sample?

Still, if they are present in such numbers then two ecological questions arise.

A/ They'd have to be displacing Common Brushtailed Possums, wouldn't they? That's not supposed to happen: Common "Brushies" are said to be more aggressive and, therefore, they're the ones who displace others.

B/ The more we see how extensive their range is down in South West Gippsland, the harder we find it is to buy the idea that the biodiversity surveys that were conducted in The Gurdies back in the 1990s missed them. I mean, how could they possibly have missed them?

Answer: maybe it was because they were not there? Perhaps there's a large scale Bobuck migration going on, right across SW Gippy? If so what's changed in the last 10 years to allow it to happen?

Environmental disturbance in a Bobuck heartland might possibly trigger a population exodus. Has tree-clearing in the Eastern Strzelecki Ranges substantially increased in the past decade? We don't know: a trip into the region might be informative.

A SATELLITE VIEW OF CAPE LIPTRAP

As can be seen, there is no shortage of vegetation along the coast. If Bobucks have colonised one part, it's a sure bet they have colonised the entire coast. The Bobuck Underground Biodiversity Survey will find out, folks!

Image courtesy Google Earth.

To be continued, folks!