Home ranges and movements of an arboreal folivore after wildfire: comparing rehabilitated and non-rehabilitated animals in burnt and unburnt woodlands.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Wildfires can have complex effects on wildlife populations. Understanding how post-fire conditions affect the movement ecology of threatened species can assist in better conservation and management, including informing the release of rescued and rehabilitated animals. The 2019-2020 megafires in Australia resulted in thousands of animals coming into care due to injury or concerns over habitat degradation. This included hundreds of koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), for which relatively little was known about how fire affected habitat suitability, or when rehabilitated animals could be returned to burnt areas.

Methods

We compared the movements of koalas across three experimental groups-non-rehabilitated koalas in burnt habitat, non-rehabilitated koalas in nearby unbur

SUBMITTER: Lane MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11613491 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature