An old one. But is sums up one of our favourite study species. Enjoy :)

Could the APVMA be any more clear how they view scientific evidence of rodenticide poisoning of our wildlife? Time to ditch our regulator? #APVMA

So apparently the APVMA is supposed to release the recommendations of their review into rodenticides in Australia this month (only a few days left). It is over a year late and we still have no indication if they will do anything. Rat poison is a disaster for our wildlife. @davidpocock.bsky.social

When you reach for the rat poisons, stop for one second and think about where it goes. Often not rats and mice. Here we demonstrate it ends up in possums, many are then eaten by predators like powerful owls. Please avoid second generation anticoagulants 🙏♥️🦉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mum’s love.

Fire not only resets our biological infrastructure but also has significant economic costs. Fire is good for ecosystems in the right dose, but the more frequent mega-fires we are seeing in the Grampians are not good.

Underrated creatures!

Jumping spiders rock.

A tiny little reddish scops owl (Otus rufescens) I encountered in Coastal scrub in Borneo once. At about 20cm in height they are a cute little owl.

A squadron of green long legged flys waiting for take off. Kubah NP, Borneo.

Sri Lankan green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta). Super good looking snake.

Winter burning grass trees. Even in the middle of winter they go up with such force.

My personal native plant nursery. Australian native daisies, emu bush, banksia and grevillea from cuttings. Masses of grass trees grown from seed over many year. I give most of these away to people in my street willing to plant them on their nature strips. 1 plant at a time will make a difference

It is a tough world out there for male eastern great kangaroos. A series of shots of a fight in the Grampians.

Just a little reminder on rat poisons. They don’t just kill rodents! Second generation anticoagulant rodenticides are killing native predators the world over. Think twice, maybe even thrice before using SGARs.

A superb fairywren foraging for insects on seaweed on a beach in Cape Conran.

One of the more amazing wildlife experiences I have ever had. A chance encounter with Wallace’s flying frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus). Given It was so special!!

Microhyla borneensis, also known as the Matang narrow-mouthed frog, lays its eggs in pitcher plants. This shot was in Kubah NP and one of several times I have seen them laying eggs.

This is a male agile Antechinus. He has rather large “nuts”, and like most dasyurid marsupials will live a short life and go out in a flurry of sex. After a short breeding season all the males die off. Generally referred to as going out with a bang.

Swamp Antechinus in the Otways. These chunky little marsupials are feisty little carnivores who seem to be declining across their distribution.

A harvestman prowling the leaf litter of a Bornean jungle.

My favourite little mammal that visits our garden. A Krefft’s glider. They love wattles and sap, so provide natives and they may visit you too.

One of my favourite species encounters when in Borneo are proboscis monkeys. The Malay name for proboscis monkeys, orang belanda, means “Dutchman.” Originally, the joke was that, with their big noses and portly bellies, the monkeys resembled the Malay peoples' European colonisers.

Just hangin’ with a few friends. Bats in Kubah NP, Sarawak, Borneo.

That moment the heating turns on.

Last week I was away on our annual field program for Deakin University Wildlife and Conservation Biology first year students. It is so much fun teaching students field skills and things such as surveying small mammals. Who could not be inspired by amazing small mammals such as this Antechinus?

Sri Lankan brown fish owl. Everyone loves an owl, and this one is pretty special

Heath mouse, an early post fire specialist. Arrive after the house mouse. Gariwerd-Grampians.

A zombie moth. Or a moth with a serious fungal infection. Borneo.

Slaying the hair,Toque macaque style. Sri Lanka.

20 years ago we wrote a paper on planting native trees on streetscapes to promote native bird communities. Not particularly revolutionary from our perspective but it is still relevant given fascination in most countries for planting exotic plants in our gardens www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In an attempt to understand how powerful owls are exposed to rodenticides we tested their native possum prey. And surprise, surprise they were full of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. Our food webs are full of these terrible toxins. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Using our long term small mammal data in the Grampians landscape, our PhD student Luke predicts what the past looked like. Hindcasting is a cool way to get more value out of long term data and it shows that changes in rain and wildfire have impacted mammals onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Societies war on rodents has just ended up being a war on everything. Our research showing owls and frogmouths are all heavily impacted by second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. SGARs are the new silent killer in the environment. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Dreamtime at the ‘G.

While trapping in the post fire Gariwerd-Grampians has been very tough and captures of any mammals extremely rare, we do get the occasional furry gem. Two southern brown bandicoot managed to survive the fires at one of our sites. Simply amazing!

Porcupine Grass - Triodia scariosa near the Mt William Creek east side of Gariwerd on Djab Wurrung country grow on these small sand dunes that likely developed during the last ice age 10,000 years ago. #Grampians #WildOz

It is going to be a tough year trapping in the Grampians. So far in 4 sites we have caught a single agile Antechinus and a mouse. That equates to a single native small mammal every 6 hectares.

Today’s diary. 250 traps out. Result a recapture of the one native animal we have caught so far and a house mouse. House mouse is generally the first species to colonise burnt landscapes and will be a dominant feature of the Grampians landscape for a few years. Fire = invasive species invasion.

5 months post burn. It is going to take some time for this site to recover. It was also trashed by the 2006 wildfires and took almost 15 years to start catching native small mammals. Grampians long-term, fire, climate and biodiversity project (established 2008).

An amazing looking grass tree after the Grampians fires. It was in one of our very long unburnt sites. So this is possibly its first fire induced hair cut.

After 250+ trap nights of trapping we have our first capture for the year in the Grampians. This lovely little female agile Antechinus survived the massive Grampians fires and hopefully will go on to breed this year. Survival and a new beginning.

The post-fire rot sets in. This great looking bracket fungi has grown this much in 5 months since this tree was burnt. Grampians Gariwerd landscape.

Out of the ashes. The first grass trees starting to flower in areas of the Grampians burnt in December.

First traps are going out in the Grampians. 33 of our 36 long term monitoring sites were burnt this summer. Who and what has survived? Will the ravens destroy our traps? All will be revealed over the next 3 months.

Australasian gannet. Spectacular birds that look equally amazing sitting around or diving into the sea. #birds

and to top off the day it looks like Sukkar looses Deakin. The election that just keeps giving.

Eastern pygmy possum. There are so many amazing little mammals in Australia. So few of the population know more than a dozen native mammals. Kind of sad really. Makes conserving them hard when most don’t have an appreciation of them. Then of course is the plight of the even less known like inverts.

Democracy sausage has been had. Now hoping to see my sitting Murdoch Puppet (Sukkah) ousted.

Here’s me with a last bit of snark about the worst election campaign we’ve seen In generations. And please don’t forget to subscribe to The Shot to support us, thanks so much 🙏🏼 #auspol2025 theshot.net.au/uncategorize...