Some five hectares of regrowth forest east of Powelltown containing dead,hollow trees in which the possum nests,was destroyed by loggers two weeks ago,angering members of the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria and the Victorian National Parks Association.
But according to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,the logging contractor was not to blame.
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Mr Malcolm Macfarlane,the ecologist at the department’s Arthur Rylah Research Institute who devised the draft conservation strategy for Leadbeater’s possum,acknowledged that the fault lay with the department.
“We made a blue,” he said. “The management of Leadbeater’s possum was very much to the forefront when plans for this coupe (reserve) were drawn up.
“The problem was that there was some confusion over the location of the drainage line marking the boundary of the coupe as inferred from the original air-photo interpretation.”