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The endangered carnivorous marsupial is considered to be the mainland equivalent of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Quolls are listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, which Labor has promised to enforce. The act aims to protect at least 3000 of the animals, also known as tiger quolls, including 300 in the Otways and south-western Victoria.
But Mr Chris Belcher, who was commissioned by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to evaluate the quolls' status, estimates there are fewer than 1000 quolls left across the state, and maybe only 30 in the Otways.
He says two factors appear to be driving their decline: progressive habitat loss from clear fell logging and poison baiting to control rabbits, foxes, feral cats and dogs. "At the moment I am pessimistic about their long-term survival under current management practices," he said.
His warning comes amid mounting pressure on the Government to deliver Commonwealth-state regional forest agreements for western Victoria and Gippsland that genuinely balance conservation, water, tourism and other forest values with timber cutting.
Mr Belcher said the special conservation protection and management zones set aside under the regional forest agreements were too few and too small. Female quells need at least 1000 hectares, but males require a territory two to five times larger.
In East Gippsland, only 11 of the 23 quoll zones outside national parks meet the forest agreement's watered-down versions of these requirements. "Part of forestry's argument has been that they haven't been responsible for any extinctions of forest-dependent fauna, and that may be true as far as we know," Mr Belcher said. "However, quolls are probably an example where this is not true".
"Their main prey is the greater glider, and logging might result in
a dramatic decline in their density so that there is not sufficient prey
to let quolls exist in that forest." The Government did not comment yesterday.
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