The World Trail crew were super fortunate to be invited along on Mt Buller’s Pygmy Possum monitoring program.

Until relatively recently the Pygmy Possum (Burramys Parvus) was thought to be extinct. It turned out however that small communities were surviving in various alpine locations. The guys at Mt Buller estimate the Pygmy Possum population within the resort area to be currently (only!) ~70 and have an extensive management plan in place to protect these resourceful little critters and their environment.

Twice a year a non intrusive monitoring program is used to check the health of the possum community. Scrambling around the steep rocky slope we were beginning to think we might not see a Burramys as trap after trap was occupied by bush rats.

Finally though a Pygmy Possum… and what a cool dude he was. He’d had enough of being held by the tail by the time he got to me, and let me know with a few nips to my hand and arm. It was pretty cool to see him hang around after we’d let him go, crawling over us before heading back into the rocky slope.

Huge thanks to Lou at RMB, Dean and World Trail for the opportunity!