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Australia's Rare Mountain Pygmy-Possum

Humans can be such a problem for native wildlife. We build roads over wildlife trails so we can zoom down to the ski fields, not worrying about the native casualties that get squashed along the way.  But humans can also be the solution - as we have been with the endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum ( Burramys parvus ). There are possibly only a few thousand of these amazing animals left in the wild. They live in the snow-covered alpine and subalpine regions of New South Wales and Victoria, above 1400 metres. They are the only Australian mammals found here and nowhere else. For most of the year male and female possums live separate lives scurrying among rook crevices, boulder fields and alpine shrubs. Adult females live in the best locations on rocky slopes. Males live further down the hill. Come breeding time, these males make the hazardous trek across the roadways, attempting to avoid all the human-made obstacles in their way. Only when they have made it to the other side of the road