Forest thinning aids wildlife habitat

Decades after researchers established a timber study in Victoria, scientists revisiting the plots have uncovered surprising ecological benefits for woodland animals. The findings challenge long-standing assumptions about how managed woodlands develop over decades.

The project began in the late 1980s at Tanjil Bren to test alternatives to broad clearfelling. While traditional clear-cuts produced strong regrowth of mountain ash, stands that experienced heavy thinning between fifty and seventy percent produced unexpected structural gains thirty years later.

Remaining canopy trees in thinned zones expanded rapidly, reaching trunks twenty percent wider than counterparts in undisturbed reference zones. Researchers noted that these wider trunks develop tree hollows sooner, creating essential nesting places for threatened wildlife including Leadbeater's possums and greater gliders.

Benefits for native marsupials

Understory growth also shifted after harvesting. Shorter acacia trees spread throughout the managed plots, offering critical food supplies and canopy pathways for arboreal animals navigating between feeding areas.

Automated trail cameras installed by the research team detected Leadbeater's possums inhabiting all silvicultural intervention plots. In contrast, the nocturnal marsupials were entirely absent from adjacent unharvested control plots.

Researchers emphasized that selective thinning cannot be applied across every landscape, but it offers land managers a practical technique to increase structural variation while safeguarding vulnerable wildlife habitats.