Mount Kaputar National Park rejuvenating well post-bushfires

The park is seeing "rapid regeneration" thanks to plenty of rain, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Barwon area manager, Marty Linehan, said.

Four seperate bushfires ripped through the park, which is located close to Narrabri, "with only a small proportion of the burnt area experiencing high-intensity fire".

"Good rainfall and favourable conditions have seen excellent regeneration of ground cover and shrub layers," Mr Linehan said.

"Epicormic growth in the eucalypt overstorey is providing the shade and shelter required by other species to aid their recovery.

"There is evidence of considerable mortality of mature trees across the park, but that is true of areas that were not impacted by fire and reflects the severity of the drought, which has had long-term impacts particularly on ridge tops and north-westerly aspects."

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Animals and other critters within the park are also faring well, but Mr Linehan said concerns were originally raised about snails, slugs, arboreal mammals, and the Mount Kaputar rock skink in particular.

"While there were concerns about the impacts of the fire on the slugs, they appear to have suitable strategies to protect themselves from these events," Mr Linehan told the Leader.

"Post-fire surveys were conducted for arboreal mammals with an emphasis on the greater glider. Populations were found to be in good numbers across suitable habitat within the reserve, within burnt and unburnt areas.

"The monitoring of the Mount Kaputar rock skink was conducted by the Australian Museum in September. Surveys [from] two of three of the known sites found the animals to be in good numbers post-fire. Again, the species appears to be recovering well."

He said precautions were put in place to protect these furry, scaly and slimey friends from predators while they were vulnerable.

"[The park] was part of the largest pest control operation undertaken by NPWS across the state post-fire," he said.

"Undertaking feral animal control is a major priority in protecting threatened and native species in the post-fire landscape as our native animals are more exposed to predators and competing with other feral animals for food and shelter.

"Aerial baiting and shooting programs targeting goats, wild dogs, foxes and pigs have reduced the competition from those species in terms of predation and habitat displacement."

The area manager said visitation to the park was at "record levels" when the COVID lockdown measure was first lifted, and it still remained very high compared to previous years.

Locals can still enjoy a variety of activities in the park, more information of which can be found on the NPWS website.

But some areas are still receiving a bit of TLC from the NPWS.

"Some elevated walking tracks, bridges and lookouts were destroyed, and we are still working to replace them," Mr Linehan said.

"The bulk of our infrastructure on the Kaputar Plateau escaped with little or no damage, including the cabins at Dawson's Spring and our two campgrounds.

"The park was closed for some time to enable us to make safe the access roads, walking tracks and lookouts. A large number of trees close to those facilities had been weakened by the impact of fire and had to be removed or lopped."