These guidelines provide design considerations for conducting post-fire reconnaissance surveys to assess fire severity, habitat condition and threats to threatened species following severe fire events.
Developed after the 2019-20 bushfires, these guidelines present general design principles for rapid species assessments following extreme events, and more detailed approaches for a wide range of threatened species and taxa.
Sections 1-3 in particular are of continuing relevance. Section 1 outlines general survey design considerations when conducting surveys following large, unplanned bushfires and other extreme events. Section 2 provides more specific survey guidelines for a wide range of federally listed priority species (birds, mammals, frogs, reptiles, fish, crayfish that had been prioritised for assessment after the 2019-20 wildfires), the preferred sampling methods, the optimal timing of surveys, preferred habitat and the minimum survey effort. Section 3 provides a brief summary of general survey methods for sampling these species with reference to existing guidelines. Later sections focus on rapid plans developed for post-bushfire surveys in 2020, but also illustrate an approach that can be generalised for planning and prioritising survey efforts after large bushfire events.
