IMPACT OF POWERFUL OWL PREDATION ON A POPULATION OF THE GREATER GLIDER - A RESPONSE

Kavanagh (1988) concluded that 46 months of predation by a pair of pow erful owls caused a decline of over 90% in a greater glider population over an area of 100 ha in southeastern New South Wales. He suggested the owls concentrated their foraging activities by taking gliders in o ne pocket of their home range before moving to the next pocket once th e glider population fell to levels at which they were difficult to cat ch. The assumptions on which Kavanagh's work is based and the methodol ogy of the study are assessed here, and it is argued that the data pre sented are not sufficient to support the interpretations of powerful o wl ecology made in the paper. In particular, alternative explanations of the glider population decline were not considered and home range us e by the owls was not examined in enough detail to discern any spatial movement patterns.