Persona Non Grata

This essay tells the story of the authors’ relationship with a rescued marsupial raised from a baby in Aotearoa New Zealand, in sections interspersed with an account of this species’ history in our country. This animal belongs to a species designated a noxious pest here, a population subject to an especially sustained, thorough, and popularly-supported campaign of vilification and destruction, even by the standards that apply in New Zealand, where the dominant environmental ideology is very intensely focussed on eradication of introduced species. So in deciding to take responsibility for this creature, the authors committed to keeping her both hidden and captive. This raises some intractable questions: is it in this animal’s best interests to be enclosed, or should she be allowed to take her chances on the roads and amongst the traps and poison? how can her captors offer her the best life? what relationship should they have with her? The essay also describes the intimate relationship the two authors have developed with this animal, through nightly interaction, and touches on some of the phenomenological questions she presents: what might it be like to be an arboreal, nocturnal, marsupial mammal instead of a terrestrial, diurnal, placental one? What might it be like to have four legs (or perhaps five, if we count the extraordinary prehensile tail) that are simultaneously arms, rather than two arms and two legs? In New Zealand the overwhelming hostility to this species makes it nearly impossible to recognize or consider its members as living sentient beings. Our primary aim in this essay, therefore, is to convey as directly as possible the emotional and physical experience of being in relationship with this particular animal, while succinctly situating that experience within a relevant environmental context. We didn’t want to use this animal’s story merely as a pretext for exploring larger histories or topics in human-animal studies. For this reason we have chosen the genre of creative nonfiction, and refrained from engaging with discussions by human-animal studies scholars that would be required in a research article.

Post-fire recovery of torpor and activity patterns of a small mammal

To cope with the post-fire challenges of decreased availability of food and shelter, brown antechinus ( Antechinus stuartii ), a small marsupial mammal, increase the use of energy-conserving torpor and reduce activity. However, it is not known how long it takes for animals to resume pre-fire torpor and activity patterns during the recovery of burnt habitat. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that antechinus will adjust torpor use and activity after a fire depending on vegetation recovery. We simultaneously quantified torpor and activity patterns for female antechinus from three adjacent areas: (i) the area of a management burn 1 year post-fire, (ii) an area that was burned 2 years prior, and (iii) a control area. In comparison to shortly after the management burn, antechinus in all three groups displayed less frequent and less pronounced torpor while being more active. We provide the first evidence that only 1 year post-fire antechinus resume pre-fire torpor and activity patterns, probably in response to the return of herbaceous ground cover and foraging opportunities.

The importance of mammalian torpor for survival in a post-fire landscape

Wildfires have increased in frequency and intensity worldwide with climate change as a main driving factor. While a number of studies have focused on population changes in regard to fires, there are essentially no quantitative data on behavioural and physiological adjustments that are vital for the persistence of individuals during and after fires. Here we show that brown antechinus, a small insectivorous marsupial mammal, (i) endured a prescribed fire in situ , (ii) remained in their scorched home range despite unburned areas nearby, and (iii) substantially increased post-fire torpor use and thus reduced foraging requirements and exposure to predators. Hence, torpor is a physiological adaptation that, although not quantified in this context previously, appears to play a key role in post-fire survival for this and other heterothermic species.