Thousands of bogong moths have been filmed swirling over the granite crevices of Mount Wills, 1,750 metres up in Victoria’s High Country near Omeo, ABC News reports. The footage, shot by citizen scientist Kale Munro, is part of a remarkable year for Zoos Victoria’s Moth Tracker project, which has received more than 14,000 sightings so far. Its previous best year brought in around 2,000.
The endangered moths fly more than 1,000 kilometres every spring to spend summer sheltering in alpine caves. Their numbers crashed during the droughts of 2017 and 2019, and that hit the critically endangered mountain pygmy possum hard, because the moths are its main food. Many females lost their young in those years.
Recent wet seasons appear to be helping the moths recover. Researchers at Western Sydney University say the volunteers have gathered the equivalent of 12 years of nightly fieldwork in less than a year, information that will help them find and protect the caves the moths depend on.
Source: ABC News