Sugar glider natural habitat:

Ecosystem natural

1. Tall Timber Eucalypt Coupe, 2. Glider Flight Path (up to 50m), 3. Owl, only natural predator (Tas.), 4. Nesting Tree, 5. Communal Nest (in tree hollow), 6. Tree canopy (food source), 7. Stripping bark (for insects), 8. Napping under bark, 9. Understory (Acacia or fern), 10. Running sap score (food source)

Sugar glider habitat after human encroachment:

Ecosystem modified

1. Diminished tall timber stands, 2. Reduced nesting hollows, 3. Broken flight path, 4. Monoculture tree plantation, 5. Feral and domestic dogs, 6. Feral and domestic cats, 7. Introduced rat species, 8. European wasps, 9. Exposure due to land clearance,

Natural Predator

The night owl is the gliders only natural predator in Tasmania. It swoops on the glider in flight and snaps off its tail, sending it plummeting to the ground, to become easy prey. Glider tails are regularly spotted by bushwalkers.

New Predators and problems of the 1900's

• The cat - both feral and domestic
• The dog - both feral and domestic
• Increases in numbers of introduced European rat
• European wasps competing for tree hollows
• Rural land clearing robs them of feeding and breeding sites
• Logging and wood chipping of old growth forest
• Monoculture tree plantations (non-flowering)
• Changing weather patterns have driven them into suburbia

Source and more information