A new study has shown the first habitat suitability model for the endangered bear cuscus in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi, showing its limited and fragmented range, much of which is threatened by mining and poaching, and calling for increased legal protection and landscape connectivity. The population of the bear cuscus (Ailurops ursinus), one of the four nocturnal marsupials endemic to Sulawesi, is now scattered and disconnected from each other across the declining forests of the island, according to the paper by two Indonesian researchers published in May on the journal Oryx. The research found poaching and mining operations to be the most imminent threats to the survival of the cuscus, which the authors have described to be an overlooked potential flagship species. “Today, unfortunately this bear cuscus is no longer included as a protected species,” Siti Nurleily Marliana, a conservation ecology Ph.D. from the University of Gadjah Mada who is one of two authors of the paper, wrote in an email to Mongabay. An adult female bear cuscus and her baby are resting on a tree branch and observing visitors in the Educational Forest of Hasanuddin University in South Sulawesi. Image courtesy of Rahmia Nugraha. The researchers collected data from October 2020 to January 2021 in the protected areas of Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park and Hasanuddin University Educational Forest in South Sulawesi — spanning a total of 143,682 hectares (355,000 acres) — which are key habitats for the bear cuscus. They also used inventory data from a 2019 survey of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay