In a Facebook post on January 3, National Parks said it often gets asked "what is the problem with collecting firewood from the bush to make a campfire?"

“A few days ago, a group of our regular campers came racing over excitedly asking if I knew the identity of a little creature they found in their camp, and why it would have been there.

“The creature, looking a lot like a mouse to an untrained eye, is Cercartetus nanus, or the Eastern Pygmy Possum. These little possums (the one from Diamond Head in the photo is almost full grown adult size) live in shrubby heath and coastal forest in south eastern Australia.

“Although they are widely distributed, they are patchy, and are regarded as “Vulnerable to Extinction” in NSW. They are very susceptible to a wide variety of predators, particularly feral cats and foxes, as well as to impacts of human activities like clearing for agriculture and housing, and also the consequences of firewood collection.

“My first thought with this little character is that it may have been one of the local population (of which we are blessed to have in Crowdy Bay NP), finding its way into the campground looking for water. But on further reflection and a bit of a look around, it seems more likely to have come into the camp within a tiny hollow in the limb of a branch which a visitor had cut and collected for firewood.

“Eastern Pygmy Possums typically use hollows not much bigger than 3cm diameter, as this helps them stay safe from goannas and pythons while they sleep, but it also means even tiny hollow branches which most people wouldn't even consider as a "possum hollow" can hide these little native animals.

“Hollow branches suited to the specific size requirements of pygmy possums, as well as species like feathertail gliders and the tiny marsupial mice, are actually pretty rare in the bush, and so any removed can rob the local wildlife of their homes critical to their survival, or impact the animals directly if they're present in the branches when collected.

“Importantly, these creatures don't just use one hollow branch as home, they usually use as many as eight to 15 different hollows, and shift around to make sure predators don't get used to finding them in the one home all the time.

“So they need a lot of hollows just to support one family, and a huge number of hollows to support a local population.

“So, please don’t collect firewood from the bush, it might be someones home.”

The National Parks relocated “this little character a short distance away, into good habitat and was provided with an artificial hollow of the right size, to call home until he could establish a new territory and a new selection of homes.”