Easter at Boolcoomatta

As children across the country opened their Easter eggs earlier this year, a team of dedicated Bush Heritage scientists, partners and volunteers were already hard at work on Boolcoomatta Reserve  in South Australia. Up since the crack of dawn, they were busy trapping, counting and recording the creatures that had traversed the open grasslands and desert outcrops overnight.

This was the first major survey to have been conducted on the reserve in five years.

"The enthusiasm was tremendous," says Graham Medlin, the survey coordinator. "You could hardly hear yourself at night in the shearer's mess, with everyone talking excitedly about the day's events."

Corellas call at breakfast

The team, comprised of 33 adults, three teenagers and one child, rose in silence with the sun each morning for four days. They listened to the occasional raucous squawks of the corellas as they travelled in 4WDs to ten different capture sites set around the 63,000-hectare reserve.

"Boolcoomatta is such a delightful place," says Graham, an Honorary Research Associate and sub-fossil expert at the South Australian Museum, and member of the South Australian Field Naturalists Society. "It's one of the best-managed reserves in which I've carried out research."

Hard work and great results

Prior to Bush Heritage purchasing the property in 2006, Boolcoomatta was an outback sheep station.

Since then, volunteers and supporters like you have helped to reduce populations of feral animals, upgrade Boolcoomatta's facilities to enable volunteers and contractors to stay and work at the reserve (including on surveys like this one) and erect exclusion plots to monitor and manage the effect of kangaroos and rabbits on the land.

"The health of the area's vegetation is a credit to Bush Heritage and its supporters," Graham says.

Success

Bush Heritage Ecologist Sandy Gilmore sounded pleased as he reached into the pitfall traps and carefully pulled out the lively and sometimes ferocious creatures that had wandered into the traps overnight. (The animals remain unharmed and are returned to their homes after being studied.)

"We found several different rodents and marsupials, as well as a large number of skinks, dragons and geckos," says Sandy. "There were dusky hopping-mice, the Bolam's mouse and stripe-faced dunnarts."

A haven for wildlife

These creatures have found a haven at Boolcoomatta that is difficult to find elsewhere. South Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinctions of any state in the country, and Australia has the highest rate of any country in the world.

But on Boolcoomatta, life looks prosperous. A 2010 bird survey showed significant increases in bird populations on the reserve such as redthroats and white-winged fairy wrens.

The volunteers install a trap-line – a low mesh fence that guides reptiles, small mammals, insects, spiders etc. to pit traps (buckets set into the ground).

"It's very exciting," says Sandy. "But we haven't reached the end of the story by any means." With your ongoing support Boolcoomatta will continue to flourish.

Boolcoomatta Reserve was acquired in 2006 with the assistance of the Australian Government's National Reserve System program and the Nature Foundation SA. We gratefully acknowledge The Native Vegetation Council for their support of conservation activities on Boolcoomatt.