Full steam ahead for Fitz Stirling fauna recovery

Join our staff as they chat about revegetation efforts underway to protect habitat critically important to native species in south-west WA.

In south-west Western Australia, an incredible diversity of plants sustains an incredible diversity of pollinators. So what happens when both are under threat?

Several Noongar women enjoyed two days on country exploring Red Moort Reserve and soaking up the view from the field station.

Did you know that there can be more organisms in one teaspoon of soil than there are people on the planet? The microscopic communities that live in the soil beneath our feet are critical to the health of the planet and ourselves.

It was a proud day for us in south coast WA yesterday as we hosted the launch of our Fitz-Stirling Fauna Recovery Project! This ambitious five-year project spans about 40,000 hectares, making it the largest integrated fauna recovery program involving private landholders in the region’s history. 

Ecologist Angela Sanders and Alex Hams (Healthy Landscape Manager in South West WA) discuss our Fitz-Stirling reserves. Botanist Libby Sandiford  presents  floral assessments.

Botanist extraordinaire Libby Sandiford has spent the past few years striding across our properties in the Fitz-Stirling in south-west Western Australia. She's documented an incredible 934 species of flora in just under 4000 hectares, which is highly biodiverse by anyone's reckoning.

“We have lost so many of our plants and animals in this corner of Australia and I love to sit on this breakaway in the centre of the reserve and look out and pretend that they’re all still there."

As we prepare to start a first-of-its-kind feral control program in the Fitz-Stirling, Noongar Traditional Owner Aunty Carol Petterson reflects on the changes seen in her lifetime.

When writer and self-confessed city-slicker Jane Caro takes an opportunity to venture west, it leads her to experience all the highlights and some of the lowlights of life in the field.

It had been 16 years since our last visit to Chereninup Creek Reserve, for a National Tree Day planting. That cold and blustery day was the start of a revegetation program in the mega-diverse region between the Stirling Range and Fitzgerald River National Parks in southern WA.

A plane flew over our Fitz-Stirling reserves earlier this year and on-board was a Light Detection and Ranging device (LiDAR). It uses pulses of light to create 3D models of the terrain. These are then interpreted to identify malleefowl nesting mounds. 

It's encouraging to see increasing recognition of the terrible toll feral cats are exacting on our native wildlife, and increasing concern to do something about it. Early Monday morning I headed out to Red Moort to get up in the air with feral cat researcher Sarah Comer and her Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions colleague, Abby, to locate the feral cats Sarah has collared across our Fitz-Stirling landscape on the South Coast of Western Australia.

How we’re working beyond our boundaries to control foxes and feral cats in south-west Western Australia.

The recent opening of the Michael Tichbon Field Station heralds a new era for Bush Heritage’s conservation work in the species-rich Fitz-Stirling region of the south-west.

With the official opening of the Michael Tichbon Field Centre at one of our Gondwana Link Reserves, Red Moort, rapidly approaching, we'd like to share a few words from two of our WA volunteers about their recent stay. Richard and Beverly Winterton have been volunteering with since 2017 on various ecological projects and recently spent a week in the south west installing nesting boxes for Pygmy Possums on Monjebup North.

Through the past three years we've had well-known and highly-respected South Coast botanist Libby Sandiford running a rolling vegetation survey across some of our Gondwana Link reserves. The information Libby has collated has surprised even us - we knew that what we're protecting and managing here is pretty special, but we didn't know quite how special.​

When I put out five cameras on our recently acquired Monjebup Creek Reserve in Gondwana Link I had no idea what I might find. The cameras were out and working hard for 5 months in total and the results have been amazing.

Angela Sanders and I spent three long days this week exploring Monjebup Creek Reserve with contract botanist Libby Sandiford and volunteer Lynda Strahan. With funding from our great supporters here at South Coast Natural Resource Management we were able to bring the survey forward into June. Which was perfect timing as it turned out. The weather was glorious, but perhaps most importantly, the roo ticks that can make life difficult through the warmer months were nowhere to be seen!