In a remote rainforest on the Bougainville Peninsula in Western Australia, scientists found something astonishing.
For six months they'd been recording animals using a series of camera traps. The images that popped up on their computer screens showed an array of precious wildlife. There were short-eared rock wallabies, northern brown bandicoots, golden-backed tree rats and echidnas, as well as rainbow pittas, emerald doves and orange-footed scrub fowl.
But it was a tiny creature with pointy snout, reddish brown fur, cream underside and white spotty back that really caught everyone’s attention.
That’s because the Northern quoll, a nationally endangered species, had never before been recorded this far east in the rainforests, or wulo, of Wunambal Gaambera Country.
For years this species has been in rapid decline, partly because of the degradation and fragmentation of its habitat, feral animals, wildfires, and the spread of poisonous cane toads that are lethal when ingested.
So to find another population is exciting and demonstrates the good news coming from Bush Heritage’s partnership with the Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation (WGAC).
A Federal Government biodiversity grant enabled the WGAC to fund University of Tasmania research. WGAC chair Catherine Goonack said the research was the first major ecological study of the area since the 1980s, when government trapping surveys identified just two mammal species in the wulo.
“We're very pleased that our Uunguu Rangers have had the opportunity to learn more about and protect this important intact refuge for Kimberley species,” she says.
BUSHTRACKS 21/12/2015
At first glance, the striped legless lizard looks like a tiny colourful snake, with pink sides and a yellow throat. But its thick, fleshy tongue is unforked, it has visible ears, and two scaly flaps as hind legs. It munches on moths, crickets and spiders, and can spring more than 10cm into the air.
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We are hosting a new research project into how far south in Queensland’s Daintree River lowland forests the near threatened Bennett’s Tree Kangaroo may exist. After a sighting of a juvenile close to Palm Road in the Daintree, tree roo expert and author Roger Martin visited our Fan Palm Reserve in northern Queensland to investigate the southern range of this iconic Australian marsupial.
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Out on Bon Bon Station Reserve, the heat can sear your skin and leave you breathless. And yet this massive piece of land, which rivals the size of Sydney, is home to some of Australia’s most extraordinary creatures like the southern hairy-nosed wombat and the rare chestnut breasted whiteface. Here's how we manage wildfire risk for Bon Bon’s diverse plants and animals.
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The Tasmanian Midlands is a biodiversity hotspot, and refuge for dozens of nationally threatened species and nearly 200 plants and animals threatened in Tasmania.
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'We’re operating in a really important part of the continent,' says Bush Heritage’s Gondwana Link Landscape Manager Simon Smale. 'The area we’re working in now has been quite badly fragmented by a burst of clearing from agricultural development. We’re progressively buying and conserving properties to protect the bush that is left.'
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In West Arnhem Land, we are working with the Nawarddeken people whose Indigenous Protected Area covers 1.4 million hectares of natural and cultural treasures. A biodiversity survey was conducted over 10 days in Baby Dreaming Country, a significant cultural site in the northern region of the Warddeken Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), a full day’s drive from Darwin.
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There’s no doubt that Bush Heritage volunteers are some of the best in the business. They roll up their sleeves to pull weeds. They battle aching muscles and clammy heat to plant seedlings. And they spend hours pouring over documents to help with our research. So it made perfect sense to tap into their knowledge and expertise with the establishment of our very first Volunteer Advisory Committee.
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