WWF's personal timeline, a place to collect and share things from WWF's life.
Created by wwfaustralia on Aug 19, 2009
Last updated: 03/11/10 at 06:18 PM
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WWF-Australia's Threatened Species Conservation Officer Ryan Collins was recently involved in Australia's largest ever release of captive bred brush-tailed rock wallabies.
http://futuremakers.com.au/pulling-rock-wallabies-from-an-extinction-vortex/
WWF-Australia's species team members Helen Pitman and Tida Nou recently took part in a back-on-country trip with Nyaliga Traditional Owners and Wunggurr Rangers to Karunjie Station in the east Kimberley region. This is one of a number of projects aimed at improving fire regimes in the Kimberley to make them more biodiversity friendly. The project, run by the Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation, commenced in 2006 with support from the Kimberley Land Council, Indigenous Land Corporation and WWF-Australia and focuses on the Karunjie and Durack River properties. The Kimberley landscape is truly spectacular with its rocky ranges, hidden gorges and ancient swollen boab trees. WWF's species team was very lucky to call this special place their "office" for the week.
The bridled nailtail wallaby was named for its horn-shaped 'nail' at the tip of the tail. Although once common throughout eastern Australia, it was believed to be extinct before being rediscovered in 1973 on a cattle station near Dingo, Queensland. Back from the brink but with only 400 left in the wild these Aussie Battlers need a helping hand to survive. This project aim is to intensify the control of feral cats on Avocet reserve. The feral cat trapping project will increase control pressure on the cats, a critical activity for the survival and increase of the wallaby population.
Tasmania has 32 federally listed orchids, making threatened orchid conservation a high priority for the state. This project contributes to threatened orchid conservation both by implementing effective on-ground recovery actions, and by providing training in orchid conservation and management to the wider community.
One of Australia’s largest frogs has already had its home decimated by climate change-induced drought since 2005. Thanks to another group of Aussie Battlers, farmers in Lowbidgee, New South Wales, these patriotic frogs are getting a second chance. This project provides a series of waterholes/dams in the Nimmie-Caira section of the Lowbidgee Floodplain to act as a predator free refuge for the southern bell frog during periods of prolonged drought. These waterholes link with major floodway’s.
This winter Samantha Vine, Threatened Species Network Regional Manager accompanied the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service on a tiger quoll survey in the NSW Northern Tablelands. Whilst this area is a stronghold for the mainland population, she discovered how difficult it is to find these elusive endangered species and highlights some of the main threats to Australia's largest mainland carnivore.
TSN Conservation activities undertaken benefited over 457 animals, 422 plants species and 161 threatened habitats.
The TSN’s work focused on flagship species and ecological communities in five priority Australian ecoregions which have significant opportunities for biodiversity conservation.
This project focused on the micro-climate preferences of roosting grey-headed flying foxes within the greater Sydney region by looking at the difference in habitat characteristics of six grey-headed flying foxes camps. Bush regeneration continues outside the Ku-ring-gai grey-headed flying foxes camp area and the Society continues to provide information to other groups involved in grey-headed flying foxes conservation.
Check out WWFs video about the project http://wwf.org.au/articles/grey-headed-flying-fox/
http://wwf.org.au/articles/grey-headed-flying-fox/
Local nurseries and the Daintree Cassowary Care Group seed collectors worked together in large-scale site preparation and native vegetation planting to rehabilitate degraded and cleared cassowary habitat on Australian Rainforest Foundation owned land in the Daintree. The plantings will provide food trees for cassowaries and connectivity with the nearby Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and National Park.
WWF's Martin Harris recently visited Cape York Peninsula to experience the Mapoon Aboriginal community's turtle conservation work first hand. The Mapoon community was awarded a TSN Community Grant for feral pig exclusion devices to protect turtle nests.
This project provided assistance to private land owners who are actively managing habitat for the endangered forty-spotted pardalote on the northern tip of Bruny Island - one of the most important areas remaining for this species. The grant will provided materials for fencing, plants and plant guards to assist the land owners with expanding and rehabilitating pardalote habitat.
Due to tree collapse, Leadbeater's possum populations are in dramatic decline and predicted to collapse by 90% over the next two decades. Through the use of nest boxes to provide replacement dens, this project aimed at providing an interim measure to support Leadbeater's through this bottleneck period of lack of trees to nest in. This project bought together a team of community groups, scientists and land managers to implement long-term habitat enhancement actions and associated population.
Vital information about Marnkarr’s, the Indigenous name for the bilby, feeding behaviour, home range and habitat use was uncovered using a combination of traditional Martu knowledge and modern radio tracking techniques. The data gathered by Parnngurr Community Inc, the Arid Lands Environment Centre and Desert Wildlife Services with the support of a TSN Community Grant will inform future conservation and monitoring efforts.
Traditional Owners with high levels of traditional ecological knowledge and skills updated the Ngaanyatjarra threatened species database by monitoring population and habitat changes and predation levels at bilby, great desert skink and malleefowl sites.
Six threatened numbats were transfered into the Arid Recovery Reserve in November 2005. The trial release determined whether the reserve could sustain a population of numbats, and justify the suitability of Arid Recovery Reserve as a site for numbat re-introduction.
An analysis of gaps in community involvement in threatened species conservation in remote and regional areas was conducted. The TSN trialled a targeted approach to building community capacity in remote areas through pilot projects in the Tiwi Islands and east Kimberley. After achieving some excellent outcomes from this pilot phase, including setting up a Land Management Ranger group on the Tiwi Islands, we then rolled out this approach to a suite of projects in remote and regional areas across the country.
The Cascades Gardens flying fox colony comprises a substantial number of threatened grey-headed flying foxes. Bat Rescue and other project partners aimed at stabilising the existing roosting site and introduced an on-going education program with a view to enhancing the image of flying foxes.
The TSN has been highly successful in helping to establish and develop community groups for threatened species recovery. The ‘Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise’ was formed giving a dedicated group of Western Australians the chance to contribute to the recovery of Australia’s most endangered reptile. Today, Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise is a self-funded, incorporated community conservation group providing an important service in the recovery of the swamp tortoise such as fund-raising, education, and conducting revegetation and habitat restoration.
TSN funded the Cockys for Landcare group to fence important areas of food plants for Carnaby’s black cockatoo. The fencing of the food plants like banksia and dryandra near the birds' nesting sites helped provide valuable food for the birds during the breeding season.
Ocean Watch Australia’s TSN Community Grant project gave threatened marine species that often get caught in tuna and billfish fisheries, the chance of survival after they are released. They coordinated over 100 operators to assess the effectiveness of seven de-hooker and line cutter designs in releasing non-target species, also called by-catch.
A collaborative project between Wannon Conservation Society and RMIT will focused on finding the southwestern home of striped legless lizard and finding out what type of habitat it preferred to live in.
A trial reintroduction of the endangered western-barred bandicoot took place at the Arid Recovery Reserve in Roxby Downs, South Australia.
This project continued the great work funded by TSN in 2000 it sort to focus on the python’s ecology including the reproductive cycle and nest sites, which were still unknown. Pythons have a precise nesting requirements and may congregate to breed which meant it was critical to identify any sites and conserve them for the species.
The endangered Squirrel Glider population at Wagga Wagga was used to inspire conservation work for it and other threatened species recorded in the area, including the superb parrot, swift parrot and barking owl.
The TSN undertook a regional prioritisation process around hotspots and planning for multiple species. A national newsletter, The Web, and development of a TSN webpage and volunteering calendar on the WWF website increased our reach to the wider community and spread news of our work across Australia.
This interesting project helped conserve one of the most important and fragile plant communities in the Victorian Alps.
The Tree Kangaroo and Mammal Group spent the year 2000 addressing the most serious threats, accidental and deliberate killings by landowners, to the threatened tiger quoll. The loss of tiger quolls was reduced through landowner awareness raising activities and improving the community’s attitudes to quolls and other wildlife.
Twenty four chuditch bred at Perth Zoo under the Chuditch Recovery Plan were released into Denmark State Forest in of WA, April 1999. CALM officer Brent Johnson and volunteers from Denmark Environment Centre trapped and radio monitored the animals over a 12 month period.
The introduction of the Threatened Species Network Community Grants Program saw the TSN become the major driver of community-based threatened species recovery in Australia. The TSN Community Grantsprovided support in the form of technical advice and funding to community groups across Australia, thereby giving everyday Australians the opportunity to contribute to species recovery in their own neighbourhoods. The TSN Community Grants ran for 10 years and funded over 400 projects resulting in over $6 million in grants. This investment generated a further $8 million of community investment in threatened species conservation, and established partnerships at the community level that continue to support recovery activities years after the initial projects have concluded. TSN Conservation activities undertaken benefited over 457 animals, 422 plants species and 161 threatened habitats. The TSN has conserved 2,543,029 hectares, worked with 17,522 volunteers who have contributed an inspiring 354,060 hours in surveying, tree planting, fencing and weeding.
In 1999 Butterfly Conservation South Australia Inc. began a project to help this threatened butterfly which is now restricted to southern Yorke Peninsula and the west coast of southern Eyre Peninsula. The original population occurred coastally in South Australia in Gahnia filum wetlands in estuary lagoonal habitats.
The TSN defined its niche as a community-based network, working cooperatively with government and other stakeholders to empower the community to participate in all aspects of species conservation. In a new model for developing stakeholder and government networks, the TSN’s part-time staff supported the development of species recovery programs, strategies and legislation; provided advice to government agencies and built community interest in species conservation. The TSN became a core part of WWF-Australia’s species conservation program, and with increased financial support from the Australian Government the TSN was able to develop and implement a national strategic plan, form state and national advisory panels and employ a national coordinator.
The TSN was formed by WWF-Australia and the Australian Government to fill a gap in involving the community in threatened species conservation.
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