On 10th August 2017, Green Skills installed 15 Phascogale nesting boxes within the Balijup Fauna Sanctuary near Tenterden. The boxes were made by the Denmark Men’s Shed.
The South Coast NRM’s Noongar Green Army team, supervised Geoffrey Dean helped Green Skills project manager Basil Schur, and volunteer Tony Peterson, attach the nesting boxes onto Jarrah trees within the feral predator free 110 hectare exclosure.
Angela Sanders of Bush Heritage Australia and Sarah Comer of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions have provided technical advice on how to make and install the boxes. These boxes have been successfully used at the Bush Heritage reserve near Kojonup to bring back the endangered Red Tailed Phascogale into the area.
The nesting box project will help establish whether phascogales already occur in the Sanctuary. If, as is likely, they are no longer present, then Green Skills will work with Dr Nic Dunlop of the Conservation Council of WA’s citizen science program to apply for approval from the WA Government to reintroduce brush tailed phascogales into the Sanctuary. To date Southern Brown Bandicoots and Brush Tailed Possums have been re-established back into the enclosure.
For more information contact Basil Schur at the Green Skills Denmark office on 98483310.