On the 16th of September about 25 people settled in to watch our live ‘Animals of Box Gum Grassy Woodlands’ event with the fantastic team from Australian Wildlife Displays and Anthony the ranger leading this event. We were able to get up close and personal with the Tawny Frogmouth, Murray Darling Python, Green Tree Frog, Goanna, Cunnigham’s Skink, Long and Short Necked Turtles, Bearded Dragon, Shingleback Lizard and a wonderful cute young Squirrel Glider.

Did you know:-

• Long Neck turtles are carnivorous and short neck turtles are omnivorous.
• Squirrel Gliders can travel 50m in one glide.
• Shingleback lizards are omnivorous and love eating flowers especially our native groundcover type flowers.
• Green Tree Frogs can live for 16-20yrs
• Bearded dragons have an arrow shaped head and can get themselves stuck in chicken wire
• Cunningham’s Skinks live in family groups and can smell who are their relatives so they know not to mate with them.
• Shingleback lizards can live for 20-25yrs and they mate for life.
• Foxes can smell buried turtle eggs and dig most nests up and eat all of the eggs.
• Young Squirrel Gliders love mealworms.

A couple of things stood out the most in regards to habitat requirements for almost all of these animals and what we can do to encourage and protect them on our farms.

• All of them need timber/trees either living trees, dead trees or fallen timber on the ground. This is all crucial for them to move through the landscape and have areas to live, shelter or hide. It is hard to not ‘clean up’ our farms but if we can consciously try and leave some fallen timber (especially if it has hollows) and not cut down the trees that have died it can make such a difference to the long term survival.
• Foxes are a huge threat to all of these species and Anthony truly believes one of the best things we can all do to help is to undertake fox control on our farms.
• Fencing off Riparian areas was another important way we can help our wildlife into the future.

Anthony talked about a time not that long ago when you would see a bearded dragon on almost every fence post and pairs of Shingleback lizards were almost an everyday sight. Why do we not see this anymore?

We have such a huge diversity of animals that depend on our Box Gum Grassy Woodlands and with less than 10% of the pre European distribution left in NSW we need to do everything we can to preserve and enhance these areas on our farms.

We need to continue to look for innovative ways to strive towards healthy, profitable farms whilst enhancing and preserving any patches of woodland we might have.

Little actions by us can make a big difference to these species!

If you would like to find out how you can get involved in doing on ground works on your farm to protect or enhance your Woodlands, please contact us at midlachlanlandcare@gmail.com

The ‘Animals of Box Gum Grassy Woodlands’ event was made possible by the NSW Government through a partnership between the Saving our Species program and the Environmental Trust.