Teepees for tiny critters: Wildlife gets a helping hand in post-fire West Vic

Cardboard “teepees” now dot parts of the Wimmera and Grampians’ fire-scarred landscape,  reminiscent of a tiny makeshift village offering small native animals a place to hide while the bush slowly heals.

These teepees, known as rehabitat pods, are paired with trail cameras to monitor the  wildlife species moving back into the area, and the pests that need to be kept out.

Recovery project: These setups are part of Project Platypus’ endeavour to assist with recovery of land in Pomonal, Dadswell Bridge and the Little Desert and Grampians national parks, twelve months on from the areas’ major bushfires.

• The project is designed to help private landowners revegetate, restore birdlife and wildlife habitats and monitor biodiversity on their properties. 

• So far, nine landowners are on board.

Send in the crew: Project officer Hayley Jones told the West Vic Brolga staff have sprung into action since the project launched in January, gathering information through vegetation surveys, tree hollow counts, camera footage and AI-assisted technology to identify bird species through their calls. 

🗣️ “We're definitely seeing a lot of generalist species, like your magpies and galahs and things like that,” she said.

🗣️ “But then we're also getting a lot of woodland species like thornbills and fairy wrens. We've had some rainbow bee-eaters, which are a migratory species, so some rarer ones have popped up.”

Building for the birds: Temporary nest boxes have also been set up while arborists work to carve artificial tree hollows to restore bird habitats.

🗣️ “A lot of big old eucalypt trees have formed these hollows over the last 100 or 200 years,” Jones said. “Fire actually plays a big part in forming those hollows, but in really severe fires, we're finding that those trees are completely burning out, and we're losing them as habitat.

🗣️ “So there's all these really cool ways that you can provide extra habitat, knowing that those hollows might take another 100 years to re-form.”

Pest control: To encourage more native species to return to the area, Project Platypus will also assist landholders to reduce the number of pests on their properties.

• Landholders bordering national parks or state forests can work with government agencies on targeted pest control, such as fox baiting, while professional shooters can assist with managing deer.

• A community rabbit “boot camp” is also scheduled for later this month to educate landholders on how to deal with rabbits breeding across multiple properties.

Rolling up their sleeves: Many of the participating properties are under a conservation covenant, and Jones said landholders had been keen to get involved, often joining field days and learning to use the monitoring devices themselves.

🗣️ “A lot of them are really stoked to have the support,” she said, describing how visits from ecologists and ornithologists had shifted the focus from loss to what was “coming back and what’s still there”.

What else? Beyond the nine properties, public workshops are planned on topics including nocturnal species monitoring, weed identification, fire ecology and nest box construction.

🗣️ “The main aim of the project is really about education and empowering landholders and local residents,” she said.

The project runs until October.