Location: Various privately-owned properties, Moorabool Shire, western Victoria.
Client: Moorabool Shire Council
ERA, in partnership with Moorabool Shire Council, recently installed 35 artificial hollows and four nest boxes across eleven privately-owned properties within the Moorabool Shire Council area. The aim of this project was to create artificial tree hollows to benefit native hollow-using wildlife. Target species include brush-tailed phascogales, gliders, Eastern pygmy-possums, brush-tailed and ring-tailed possums, owls, parrots, cockatoos and tree-creepers.
Private landholders with trees on their property suitable for habitat creation submitted an Expression of Interest form to ERA. ERA reviewed each response and contacted landholders to explain the process and gain more information on their properties and the likelihood of suitable trees.
In June 2023, the ERA team began to install hollows with some very enthusiastic landholders! The design of each individual hollow varied depending upon the dimensions of the host tree, and the target species for the particular location. For more information on the methodology that we use, please read here. Some residents had nest boxes they had purchased or made which were ready to be installed, so we installed these as well.
ERA has a strong focus on science-backed restoration and is currently undertaking multiple research projects in the artificial habitat creation space. The last stage of this project was the development of a “citizen science project” which allows landholders to contribute to ERA’s broader research on supplementary habitat (eg. occupancy, longevity and required maintenance, if any). Following the installation of habitat, landowners were provided access to a digital data collection form which allows them to easily collect and upload data on their hollows.
