By Travis Scicchitano | Project Coordinator
The first week in May was Eastern Barred Bandicoot monitoring at Woodlands Historic Park in Parks Victoria. This is a very intensive couple of weeks of preparation and execution. Many volunteers come from all walks of life to get to the sanctuary in the dark at 6am for an adventure.
We had our incredible regular students and teachers from Penleigh and Essendon Grammar come along for two days. Multiple universities got their students involved, and of course keen members of the public.
It’sa very busy session as we try our best to check all our traps as early as we can. It can be tiring trudging through the grasslands as the wonderful volunteers ask so many fantastic questions and show their enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, the bandicoot catch rate was low this time round. Conditions aren’tfavourableasit’s been a very dry start to the year. We have a few strategies to try and catch more of the shy animals by free feeding the trap sites in advance next time around andusing some cameras in the meantime to detect more than we caught.
Zoos Victoria were once again a great asset sending out multiple people every day to handle and process any animals caught and give the volunteers plenty of information. So even though capture rates were down, everyone had a great time learning about threatened species recovery that all goes towards the Eastern Barred Recovery Team’s overall goals.
At Woodlands Historic Park we have some unusual neighbours due to our urban location. One of them being Melbourne Airport. Over the last decade Melbourne Airport has been a continuous supporter of the program. This year they have kindly donated the use of their own environmental bush crew team.
They are currently busy working inside a new extension area of the sanctuary, removing the introduced noxious grass weed called serrated tussock. This plant likes to try and dominate the local native grass species and take over. This will certainly help immensely, and we are incredibly thankful for the assistance.
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