Bushfire Recovery Project
Improving community knowledge of greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders in South East Queensland
© Josh Bowell
About this project
In May 2021, Queensland Glider Network secured funding under the Federal Government’s Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Their Habitats Program to provide local communities and landholders in bushfire-affected areas of South East Queensland with the knowledge, skills, and information to implement recovery actions for fire-affected populations of southern and central greater gliders (Petauroides volans) and yellow-bellied gliders (Petaurus australis).
The project was delivered via a series of four community workshops and field days that promoted education about these species and relayed their conservation needs across regions that were affected by the 2019—2020 bushfires. Of particular importance was explaining how landholders can help conserve Queensland’s two largest gliding marsupial species through revegetation projects that restore eucalypt species known to hollow out over time.
© Paul Revie/Wildlife Queensland
Nest box building activity at the Jimna Glider ‘Dine & Shine’.
Revegetate to save our threatened gliders
A Revegetation Guide to the Threatened Gliders of Southern Queensland explains the habitat needs of Queensland’s two largest gliding marsupials — the greater glider and the yellow-bellied glider — and what you can do to help them, particularly following fire.
The guide is available to view as a flipbook and can also be downloaded as a PDF document. Or email us to request a printed copy.
To view the guide:
- Press the > button to start or click on the pages.
- Use the RIGHT and LEFT arrows to move forward or back.
- Click on the DOWNLOAD button (cloud and arrow) to download a PDF.
Project outcomes
Productive partnerships have been formed with private landholders who are now participating in additional projects focused on gliders, quolls, and brush-tailed rock-wallabies.
The project has also resulted in additional public sightings of greater and yellow-bellied gliders, helping us to map distributions in southern Queensland.
Workshops
- Four community workshops were held at Gatton, Jimna, Crows Nest and Lake Moogerah. A total of around 190 community members attended the workshops.
- 85 nest boxes were constructed thanks to Alan and Stacey at Safe and Co. The nest boxes were given to participants to install on their own properties.
- Several leftover nest boxes will be installed by Wildlife Queensland in greater glider habitat in the greater Brisbane area.
Spotlight surveys
- 25 spotlight surveys were conducted on a mixture of public and private lands in or adjacent to bushfire-affected areas.
- Greater gliders were seen at four sites, including records at a new location at Mount Barney, and records from areas in Main Range that were severely burnt in 2019/20.
- Yellow-bellied gliders were seen or heard at two sites, both of which had been burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires.
- Other threatened species recorded during surveys included koalas (lots of koalas!), brush-tailed rock-wallabies, powerful owls, tusked frogs, and cascade treefrogs.
We hope the glider workshops, along with the freely downloadable A Revegetation Guide to the Threatened Gliders of Southern Queensland and the chance to see these gliders going about their nocturnal business will encourage people from all communities to get active in glider conservation and habitat regeneration.
By improving our knowledge of where greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders occur in the landscape, we can better protect these threatened species from future fires and other threats.
Partners & sponsors
- International Fund for Animal Welcome (ifaw)
- Healthy Land & Water
- The Great Eastern Ranges
- Australian Government
- Lockyer Uplands Catchments Inc.
- Geckoes Wildlife
- Nunukul Yuggera Aboriginal Dance Company