Caring for our Country

National Reserve System

Scotia sanctuary

Video introduction

Scotia Sanctuary was established in 1994 with help from the Australian Government's National Reserve System program. It is owned and managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

An ambitious project is underway at Scotia to reintroduce mammals to the sanctuary that are locally and regionally extinct. Australian Wildlife Conservancy has fenced off a 4,000 hectare stretch of habitat which is kept free of introduced predators such as foxes, and native wildlife including bilbies and bridle nail-tailed wallabies have been reintroduced. The native animals are regularly monitored to ensure their populations are healthy and growing.

 

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Transcript

Jos Bentley, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
This area of New South Wales actually has one of the worst mammal extinction rates in the country.

Tony Fleming, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
We've looked at what are the species that used to exist here and no longer exist here that are endangered throughout Australia and locally extinct, and over the years have developed a program to reintroduce those species to this area.

Jos Bentley, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
So far, we have reintroduced six species and at the moment what we are focusing on is actually monitoring those populations.

Sarah Legge, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
Stage 1 is an area of 4,000 hectares around which we have erected a feral proof fence and then we have got rid of all the feral cats, foxes, rabbits that were inside that fence.
That's the area into which we have reintroduced the threatened animals that are locally/regionally extinct and they are thriving there.

Jos Bentley, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
We are actually trapping the animals every three months and because you have actually got the animal in the hand at that point, you can weigh it, you can measure its foot length, you can see if they are reproducing.
You know, we check their eyes and their mouth and their coat condition and look for any parasites they might have and just generally feel what condition they are in.  Because we do it so regularly, it means that we get a really good picture of how many animals we've got, whether they're breeding, how long they're surviving, what mortality rates are, whether young are surviving to independence.

Tony Fleming, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
Government supports the work of AWC and other organisations through things like the National Reserve System, so being able to demonstrate that we understand what are the conservation objectives we are trying to achieve and that we are in fact making process towards those objectives and you can see it on the ground, that's all really important.

Sarah Legge, Australian Wildlife Conservancy:
Being able to look after or have a population that is protected from the threatening processes that are causing its widespread decline, you can't really put a value on it.