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Team effort for Northern and Yorke's endangered species
You can't ask more from anyone than their best, and that's what volunteers of BEST (Biodiversity and Endangered Species Team) give - their utmost to stop the decline of local threatened plants and animals.
This tight-knit community group in the Northern and Yorke region of South Australia is made up of concerned local residents who carry out on-ground activities and raise the profile of threatened species issues.
Funding
With $50,000 from the Australian Government and support from the State Government - via the Northern and Yorke Regional Natural Resource Management (NRM) Board - volunteers survey and monitor populations and perform threat abatement activities like weed control.
Activities
Annika Everaardt, Threatened Species Community Liaison Officer with the SA Department for Environment and Heritage, said recent work saw volunteers carry out population monitoring of the endangered Pygmy Bluetongue Lizard .
“To help recover this species volunteers are measuring the area occupied by known populations of Pygmy Bluetongue Lizards, helping us to make land management recommendations to landholders” Annika said.
“We also monitor nine of the known lizard populations each summer to assess any changes in population size and structure. BEST members even came to the Clare Show to raise awareness about the plight of the lizard and to help the public distinguish between it and the juvenile Common Bluetongue - Pygmy Bluetongues have a pink tongue and live in spider holes.”
BEST volunteers also support the Clare and Gilbert Valleys Mistletoe Action Group, which is tackling areas overrun with Box Mistletoe by assisting with spotlight surveys for Common Brushtail Possums . Possums are known to eat mistletoe and it's hoped that by restoring possum numbers, mistletoe abundance will decrease.
Monitoring is also underway for at-risk woodland birds such as the Tawny Frogmouth, Whistling Kite, Crested Shrike-tit and Scarlet Robin. Some 43 bird species are thought to be in decline across the Northern and Yorke region.
Volunteers record which species visit remnant patches by conducting 20-minute, two-hectare surveys and 500 metre-area surveys in woodland and grassy woodland sites across the region.
More information
- Annika Everaardt, DEH Threatened Species Community Liaison Officer: (08) 8841 3402 or everaardt.annika@saugov.sa.gov.au
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