Healthy Environments

Community action for landscape-scale change is a key strategy of Wheatbelt NRM.

As part of last weeks “Where the wild things are” workshop in Wongan Hills the group visited a patch of bush where they saw how successful nest boxes can be in providing habitat for our threatened black cockatoos.

Last week the healthy Environments team released the latest strain of the Calici virus into a 430ha patch of bushland in Trayning.

The 2019/20 State Budget bought some exciting news for the Toodyay Naturalist Club and many other community groups with the announcement of a budget commitment to the creation of a new National Park at the Helena Aurora Ranges (Bungalbin in the local language).

Do you have a site on your property that you want to revegetate but time/money etc keeps delaying it?

Recently the Healthy Environments team was in Quairading working with the year 5 class at Quairading DHS to plan for our latest Hotspot Hero book.

12 months after the initial release of the Calici virus on his property Corrigin farmer Richard Guinness has seen rabbit numbers reduce by two thirds. This outperforms the national results and confirms that Calici is a viable control option in the Wheatbelt.

The State Government has strengthened measures to protect vulnerable and threatened native wildlife by declaring feral cats a pest animal in Western Australia.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) is conducting a second National survey on pest animal and weed management for the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Wheatbelt NRM’s Leigh Whisson was on a trip last week to set up monitoring cameras so he can identify suitable sites to start looking for the elusive malleefowl.