Wildlife Carers on Kangaroo Island, and Reasons to be Hopeful!
Kangaroo Island was meant to be welcoming tourists back right now, to boost local businesses in the wake of the bushfire crisis. Instead, with the rest of the world, the island has shut down.
However, providing a lifeline to hungry, struggling wildlife is a job that cannot be put on hold for our friends Roanna & Phil. They worked tirelessly through the fire season defending their home, their neighbours homes, and providing a refuge on their property for displaced wildlife. Now that the fires are gone, animals that survived that horror must face their next challenge – finding food.
With home-made “feeders”, put together using PVC plumbing pipes, Ro & Phil have set up strategically placed feeding stations stocked with “roo pellets”. Although nutritious, the pellets aren’t as palatable as fresh native food. So, if the animals are showing up at the feeding stations, it shows they must be hungry! I can sympathise after tasting a pellet myself, then trying to pick it out from my teeth for the next couple of hours. Thankfully in some areas, fewer animals are using the feeders, as trees re-shoot and grass grows back. In the worst affected areas, there are still queues of kangaroos and wallabies at the feeders every evening, hoping for pellets and a few carrots.
Filling the feeders
It’s not just food that is scarce. Kangaroo Island is the final stronghold for the endangered glossy black cockatoo, and many of their nesting tree-hollows were destroyed. With only 370 of these beautiful birds left here, having a shortage of nesting sites is a very concerning situation. Ro & Phil have been working on some brand new tree-hollow-shaped nesting boxes, ready to deploy so the glossies have somewhere to raise their families.
New Glossy nesting boxes!
Two months after the bush fires, there are many signs that nature is healing. You can’t help but feel hopeful at the sight of fresh green shoots emerging from charred tree bark, re-located koalas sleeping peacefully in their new trees, and echidnas that survived the fires by burrowing underground. And when you venture into the water, the dolphins are as playful as ever!
A dip with dolphins
There is still so much life on Kangaroo Island. Whilst we are focussed on keeping ourselves and our families safe from COVID-19, nature will continue to re-shoot and re-grow. I am definitely dreaming of the day we can return to see this island paradise again.
Sleepy Koala
Echidna
Regrowth! A hopeful sight!
(Photos by Rosie Leaney & Scott Portelli, from visit to KI prior to lockdown)