Wildlife Friendly Fencing on Grazing Land

WILDLIFE-FRIENDLY FENCING ON GRAZING LAND

WETHERBY STATION CHANGES FENCING

AUGUST 2025

Mt Molloy grazier John Colless has switched to wildlife-friendly fencing and he rates it – both for his cattle and the native species living on Wetherby Station.

John is one of a growing number of landholders using plain wire as the top strand on barbed wire fences. He made the switch two years ago at his Brangus Stud.

“If a fence is tightly strained up, cattle tend to respect it. The top wire is really more about visibility – to give a fence height. We’ve had no problems with the cattle where we’ve put in wildlife-friendly fencing and we haven’t had any wildlife caught up in these fences.”

In the past, he says a barn owl, ibis and flying foxes had been caught in fences.

“They tend to hit the top wire. I’ve seen a barn owl tangled up after doing a 360-degree flip. I unwound him and took him to a vet who sutured the wing. I brought him back here and now we’ll sometimes see him sitting on the strainer post of an evening.”

Wildlife-friendly fencing wire

He says speaking with Jenny Mclean from the Tolga Bat Hospital led him down the path of wildlife-friendly fencing wire.

“She gave me a roll of two-strand twisted plain wire to try out. You get a bit more reflection with the kink in the two-strand twisted wire so it’s more visible than a single plain top wire.

“We’ve done some fencing around the cooler (where cattle are settled down before going into the yards), and in a timber paddock and we’ve just cut a paddock in half with new fencing. We’ve also run a fence along our boundary with Rifle Creek and added wetland fencing to improve native habitat.

“We had a 50-50 Landcare grant for the creek fencing. I wanted to keep the cattle out of there for ease of mustering and to let the rainforest regenerate.”

The wildlife-friendly twisted wire is compatible with traditional fencing equipment.

“The spool that it comes on is identical to the barbed wire spool so there is no extra work, and it can go on a four wire or three wire spinner.”

“About five per cent of our fences now have the wildlife-friendly wire as a top wire. When we need to do new fencing, because of things like flood damage, we’ll add more.

“If there’s a better way of doing something we’ll try it.”

Terrain NRM’s Tony O’Malley says the top wire of fences cause 86 per cent of wildlife entrapments. The species most at risk in Far North Queensland include masked owls, spectacled flying foxes, mahogany gliders, yellow-bellied gliders and greater gliders. All of these are endangered species.

Terrain NRM has a new factsheet with a range of options for making new or existing fences more wildlife-friendly.

“Top strand options include barbless double-strand twisted wire (barbed wire without barbs) or plain wire.”

For more information, read this factsheet: www.terrain.org.au/wildlife-friendly-fencing

The wetland fencing on Wetherby Station is part of a project with Gulf Savannah NRM, which is funded by the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation through the Community Sustainability Action Grants Program.