New Mahogany Glider project

Indigenous ranger Chris Muriata has only ever seen a mahogany glider in the wild once.

“To finally see one – it made me happy,’’ he says. “It was in vegetation at the southern end of a glider pole array we were monitoring at Lily Creek near Cardwell. We’ve been working on mahogany glider projects for years – since Cyclone Yasi in 2011 when we put den boxes and cameras in trees. More recently we’ve been part of monitoring programs. Still, to actually see one of these gliders is rare.”

Clearing vines and woody weeds

Chris and the rest of the Girringun Indigenous Ranger crew have been working with Terrain NRM to install more cameras – this time as part of a new mahogany glider program focused on clearing vines and woody weeds from forested areas along creeks in cane land south of Ingham. It will also be building on glider population monitoring work begun four years ago.

Linking the coast with the foothills

Terrain NRM’s Evizel Seymour says the aim of the latest project is to link coastal patches of mahogany glider habitat to foothills in national parks via vegetated waterway areas.

“We want this to be a functional corridor for mahogany gliders,’’ she says. “This is a new project in amongst a tapestry of projects that have helped mahogany gliders by increasing woodland habitat and bridging gaps in habitat through tree-planting projects, installing glider poles at roads and replacing the top two strands of barbed wire in farm fences with barbless wire so gliders don’t get caught up in them.

Cameras to build on glider monitoring work

“There has also been monitoring work and research to learn more about this species – to better understand the boundaries of mahogany glider habitat, the locations of small populations of gliders and how their genetic health is going.”

An endangered species

Mahogany gliders are listed as endangered and are only found between Tully and Ollera Creek, north of Townsville. The last population estimate – 1500 to 2000 – was based on surveys from 1994 to 1996, before the woodlands they live in were battered by Cyclone Yasi.

Based on early findings from the new glider monitoring program, which is in its third year, the latest project is at Yuruga and Bambaroo south of Ingham, where small populations of mahogany gliders live in narrow strips of woodland bordering waterways and farmland close to Paluma and Halifax Bay national parks.

Terrain NRM is partnering with Hinchinbrook Shire Council for the weed control and habitat improvement work, and with Girringun and Nywaigi Indigenous Rangers and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service for habitat and glider monitoring work to assess the project’s impact.