wildlife warriors’ innovative boxes

Solar-powered wildlife nesting boxes built and installed by the local Oxley Creek Catchment Association will help environmental conservation efforts in the south Brisbane and Logan areas.
The high-tech boxes, which will monitor and map species in a less invasive way, could be used by a range of species, including sugar, yellow-bellied, greater, and squirrel gliders, as well as possums, glossy black cockatoos, and other nesting birds.
Program manager at the Durack-based association, Phil Gunasekara, said the 16 boxes would provide a temporary home for animals facing habitat loss and enable scientists to understand how species live in this area.
“Unfortunately, due to clearing, various forestry practices as well as urbanisation, we’ve lost a lot of trees with old hollows,” Mr Gunasekara said.
“These boxes provide a stopgap for animals, while some of the reforestation efforts will provide us with other options for these animals.
“So they’re really important to be able to provide habitat; the boxes are there to mimic what we found in natural tree hollows.”
Each box is equipped with motion sensors that can detect wildlife, monitor temperature, and humidity.
Data collected by the boxes can be accessed remotely and enables staff and the general public to see which animals are using the boxes.
“We want to design boxes that are conducive to a variety of species, so being able to gather all the information we can from this particular nest box design allows us to be able to learn more about delivering habitat boxes for the species that use them,” Mr Gunasekara said.
“The beauty of this box is you can just go to the base of the tree and with your mobile phone, get access to the Wi Fi feed coming off that box, and you can just see what’s in there.
Monitoring technology inside the nest boxes would also allow members of the public to peer into the worlds of wildlife living in our backyards and could be used as an educational tool.
Wildlife boxes, also designed by Karalee-based company Comfy Creatures, similar to the ones that will be installed across properties in Greenbank next month, have been installed and trialled in Brisbane with successful outcomes, Mr Gunasekara said.
“They actually found multiple species utilising the same box at different intervals in time, which is something that we wouldn’t have found if we had been monitoring once every few months.”