Taronga Zoo to 'rewild' cleared farmland in northern NSW with native Australian animals
Taronga Zoo is on a mission to "rewild" more than 3,000 hectares of land at the Nandewar Range near Bingara. (Supplied: Taronga Conservation Society)
In short:
Taronga Conservation Society has acquired more than 3,000 hectares of cleared land to "rewild".
It hopes to re-establish populations of koalas, spotted quolls and platypus, while controlling pests and weeds.
What's next?
It could take up to a decade for some species to become fully established in the area.
A huge piece of land in northern NSW will be transformed into a safe haven for endangered native animals including koalas, platypus, spotted quolls and regent honeyeater birds bred at Taronga Zoo.
The Taronga Conservation Society has acquired 3,050 hectares of cleared farmland and remnant vegetation in the Nandewar Range near Bingara in the North West Slopes region.
It is about a hundred times the size of its zoo on the shores of Sydney Harbour in Mosman.
Taronga, as part of the program considered a first for zoos internationally, will plant up to 1 million seedlings within the acquired land in an effort to restore natural wildlife corridors and re-establish critically endangered Box-Gum Woodlands, which have been decimated by land clearing.
Conservationists are hopeful species like the koala will re-populate the area. (Supplied: Taronga Conservation Society)
Taronga Conservation Society CEO Cameron Kerr said experts would then closely monitor the site and observe which local native animals take up home in the new habitat.
After that, they will carefully select threatened species born through the zoo's breeding programs to "rewild" the area.
"What we are going to do is first of all establish the habitat and get the ecosystem looking after itself so that pest management and weed management will decline over time as the habitat becomes healthy," Mr Kerr said.
"At the right time we will assess what wildlife is coming in from outside and what wildlife we need to re-introduce.
Mr Kerr says the site will be monitored closely to see what animals make the new habitat home. (ABC News: Warwick Ford)
"We'll have everything from koalas to platypus to spotted quolls."
Taronga currently operates 16 recovery programs for priority species across Australia and has bred, cared for and released 60,000 animals — from tiny eggs and tadpoles to juvenile and adult marsupials.
Its conservation efforts are credited with saving seven species from extinction.
Birds like the regent honeyeater will be reintroduced. (Supplied: Taronga Conservation Society)
Playing the long game
Mr Kerr said the destruction of habitat is the biggest problem facing Australian wildlife and "protecting what's left is simply not enough".
"Right now we are seeing the sixth mass extinction event occur around us,"he said.
"We are seeing species decline despite the protected forests that we've got in place, so we need to actually create forest."
Taronga's director of welfare conservation and science Andrew Elphinstone said some species are likely to return to the area quickly, but it could take more than a decade for the site to become fully established.
Mr Elphinstone says pest management will be a big focus. (ABC News: Warwick Ford)
"As we start the pest management we will see a bounce back in some species, small mammals, small reptiles and birds pretty quickly but with the habitat restoration … you will start to see more species and larger species using that over five to ten years," Mr Elphinstone said.
The site will not be fenced.
"It won't exclude wild cats and foxes so we need to intensively monitor pest species, pigs and other things, but the site is wild so there is a degree of nature taking its course," he said.
This is the first time Taronga has acquired new land since 1975 when it secured 300 hectares to establish the Taronga Western Plains Zoo.
Even the sometimes elusive platypus will be reintroduced to the unfenced area. (Supplied: Taronga Conservation Society)
Climate change resilience
The new site was carefully selected because it is forecast to experience relatively low changes in rainfall and temperatures in coming years, making it more climate-change resilient.
"We need to know that all the work and effort is not being undone by climate change,"Mr Kerr said.
It is being funded with $16 million of state government money and a corporate partnership with Sydney Airport, which will receive high-integrity carbon credits for its investment in the program.
Mr Kerr said it is a pilot project he hopes demonstrates the value of investment for more corporate sponsors, so that more sites can be purchased and rehabilitated.
"The project is called Habitat Positive and it's really quite a visionary project to restore and rewild over two-million hectares across eastern Australia," he said.