Wildlife Unlimited’s ‘Helping Hands for the Sheoak’ Initiative

In our latest round of grants, awarded on July 17, 2024, we awarded $50,000 to Wildlife Unlimited as part of their ‘Helping Hands for the Sheoak initiative’. The grant forms part of a $100,000 silver star level collaborative, multi-partner tree planting project to build on and expand Sheoak recovery works in East Gippsland with long term aims to provide a foundation for expansion across Victoria and NSW.

The plantings will occur in the heart of the Victorian population of Glossy Black Cockatoos territory in Far East Gippsland where the Cockatoos have recently been sighted. Expressions of interest have come from properties covering over 3,000 hectares that can accommodate plantings in Wangarabell, Genoa, Marlo and Lake Tyers.

The vision for ‘Helping Hands for the Sheoak’ is to see Sheoaks, a key understory tree, expanded on private land so that the endangered Glossy Black Cockatoo and other significant fauna populations flourish.

The project is a template for other threatened species projects that require habitat expansion by strategic revegetation.

After the Black Summer bushfires devastated Glossy Black Cockatoo habitat, plantings of Sheoaks were undertaken on private land to replace this lost key feed tree. However, many of the plantings suffered a low survival rate due to browsing pressure, weed incursion or wattle regeneration. A higher seedling success rate is predicted for this project due to these learnings. New sites have been identified to complement the existing sites with landholders motivated to act and achieve this success. The project will also collaborate with Methodist Ladies College (MLC) students to replant failed plantings and a webinar will be conducted.

To find out more about Wildlife Unlimited, visit www.wildlifeunlimited.org.au