Know Your Nature Parks - Summer Edition

Echidnas are out and about. Please be careful when driving as they may sometimes cross a road! Keep your distance and make sure your dog is on a leash. 

Echidnas have been spotted on camera accessing the ‘echidna gates’ installed along the rabbit exclusion fence at Surf Beach. The six ‘echidna gates’ are specially designed for the weight and power of an echidna and are too difficult for a rabbit to push through. This forms part of a wider project to help protect significant coastal vegetation and cultural heritage in the area. 

Flora

The koalas at the Koala Conservation Reserve are currently in the midst of the breeding season. The males in the boardwalks have been very active, with lots of bellowing keeping the visitors amused. A new breeding area that now is home to three females and one male will open in early December! The male, Wirra, is only three years old and not yet fully grown and is meeting his match with the females in the area, often backing away after an encounter. 

As the weather warms up, the koalas will tend to sit lower in shady spots and dangle their limbs to cool off. Look for koalas in the wattles around the Koala Conservation Centre as they offer plentiful shade. 

A wild male koala was recently rescued from Ventnor. He underwent surgery on a wounded eyelid and was successfully released in the Oswin Roberts Reserve. He has been spotted by walkers on a couple of occasions since. 

On Our Shores and In Our Waters 

Huge swells change the coastline almost daily and wash up treasures along the high tide line and Goose Necked Barnacles are found on beach-washed cuttlebones and timber.Southern Right Whales approach the coast on their migration south. 

Sharing Our Shores 

Over the busy summer months, Phillip Island Nature Parks is thrilled to be running a new community campaign, “Sharing Our Shores”.  This campaign aims to raise awareness of our precious wildlife who call our shores and beaches home, and awareness of what we can do to help protect wildlife during the busy summer period. Local primary school children are being invited to submit an entry in our poster competition.To find out more about the campaign and what you can do to help, please visit our website here.

Australia’s largest fur seal breeding colony is right on our doorstep at Seal Rocks. Late October marked the beginning of the annual breeding season with huge bull seals arriving, bulked up andready to fight to protect their territory and harem of females. Females have weaned their pup from last summer to prepare for the birth of their new pup.  

From November through December, around 4,000 pups are born on Seal Rocks and many die in the first month of life, some from being washed off the rocks. Before females have their new pup, they typically wean their pup from the previous year, called a yearling being one year old. From birth to weaning the pups have been nourished by their mothers' milk as well as learning how to catch food for themselves. Weaning is a difficult time for yearling seals because not all are able to survive when they leave their mother and become independent. So, over the next few months, you are more likely to see live or dead (mostly young) seals on our beaches. If alive, the best thing we can do is let it rest. Regulations state that, if you encounter a seal on a beach or in the water that you must keep 30 metres away and if you have your dog on leash, you must keep 50 metres away – thank you for doing your part to share our shores. 

Salps on Beaches 

It’s common in spring to notice glistening scatters of tiny, diamond-shaped clear objects along the high tide line. Many people think they are jellyfish, but they are a kind of sea squirt known as a salp.Salps are marine animals that feed by filtering plankton and algae and move using one of the most efficient examples of jet propulsion in the animal kingdom. They also have a complex life cycle, growing so fast that they can grow to maturity in 48 hours and are thought to be the fastest-growing multicellular animal on Earth, increasing their body length by up to 10% per hour. This quick turnaround time enables salps to take advantage of algal blooms, increasing their population size rapidly when there is a sudden abundance of food. These animals play an important role in cycling nutrients through the different depth zones of the ocean and also provide food for Phillip Island’s birds along the shores. 

Wildlife Rehabilitation