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2023–2024 Kangaroo Island conservation highlights

January 29, 2025

Nature Foundation is proud to support the valuable conservation work of the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board and is pleased to share this summary of 2023–24 project achievements.

Kangaroo Island Feral Cat Eradication Program

The Kangaroo Island Feral Cat Eradication Program is one of Australia's ambitious programs to remove an invasive, introduced, predatory species that devastates our native animals. Some of the most threatened native species in Australia live on Kangaroo Island, many of which are at extreme risk from feral cats. The Kangaroo Island Feral Cat Eradication Program is a practical example of how good governance, strategic planning, community commitment and appropriate resourcing can effectively remove threats from the landscape, creating safe havens for natives and reversing the decline of critically endangered species.
 
The Feral Cat Eradication Program scaled up operations in 2023–2024, with traps deployed across the entire Dudley Peninsula and managed seven days a week to maximise control efforts. To increase trapping efficiency across large areas simultaneously, more than 650 cage traps were fitted with Celium trap monitoring technology and managed by the field team and landholders across the entire eradication zone. This resulted in 447 feral cats being removed using cage traps over 64,244 trap nights.
 
Advances in conservation technology are significantly impacting program results. 264 4G-enabled camera traps linked to eVorta AI image analysis software were deployed across the Dudley Peninsula. These AI-linked cameras have increased the program's efficiency by more than 80% due to near real-time access to images and the rapid and accurate identification of feral cats. Kangaroo Island Landscape Board also used the camera network to monitor trends in the Dudley Peninsula's KI echidna and southern brown bandicoot populations in response to feral cat eradication.
 
The program has also established a 'Call in a Cat' feline hotline, providing a dedicated phone number for residents and tourists to report cat sightings. This initiative proved highly successful, with 18 calls received, which helped direct efforts to remove these feral cats.

Glossy Black-cockatoo Recovery Program

Now extinct on mainland Australia, the nationally endangered Glossy Black-cockatoo subspecies Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus has its last refuge on Kangaroo Island. The Glossy Black-cockatoo Recovery Program started in 1995 with less than 160 Glossy Black-cockatoos in existence. It has nursed the population back from the brink of extinction and helped it spread eastwards across the island.
 
Recovery efforts were significantly impacted by the 2019-2020 Kangaroo Island bushfires, and efforts have since focused on delivering strategic on-ground management actions to assist the recovery of key woodland bird species post-fire.
 
Glossy Black-cockatoos have declined regionally on the fire-affected north coast of Kangaroo Island since 2020, and fledglings had a very low survival rate in 2022 and 2023. However, the eastern population (around American River and Dudley Peninsula) is increasing due to work providing and maintaining nest boxes over the last decade and controlling and excluding pests at nest sites.
 
The 2023–2024 annual Glossy Black-cockatoos census found a minimum population count of 453 birds. 33 volunteers contributed 300 hours to the annual census, and 48 property owners provided access to survey sites.
 
To increase Glossy Black-cockatoo feeding and nesting habitat, 4,000 Sheoaks were planted on 36 properties, nests were maintained at 19 sites, and three new nest boxes were installed. Nest boxes were closed in spring and re-opened in summer to deter breeding by pest species. The nest boxes were also treated to prevent feral honeybee invasions.
 
Students from Kangaroo Island Community Education and Oodnadatta Aboriginal School created nest boxes for threatened woodland birds, and a tree hollow creation tool was trialled to create climate-resilient hollows for woodland bird species.
 
Technological advances are also playing a crucial role in the Glossy Black-cockatoo Recovery Program. Acoustic recorders have been strategically deployed at two biodiverse planting sites to capture the sounds of spring bird species. This data will be used to train an AI program to identify Kangaroo Island bird acoustic data.

Kangaroo Island Native Plant Nursery

Kangaroo Island is home to many endemic plant species that are found nowhere else, and native vegetation provides many important benefits, including food and habitat to native animals, including threatened and endangered species. The Kangaroo Island (KI) Native Plant Nursery has offered an essential service for many years, providing landholders with critical advice about what to grow where ensuring that seed is of KI provenance, and ensuring that there is no biosecurity risk posed to the island by bringing over plants that are grown on the mainland.
 
In recent years, the Kangaroo Island Native Plant Nursery has played a vital role in meeting the demand for habitat restoration by providing seedlings of KI provenance to revegetate areas affected by the 2019-2020 bushfires.
 
In 2023–2024, the KI Native Plant Nursery propagated 45,000 plants as tube stock for the 2023-24 growing season. 150 different Kangaroo Island native plant species were grown via seed germination and cuttings from local KI material, with many of these species listed as threatened at the national, state, or regional level.
 
42 landholders were supplied with 15,024 trees and shrubs to help re-plant native vegetation and shelterbelts burnt in the 2019-20 bushfires, and volunteers donated 315 hours to assist with seed cleaning, transplanting and thinning seedlings.
 
Funding for the program also facilitated the installation of a new remote Wi-Fi irrigation system, which enabled remote control of the watering regime, a valuable time-saving resource for the team.
 
 
We congratulate the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, its team, and its volunteers on the important results achieved in 2023-2024. We look forward to providing further support over the coming year.
 
You can learn more about and help support these programs via the links below:
 
Kangaroo Island Feral Cat Eradication Program
 
Glossy Black-cockatoo Recovery Program
 
Kangaroo Island Native Plant Nursery

You can read the full report and results here (PDF).

Glossy Black-cockatoo photo courtesy of Exceptional KI.

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