23-06-2025
Housing Crisis You Haven't Heard About!New Nest Boxes Offer Hope For EndangeredGreater Gliders South Of Sydney
In a conservation effort straight out of an episode of ' The Block', the endangered Southern Greater Glider (Petauroides volans) population of the Illawarra Escarpment is benefiting from a major conservation initiative, with recent trail camera footage confirming these elusive marsupials are already settling into newly installed specialised nest boxes.
This innovative project, a research collaboration driven by the Symbio Conservation Foundation and the University of Wollongong, and supported by GM3, JP Ecology, and Conservation Leaders Pty Ltd has seen 25 thermally insulated, fire-retardant nest boxes installed across a protected area of the Illawarra Escarpment, on the Southern outskirts of Sydney. To monitor their uptake, solar-powered Bluetooth camera traps were deployed—offering valuable, real-time insights into the gliders' behaviour and enabling researchers to monitor nest box uptake without disturbances to the glider/s inside.
Encouragingly, footage has already captured Greater Gliders taking up residency into three of the new luxury homes, signaling early success for the initiative with effectively 12% of nest boxes now occupied by the elusive marsupial.
This effort forms part of a much broader Illawarra Escarpment & Plateau Greater Glider Project—a research and conservation program aimed at understanding the local glider population's distribution, nesting preferences, and behaviour. The project builds upon two years of extensive thermal drone surveys undertaken by the Ecology and Thermal Drone team at Symbio Wildlife Park, and will help in guiding conservation planning for this endangered species.
The study is assessing environmental variables such as tree cover, the types of local eucalypt species, availability of tree hollows, and proximity to forest edges. The data will inform how and where artificial hollows should be placed to best support glider populations in fragmented habitats.
The Southern Greater Glider, Australia's largest gliding marsupial, can reach up to a metre in length including its long, bushy tail. With soft fur that ranges from dark brown to creamy white, large ears, and a gliding membrane stretching from elbow to ankle, the species can glide up to 100 metres through the forest canopy in search of food and shelter.
Once common along the eastern seaboard, in 2022 due to rapid population declines driven by habitat loss, climate change, and bushfires, the Southern Greater Gliders were listed as endangered. Their survival is closely linked to the availability of old-growth trees, which provide critical nesting hollows. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events continue to pose serious risks to their future.
The Illawarra Escarpment and Plateau's mix of wet and dry sclerophyll forests offer ideal habitat, and the nest boxes aim to supplement declining natural tree hollows. Researchers hope to better understand what influences gliders to choose artificial boxes over natural hollows, supported by vegetation mapping and predictive modelling that could expand the approach to other regions.
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Jarrad Prangell, Conservation Manager | Symbio Conservation Foundation, emphasised the importance of taking action locally:
'At Symbio, our goal is to help turn the tables on extinction for all species, and what better place to start than in our own backyard, here in the Illawarra. We've played critical roles in preserving species such as the Bellinger River Turtle, Green and Golden Bell Frog, and the Stuttering Frog, along with large-scale Koala abundance mapping. Supporting the conservation efforts of the Southern Greater Glider is a natural next step.'
The project is also a prime example of the power of collaboration between academia and industry.
A/Professor Katarina M Mikac of the University of Wollongong stated:
'The UOW-Symbio Industry PhD Program partnership is playing a crucial role in the Escarpment Greater Glider Project by helping bridge the gap between industry and academia. Through this collaboration, some of UOW's brightest PhD students are applying their expertise and research alongside Symbio's conservation team to drive meaningful outcomes for the Southern Greater Glider population of the Illawarra.
This partnership not only enhances our understanding of this endangered species but also contributes to broader conservation efforts by tackling some of the most pressing ecological challenges, such as habitat loss, climate change, and reversing the decline of native species both in Australia and globally.'
Dr. Monica Knipler - Senior Threatened Species Officer for Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water stated;
'DCCEEW are proud to be helping provide guidance and support to the team at Symbio Wildlife Park . The southern greater glider is a unique, arboreal marsupial that relies on eucalypt forests. The Illawarra escarpment contains a large, intact area of southern greater glider habitat which is important for the species long-term viability in the landscape. Population monitoring will provide valuable information about population size and habitat use, and this knowledge can inform management actions. We must work together to improve our understanding and effectively conserve this endangered species.'
Simon Thomas, General Manager at GM3 Dendrobium Mine, echoed this sentiment:
'Our partnership with Symbio Wildlife Park demonstrates how we can work together to support local biodiversity and protect the Southern Greater Glider. Our environmental field team helped install these nest boxes on our land, creating safe habitats for this endangered species and reinforcing our commitment to responsible land stewardship. The discovery of a local Greater Glider population was a welcome surprise following our koala conservation drone identification Project with Symbio.'
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With the support of cutting-edge technology and meaningful partnerships, this project marks an important step forward in the conservation of one of Australia's most unique and vulnerable marsupials—one nest box at a time.
