12.3.1.Conserving wildlife – what is in it for you?
Conserving habitat and encouraging wildlife rewards you with natural pest control. One Straw-Necked Ibis eats about 200 grams of insects every day. The Sugar Glider will eat 25 scarab beetles (the main cause of eucalyptus dieback) a day, and 40–60% of the diet of crows and ravens is insects.
Small insect-eating bats eat up to half their own body weight each night. Small native birds (such as robins, fantails, weebills, pardalotes, honeyeaters, butcherbirds and others) found in healthy habitat will control aphids, thrips, scale, lerps, flies and locusts.
A good example of a healthy ecosystem at work in the rural environment is the story of the Sugar Glider and wattles.
You may never have seen a Sugar Glider — the smallest of our local possums and gliders — because of its nocturnal habit and secretive ways. But across south-eastern Australia, these little bug eaters have had a solid impact on keeping down populations of tree-stripping scarab beetles.
Research in remnant forest has shown that the number of Sugar Gliders is determined by the amount of nectar and sap available in winter. Important species for glider nutrition are certain wattles, particularly Black Wattle (Acacia mearnsii) and the sap of the Apple Box (Eucalyptus bridgesiana). Not all acacias are suitable as nutrient trees. For example, Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) is not a gum-producing wattle.
Population densities of Sugar Gliders range from as few as one animal per hectare (where wattles are absent) to as many as 12 per hectare, where wattles are abundant.
If you think this is trivial, consider that scientists have estimated 10 Sugar Gliders per hectare could devour as many as 18,000 large scarab beetles during scarab season.
You can improve the habitat for gliders by leaving tree hollows, ground cover, flowering trees and shrubs and wildlife corridors. Here is a good example of the value of linking remnant vegetation and preserving native vegetation on road verges, crown roads and stock routes.
Source: Greening Australia
