Wildlife Movement Solutions for Carindale and Mansfield

My last visit to Queensland Koala Society

Over the last year, Council has been hard at work investigating several wildlife movement solutions (WMS) for animal movements in and around Carindale and Mansfield.

WMS are wildlife-friendly crossing infrastructure installed where roads intersect ecological corridors to facilitate the safe movement of wildlife. They do this through increasing food and habitat resources, preventing access to the road in danger spots and facilitating movement where it is safe for animals to do so.

Examples of this infrastructure include fauna safety fencing, culvert underpasses, land-bridge overpasses, koala refuge and glider poles as well as rope bridges.

I’m very proud of one of the projects that was implemented in July last year as part of the Creek Road Wildlife Movement Solution action plan, with Council installing specially designed artificial habitat poles in the waterway at Donnington Street Park South, near Creek Road in Carindale.

Other solutions include the installation of wildlife awareness monitors which have already been installed on Creek Road near Weekes Road & Bendena Terrace, as well as two more signs on Old Cleveland Road and two on Scrub Road. Variable messaging signs are also being rotated during the breeding season along movement hotspots to alert drivers of potential crossing animals.

Creek Road Koala Black Spot

In 2020, Council commenced several research projects as part of Council’s Koala Research Partnerships Program, with one project being led by UQ undertaking koala research work in the Bulimba Creek Catchment. This project undertook a review of the issues and challenges for koalas at Donnington Street and at Creek Road, specifically in relation to koala movement and wildlife movement infrastructure.

Following on from the recommendations of this project, Council is now constructing a fauna escape pole along with a koala safety fence at the rear of the Bunnings property that backs onto Creek Road. This crossing area was identified as a koala black spot, as koalas would venture out of Secam Street Park area and across Creek Road.

This was jointly funded by Bunnings and neighbouring property Heat and Control, with construction coordinated by Council in order to improve koala movement in the area.

Donnington Street Parks

Through a joint collaboration with Cr Krista Adams, Councillor for Holland Park Ward, we were able to secure funding that sees the installation of fauna shelves for koalas and other animals in the Donnington St culverts.

These fauna shelves are raised timber shelves that sit along the wall of the culvert and are connected via a sloping ramp to bank at the culvert entrance to allow passage underneath Donnington St.

To compliment these shelves, 1.2m black chain wire fauna safety fences will be installed to funnel safe animal movement away from the surface of Creek Rd and into the Creek Rd underpass located near the Donnington St culvert. Fauna escape poles are also being installed at this location in order to ensure that wildlife is not trapped on the road-side of the fence.

Design of these fences can be seen below, with spring loaded pedestrian and locked vehicular access points included in the design.

Fauna safety fences and escape poles along Donnington St Park South

This smaller fencing will run as a trial after consultation with UQ koala experts, substituting for Council’s regular 1.8m fencing in order to improve visibility and aesthetics whilst reducing costs.

Offset Planting across Mansfield Parks

Through Council’s partnership with the University of Queensland and the Lord Mayor’s Koala Research Partnerships Program, Council will be improving and increasing food availability for koalas, reducing the need for them to move in search of new food resources.

This will be done by undertaking offset planting across several Mansfield Parks, namely Tillack Park, Edwards Park and Secam Street park.

Across Tillack Park and Edwards park, Council will be planting numerous koala food trees at appropriate densities around the edges of the open fields. This also includes infill planting nodes across areas of the park.

In Secam Street Park, Council will be developing an offset revegetation site and replacing weed trees with koala food trees increasing the potential koala capacity of the park.

Council is also proposing to plant native street trees across Creek Rd, Devlan St and Secam St to provide a refuge for koalas and reduce risk of wildlife vehicle-strike.

This is particularly important for Creek Road on the western edge, where fencing requires koalas to travel along the ground near the road and cross industrial businesses on the eastern side.

Fencing works will also be taking place at Secam Street Park to retrofit the Wecker Rd access gate with wildlife safety fencing as well as installing a short length of safety fencing between buildings to block koala access to Secam Street. This will divert koalas back into the park to use the crossing being developed at Creek Road.

The culvert furniture and fencing will be constructed and installed first at Donnington Street parks, closely followed by wildlife safety fencing installation and construction of wildlife poles. These are expected to be completed by the end of the 2020/21 financial year.

These are just some of the ways Council is working to protect our precious wildlife in the Eastern suburbs for generations to come.

I look forward to seeing these plans implemented in the future as part of Council’s Wildlife Movement Solutions plan for Creek Road and its surrounds.