Sugar gliders, bats and geckos make use of nesting boxes in Whroo Goldfields Conservation Network

SUGAR gliders, bats and even geckos have taken up residence in nesting boxes installed in forests as a part of a conservation project.

sugar gliders

FAMILIES of sugar gliders, bats and even geckos have taken up residence in nesting boxes installed in state forests as a part of a conservation project.

Whroo Goldfields Conservation Network co-ordinator Janice Mentiplay-Smith said the animals sought shelter in the nesting boxes because the trees in the area didn’t have good hollows to nest in.

“Due to a lot of logging and regrowth the trees are all the same age don’t have the tree hollows they would normally use,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.

“Before human interference there would have been hundreds of nesting hollows.”

About 360 nesting boxes were installed in the Whroo region, in the state’s north, in 2009.

Since then rates of use by critters had increased from 8 per cent to 48 per cent.

“It just shows if you build it they will come,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.

“It’s amazing, each year more come.”

This family of sugar gliders were photographed inside one of the boxes recently.

Ms Mentiplay-Smith said the animals often used a different box each night and they each built their nest inside differently.

The conservation project is working to expand the nest boxes into private land where farmers can install the boxes to help house wild animals.