Dear Great Aunty Flo,
Our Numbat Neighbourhood Project has just wrapped up after 5 years and I am so happy to let you know that the numbat population in Dryandra has increased!!! I am so proud of this project and what we have achieved. I’m feeling very nostalgic and want to share with you some of my favourite memories from the project.
I’ve always loved numbats, they were the emblem on our t shirts in primary school and as I grew up on a farm near Dryandra I remember seeing numbats when we were driving through Dryandra on our way to Narrogin for the weekly shop. When I started at PHCC in 2018 I couldn’t believe my luck that I would be working on a project about numbats and that I’d get to work with farmers around Dryandra, many of them I had known since I was a kid. Dryandra and the animals that live in there are so close to my heart and I was determined to see their populations increase.
Throughout the project I have worked with local farmers to support them with feral animal control and landcare projects including fencing bushland patches, reveg and weed control. I have been in awe of their passion and knowledge of the woodland, I have learnt so much and have been so pleased to see the time and energy they put in to increasing on-farm habitat for numbats and controlling foxes and feral cats that predate these vulnerable animals. I am most proud of the Feralscan maps we have created from the reports of fox and feral cat culls, there are control points all around Dryandra, these control efforts help to prevent these predators getting into Dryandra and predating on numbats.
One of my favourite parts of this project has been the phone call, texts and emails I have received from farmers and community members who have seen native animals they haven’t seen for a while or didn’t know existed at all. I’ve seen photos taken by a farmer from his tractor when he was seeding of a numbat on the edge of the woodland, a red-tailed phascogale eating chocolates from the bar at the local golf club, a pygmy possum eating moths from a screen door, quendas running through the crop at harvest, a bush-stone curlew heard and seen on farm for the first time in 15 years and numbats outside of their known habitat including in Boddington of all places!
We’ve held a lot of Numbat Neighbourhood workshops and one of our favourite places to hold these was in the McDougall Hall in Dryandra Woodland. We were running late to set up at one of our workshops because we had to stop and look at 3 numbats on the way, an incredible problem to have. The landholders who came to our events were always encouraging us in what we were trying to achieve and to have 70 people come to our Numbats in the Neighbourhood SHARE event on a rainy March afternoon was amazing.
Through all stages of the project I have been privileged to work with Wilman Elders and community. I’ve learnt so much from the Elders and have enjoyed siting by the fire, yarning, laughing and learning. I look forward to continuing this relationship with the Wilman community through all the work that we do in our local area.
I have loved visiting the local primary schools and teaching them about numbats and other threatened species with the help of the Project Numbat education officer. I even got to go to the Pingelly Primary School with a Wilman Elder, both of us had been students at the school. I also got to build red-tailed phascogale nest boxes with the students at the Wandering Primary School, we planted local trees to help improve the habitat at the school and supported the gardener with some weed control. There’s a saying that goes ‘’In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught” (Baba Dioum, 1968). I truly believe this and I was delighted to see the primary school students learn about, appreciate and protect their local fauna.
An absolute highlight for me was getting to be involved in a numbat release from the Numbat Breed for Release Program at the Perth Zoo and inviting some of the farmers with properties neighbouring Dryandra to release a numbat too. One of the people who released a numbat said it was one of the greatest moments of their life, he had been trapping feral cats for years to prevent them from predating Dryandra’s native animals and to be able to release a numbat was something he’d never forget.
I enjoyed working with DBCA, Project Numbat, Numbat Task Force, Dr Tony Friend, Numbat Niche Consulting, the Numbat Recovery Team and Perth Zoo and have learnt so much from all of them and feel very privileged to have been given their time and expertise. These are all people I had admired from a distance and to get to work with them was amazing. I am grateful to the contractors I have worked with who are out there day and night controlling pest animals, it’s a tough job but there would not have been the numbat and woylie recovery there has been without their dedication.
Our team at PHCC is the best, the people who wrote the project did a great job, my managers Mel and Karen are a wealth of knowledge and the project would not have been the success it is without them. PHCC volunteers and all staff should be proud of everything we do to protect and restore the environment within the Peel-Harvey catchment.
I know we still have a lot of work to do and we can’t drop the ball now and have a crash like there was in the early 2000’s. I have faith that activities in Dryandra Woodland and on farmland will continue to help conserve our iconic numbats. I can’t wait to tell you about our next fauna conservation project, watch this space!
Lots of love
Christine Townsend
