It’s not every day that you come face-to-face with a Stripe-faced Dunnart or hold an Earless Dragon, but that’s exactly what our ranger team did at a recent ecology survey on Kokatha Country.
Our Kokatha Rangers joined the BHP Carrapateena Environment team and ecologists from Lathwida Environmental to take part in the annual Spring ecology survey at Carrapateena.
During the four day visit, the rangers built practical skills and learned about the different ways the health of Country is monitored, including pitfall trapping, bird surveys, checking the health of the rangelands and recording the plants and vegetation found across different areas.
There were some great finds along the way, including the Stripe-faced Dunnart and the Earless Dragon, as well as 78 individual flora species recorded at one of the creek line monitoring sites.
Experiences like this are an important part of building knowledge and skills through the KAC Ranger Program, while also strengthening the relationship and collaboration between Kokatha and BHP.
A big shout out to our rangers Chantari, Amelia and Taelah for representing KAC and getting stuck into the survey work, and to the BHP and Lathwida Environmental teams for sharing their knowledge and expertise.
Photo 1 – The Stripe-faced Dunnart
Photo 2 – Chantari with the Earless Dragon
Photo 3 – Releasing the Stripe-faced Dunnart
Photo 4 – Checking the pit-fall traps
Photos 5 & 6 – Learning about different monitoring techniques
Photo 7 – Members of the ecology survey team
