Our Plants and Animals Return!
Arid Recovery has made a strong contribution to restoring the landscape and ecological processes through the removal and exclusion of rabbits, cats, foxes and domestic stock. Arid Recovery now has five times as many non-reintroduced small native mammals inside the reserve compared to the outside including the Spinifex Hopping Mouse and the nationally threatened Plains Rat.
Arid zone trees are long-lived, yet germinate very infrequently. The impact of rabbits and domestic stock on the survival of species such as the mulga is indicated by increased seedling survival inside the reserve compared to the outside.
Our research has also shown that the burrows of re-introduced mammals provide shelter for native animal species and shallow foraging holes dug by bilbies have increased soil carbon levels and germination rates of native seedlings.
