☀ Weather station Live feeds
Skye Sanctuary · support

Restore the bush, and a refuge for the wildlife that can't go back

Some animals can't go back to the wild. They come out of rescue too injured to climb, or too slow to get away from a fox or a cat. They get patched up, and then there is nowhere for them to go. I have spent years in wildlife rescue, through the Cudlee Creek and Black Summer fires, and that gap is the thing I kept running into.

Skye Sanctuary is being built to close it. A safe, permanent home for the native animals that can never be released, held inside bushland we are bringing back to life.

Donate on GoFundMe
Simon at Skye with a wild koala resting in a young eucalypt
One of the resident koalas at Skye · Photo Simon Zappia
$390
one acoustic recorder, for birds, frogs and microbats
$537
one complete camera station. Camera, solar panel, SD card, mount
$1,000
one month of keeping the site walkable so the cameras can be reached
Donate on GoFundMe

What lives here

The sanctuary is a ridge above Horsnell Gully in the Adelaide Hills, and it is already full of life. More than 1,000 species have been recorded within a kilometre, 15 of them threatened. Koalas in the gums, echidnas and antechinus in the leaf litter, kangaroos through the paddocks, Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens in the heath, Cunningham's Skinks in the rock, and Square-tailed Kites overhead. The nationally endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot has its nearest record just up the corridor, and part of this work is giving it a way back.

The threat, and the work

But the bush is under pressure. Feral olive has taken over the gully, a weed that shades out the native gums, carries fire up into the canopy, and gives wildlife almost nothing.

A dead gum choked by dense feral olive
BeforeA gum killed by the olive closing over it. Photo Simon Zappia
Cleared ground where the olive has been removed and the woodland is returning
AfterOlive cleared, grass and open woodland returning. Photo Simon Zappia

Our job is simple to say. Weeds out, natives back. Take the olive off by hand and the old gums recover on their own. The harder part, the part worth funding, is rebuilding the understorey underneath, the shrubs and grasses the animals actually live in. Inside that restored bush, in time, sits the refuge.

Weeds out, natives back

1 The problem: feral olive A closed canopy over the gully suffocates the gums and understorey, taking their water, their nutrients and their light. The gums are the last generation. we cut and kill it 2 Stem injection, not machinery Drill and fill. The olive is killed where it stands and left to break down. A minimal disturbance method, so there is no soil damage and no spread of seed. water and nutrients freed 3 The gums recover on their own No longer starved by the olive, the old gums take back the water and nutrients and resprout. This part the bush does for itself. we replant 4 Rebuild the understorey The shrubs and grasses that do not come back by themselves, replanted by hand. This is the slow work, and the part that needs funding. habitat restored 5 The wildlife returns With the bush rebuilt, the animals follow. Habitat first, everything else after. This is the whole point of the work.
Why we kill the olive: it suffocates the gums of water, nutrients and light. Remove it and the bush comes back.

Why we count first

You cannot protect what you have not counted. Before we clear a weed or plant a tree, we need to know exactly what is living on this ridge, because everything else depends on it.

A baseline does three things. It proves what is here now, so in five or ten years we can show, with evidence, whether the bush is recovering or not. It tells us where to put the effort, which corners hold the threatened species and need protecting first. And it is the thing every grant and every government agreement asks for. Without a baseline, no funding body and no Heritage Agreement will take the project seriously, and a threatened species we cannot prove is a species we cannot protect.

How we survey the ridge

THE METHOD Trail cameras Acoustic recorders Field surveys eDNA sampling What moves through, by day and night Birds, frogs and microbats, by their call Flora and fauna, recorded on foot Species from traces in soil and water recorded THE BASELINE What lives on the ridge, right now Verified, and shared openly on iNaturalist and with the Dept for Environment and Water so we can WHY IT MATTERS Prove recovery Measure the change in five and ten years, with evidence Target the work Protect the corners where the threatened species actually are Unlock funding No grant and no Heritage Agreement moves without it
The survey is the baseline. It is what proves the bush is recovering, shows where to act, and unlocks every grant that follows.

That is why the first thing going in the ground is not a fence or a tree. It is a monitoring network. Four cameras and an acoustic recorder are already bought, and the first station is live. We need more of them.

We also want two live cameras so you can watch the ridge yourself, and a weather station. Over time we will publish the camera images and a database of everything we find.

This is the grassroots of the whole idea. Not the finished sanctuary, the beginning of it. What you fund here is the first real step, the groundwork that the restoration, the grants, the charity status and the refuge all have to stand on. Get this in the ground and the rest becomes possible.

You fund the evidence. I fund the work. I am putting in another $15,000 of my own for the clearing, weeding and replanting, on top of what I have already spent.

Skye Sanctuary is not a registered charity yet, so this is not a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar is accounted for here, and everything it buys goes to the not-for-profit the day it is registered.

The exact numbers

Because you should be able to check them.
Trail cameras, solar panels, mounts, SD cards, two acoustic recorders$3,567
Live cameras, their solar, mounting and the weather station$3,400
Survey kit. Photopoints, eDNA kit, field kit$700
Site access and maintenance, six months at $1,000$6,000
Contingency on the above, 10 per cent$1,367
Registering the not-for-profit$5,000
Total$20,034

We will post progress at skyesanctuary.org.au. Every station that goes up, and everything that turns up on camera. If you cannot give, sharing this helps.

Thank you.
Simon

Updates

Updates will appear here as camera stations go up and species turn up on them.
Donate on GoFundMe