Hares and the damage they cause:
When we purchased our lovely Grassy Grey Box Woodland property we wanted to increase the diversity of plants on the property so that we could improve the habitat for threatened birds and animals.
Our plan was to add species that had disappeared; this article by A/Prof Ian Lunt (who focuses on endangered native grasslands and woodlands) influenced our choice: ianluntecology...
Two hundred years ago Honeysuckle and Oak formed extensive woodlands across many parts of south-east Australia. Today we call these trees Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata).
The demise of the oak and honeysuckle woodlands affected an entire ecosystem, not just a few trees. Eucalypt, honeysuckle, cherry and oak each provided specific foods and resources for insects, birds and mammals. In full bloom, the honeysuckle woodlands hosted a cacophony of birds.
We also planted many Bursaria spinosa (Sweet Bursaria) and Callitris glaucophylla (White Cypress-pine) as many threatened species also benefit from these plants.
Sweet Bursaria helps threatened woodland birds and fauna by providing a more diverse variety of foods over a longer period. A recent ‘state of Australian birds’ publication by Birds Australia said that the disproportional clearance of better quality land has meant that there are now less nectar resources for honeyeaters and insects during summer and autumn which is when the Sweet Bursaria flowers.
Lastly we planted Callistemon sieberi (River Bottlebrush) and Poa labillardieri (Common Tussock-grass) in our eroded creek to help to restore this important area.
We found that some species like Banksia and Allocasuarina were eaten by everything but our Bursaria, Callistemon and Callitris were never eaten so we took the guards off.
Then along came the drought and everything changed as hares began eating our plants.
This video first shows the hares at 2 ponds in our large kangaroo exclusion area where there is still grass. This is fantastic for our native seed eating birds, but unfortunately also provides harbor for pests like hares.
Next you see some of our Callitris plants which were doing well but are now being killed by hares. Then you see re-guarded Bursaria plants, hopefully they will now be safe. The guards are lifted and stapled off the ground to make them a bit higher.
We are systematically re-guarding and/or re-stapling every plant on our property.The Callistemons are not shown but they are also being eaten and ring-barked.
Next you see some old footage of hares jumping the creek followed by hares at our big dam. This area is also fenced to exclude kangaroos and you can see how the Allocasuarina are being eaten by hares even though they are guarded. The hares ring-bark the stems till they fall over so the plants go from being quite tall to being cut off at guard height. This is our next area to work on!
Негізгі бет Hares make the drought even more difficult!
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