Did you know that the Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee helps protect the endangered Greater Glider through conservation properties located in Mount Barney and Mount Elliot? Greater Gliders can also be found in the Upper Tingalpa Catchment.
Once widespread across eastern Australia, the Greater Glider had no listing under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) as recently as 2016. However, in recent years, their conservation status has been escalated from Vulnerable to Endangered, reflecting the increasing threat to their habitat.
Greater Gliders are Australia’s largest gliding marsupial, and they exclusively eat gum leaves, much like koalas. They can glide up to 100 metres, using their tails to steer between trees. Their gliding membrane extends from their elbows to their ankles, and their thick, fluffy fur comes in a range of colours from deep brown to almost white.
Despite their charm, Greater Gliders are far less familiar than Australia’s most famous gum-leaf eater, the koala. Once people get to know them, they have no trouble winning hearts and minds. Like many of Australia’s rare mammals, raising awareness of the Greater Glider is crucial to ensuring their future protection. As Baba Dioum once said, “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” (1968).
Greater Gliders live high in the canopy and prefer trees with a diameter greater than 30 cm for feeding, and trees with a diameter over 50 cm for hollows. An individual glider uses between four and 18 den sites within small home ranges of approximately 1.5 hectares. This means they require quality habitat with many mature, hollow-bearing trees. With hollows often taking over 100 years to form, Greater Gliders are highly vulnerable to habitat loss from logging and development.
The physiology and eucalyptus diet of Greater Gliders also make them vulnerable to higher temperatures and extreme weather events, particularly warmer nights above 20°C and prolonged drought. They also need appropriately insulated hollows, which are difficult to replace with artificial alternatives.
Finding Greater Gliders is no easy task. Living high in the canopy and insulated by their thick fur, they are challenging to detect through traditional spotlighting surveys and even thermal imaging, which is commonly used to find koalas. Detection dogs have become a valuable tool, trained to sniff out the smaller-than-possum scats of Greater Gliders, helping direct spotlighting efforts.
Greater Gliders have been discovered in bushland close to, and sometimes within, Australia’s east coast capital cities, including Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. This means that local development decisions can directly impact the survival of these animals. Fortunately, efforts to protect the Greater Glider are gaining momentum, with citizen scientists and environmental groups playing an active role in monitoring and advocating for their conservation.
Matt Cecil from Wildlife Queensland will be our keynote speaker at the upcoming Upper Tingalpa Creekcare Neighbourhood Workshop (Saturday 12th October). If you live in the Upper Tingalpa Catchment and would like to attend the workshop, please contact B4C on (07) 3398 8003.
