Twenty-five nesting boxes will be installed on Western Power infrastructure in the Perth and Peel regions, as part of a project to provide additional shelter for native fauna.
Four of the nesting boxes will be fitted with live-feed cameras and along with the remainder will be regularly monitored over the course of the project to gauge their effectiveness as a breeding habitat.
Working with The Re-Cyc-Ology Project, Western Power held an environmental education workshop where staff built the 25 nesting boxes. Three nesting boxes will be installed at Western Power’s Northern Terminal in Malaga, four at its Jandakot Depot with the reminder installed on infrastructure in Guildford, Martin, Oakford and at Kemerton.
Western Power Environmental, Safety and Planning Assessments Team Leader James Widenbar said detailed habitat assessments had been completed to select the locations for the boxes, with six different designs (small/large mammal, small/medium parrot, horizontal and very large, vertical) allocated based on the type of animal likely to frequent the area.
“Natural cavities in trees that can be used as habitat can take many years to form, so are often rare or absent in developed areas,” he said.
“A number of depots and terminals under Western Power’s control have known native fauna within their areas including Carnaby’s, Forest Red-tailed and Baudin’s cockatoos, native bees, ducks, wallabies, skinks and phascogales – while some sites border conservation areas.
“This project builds on Western Power’s commitment and work to protect and conserve the natural environment we operate in.
“We’re constantly looking for new ways to help conserve the unique environments found at and around our assets and depots – which are often located on large tracts of land – and protect the native species that inhabit them.
“These nesting boxes will be regularly monitored as most have been installed in areas with natural habitat or where animals had been sighted, while others have been installed in locations where no animals were identified, in the hope of aiding in the detection of new communities of local fauna.
“Monitoring is important as boxes that become home to pest species or which aren’t used can then be relocated to other sites to better support local fauna. This will also enable us to potentially install more boxes if vulnerable or threatened species like black cockatoos are found to be using them successfully.
“Four of the boxes will also be monitored by live-feed CCTV, so we hope to be able to share some footage of some new arrivals in the near future.”