Valley for Wildlife | Macdonald Valley Association

We’re all guardians for our environment, and Macdonald Valley Association’s Valley for Wildlife project’s intent is to activate our community in projects, programs and education initiatives for our wildlife.

Valley for Wildlife’s is a delegated sub-committee of the Macdonald Valley Association. Its purpose is Wildlife welfare and wellbeing.

Valley for Wildlife will target and develop actions and activities to support our community to experience, learn about and care for wildlife. We will achieve this through:
· Targeted actions and activities addressing specific wildlife programs;
· Facilitating education and training opportunities in wildlife issues;
· Linking organisations, agencies and knowledge sources with our community;
· Activate our community in wildlife guardianship activities (citizen science, monitoring & surveying, treatment & care); and
· Grant projects for wildlife welfare and wellbeing.

Launch Event 25 June 2022

The beautiful valley community packed the St Albans School of Art on Saturday for the launch of the MVA’s latest project “Valley for Wildlife.”

The morning covered a range of topics where you as a local can make a real difference to our wildlife.

The capacity crowd heard an overview of the importance of wombats to the health of the local eco-system and the challenges our lovely wombats face with land clearing, road accidents and mange. (And were treated to the much talked about wombat poo chocolate truffles from Carla Treloar.)

WIRES expert carers told us what to do when you come across a dead native animal on the road. Why and how to check for a joey that may still be alive in their mother’s pouch. We heard first hand from one of the carers of local wallaroo joey, Min found in her dead mother’s pouch last winter on Settlers Road and now a bouncing young girl on her way to living as a wild, heathy wallaroo. Also outlined was the importance of someone with expert training raising the orphan joeys so they can thrive.

What should you do if you have a possum having a party in your roof? How building a possum nesting box can help you and the possum live in harmony.

Caught on camera – we saw some fantastic footage and photos captured by trail cameras in the valley and heard some tips on what kind of camera you can buy (great ones for less than $100 available these days) and how to set them up. Maybe we should look at having a photo comp if enough people in the valley are keen?

We heard from Katherine Clare, from Hawkesbury-Nepean Landcare Group about their role and ways local landowners can be involved. We asked you what Valley for Wildlife should do next (subject to available funding of course)

This included:

Organising WIRES rescuers course to be held in the valley – this has now been held and we now have a number of WIRES rescuers and carers in the valley
Information on control of foxes and feral cats
Wombat Mange workshop
What plants to grow in your garden for our local wildlife
Possum and microbat box building workshop
A visit by “the snake man”
Information on our valley koalas

Local artist Luke Kelly gathered us to help bring the beautiful wildlife road safety designs of our local school students to life on the donated satellite dishes.

We can’t wait to see these put up around the valley to let everyone know of wildlife hotspots and how much we as a valley care about our wildlife.

Thank you for everyone for attending, you can stay up to date with our activities by keeping an eye on Facebook and keep visiting this project page.