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Conservationists fear wildlife poachers have been targeting animals in Darebin Parklands after more than 20 nest boxes were found damaged.
The Darebin Creek Management Committee raised the alarm online last month after rangers discovered boxes perched high on trees for sugar gliders and microbats had been dismantled twice in December.
Peter Wiltshire, a Darebin Creek ranger for more than 40 years, said he twice returned to work after weekends to find nest boxes in two concentrated areas had been taken down.
He hadn’t seen anything like it before.
Wiltshire believes the apparently methodical and targeted damage to 29 makeshift animal habitats – most requiring a ladder or pole to reach – indicate poachers could be to blame.
Wildlife counts taken after the incidents revealed Darebin Parklands had about 23 fewer gliders.
“I suppose you take it personally because … it’s like if someone comes into your workplace and just starts smashing up what you’ve been doing,” Wiltshire said.
“You become a park ranger because you love animals … so that side of it particularly weighed heaviest on us, knowing that perhaps the animals in those boxes would be stuffed into socks or whatever.”
Wiltshire acknowledged there was no hard evidence yet to confirm his poaching suspicion.
A spokesperson for the Conservation Regulator said it “currently has no evidence suggesting sugar gliders are being targeted for poaching in Victoria”.
But the Banyule and Darebin councils put out alerts as recently as Monday to warn locals to stay vigilant for anyone acting suspiciously around nest boxes.
South Australian authorities have previously warned that sugar gliders could be targeted in the illegal wildlife trade.
The Darebin Creek Management Committee has pointed out that wildlife habitat disturbance is a crime, regardless of whether animals were taken.
“People have been really horrified to hear that this has happened,” executive officer Annette Salkeld said.
“Many have a very strong connection to this park. They come here frequently, and have all sorts of memories from it. There really is a community sense of ownership or attachment.
“We have volunteers who monitor the nest boxes as well. So people have been really disgusted that something like this would happen.”
Nest boxes were first installed in Darebin Parklands almost 20 years ago to support wildlife that otherwise didn’t have a home in the reclaimed reserve, as most trees weren’t mature enough to have hollows.
About 150 nest boxes dot bushland in Alphington today.
Some are created for native birds such as rosellas. Others have been made for small marsupials.
Many have now been redesigned so their backs more easily separate if someone tries to dislodge them, giving animals inside a better chance to escape.
“It’s a bit hard to say [gliders] were definitely taken. But everything leads to that,” Salkeld said.
“You’ve got people who seem to know what they were doing. They seemed to know which nest boxes to target, and they targeted sugar gliders in particular.
“They probably would have had to have ladders, or equipment to get the nest boxes down.”
A Conservation Regulator spokesperson said the body had received reports of habitat disturbance at Darebin Parklands in January but found insufficient evidence to proceed.
“Anyone with information about wildlife crime is encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers Victoria,” the spokesperson said.
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