Glenrock's squirrel gliders need volunteers on Saturday to help their habitat

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is calling for volunteers to help the gliders at a community planting day on Saturday to mark World Environment Day.

Bush regeneration officer Boyd Carney said the purpose of the planting day was to provide winter food for the gliders.

"With their big bushy tails and distinctive 'wings' of skin between their front and hind legs, which enable them to glide through the air, squirrel gliders are a well-loved resident in Glenrock," Boyd said.

"Sadly, these little guys are listed as vulnerable to extinction in NSW. Glenrock is an example of how important urban bushland is for native plants and animals."

More than 3000 food and habitat trees were planted in Glenrock in 2019, with the help of 75 volunteers, including mountain bike riders.

"These young trees survived a very tough, dry summer in 2019-20. With the recent rains, they are really starting to power along. We're asking this year's volunteers to help us maintain these planted areas. This means removing weeds, replacing plants that have been lost and planting an additional 2000 winter forage trees and shrubs," Boyd said.

"These trees will ensure the squirrel gliders have a secure source of food and nesting hollows into the future."

Associate Professor John Clulow, a conservation biologist at the University of Newcastle, said restoring high-quality habitat in Glenrock would "make a huge difference for the future of the gliders".

It's estimated that 100 to a few hundred squirrel gliders live in Glenrock.

"If we can improve the habitat by providing more autumn and winter flowering species in Glenrock, like coastal banksia and swamp mahogany, then the habitat will get even better and their numbers and density will increase even further," John said.

The gliders occupy large home ranges of up to 10 hectares, but they move around a lot to find food, particularly eucalypts, banksias and wattles that are in flower.

"The species in flower change over the year, so they have to move frequently - often up to a kilometre a night - to find those flowering trees."

John said the gliders need food, tree hollows for nesting and large forest patches to survive.

"They tend to disappear from bushland fragments below about 10 to 20 hectares. The other thing is really good connectivity between bush patches they occupy.

"If they don't have corridors between those forest patches, they tend to disappear over time or don't recolonise patches they have previously disappeared from."

The planting project is part of the NSW government's Saving our Species program.

Volunteers can register for Saturday's community planting day for the morning (9am to 11.30am) or afternoon (12.30pm to 2pm) session through the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment's volunteer information portal.

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