Conservation Dogs for Detecting Greater Gliders in Logan
© Sam Horton
About this project
In June 2024, Wildlife Queensland’s Queensland Glider Network received $9,972 in funding from the Logan City Council EnviroGrants program to assess the effectiveness of conservation dogs as a survey method for monitoring the endangered greater glider (Petauroides volans) population in the City of Logan.
Listed as endangered in 2022 under Australia’s national environmental law, the greater glider persists in isolated patches of bushland across Logan, but urgent conservation action is needed to secure its future. Research has shown that traditional spotlighting underestimates greater glider populations, making alternative methods essential for accurate data collection.
The project aims to develop an understanding of Logan’s greater glider population by utilising conservation detection dogs as a complementary tool to traditional survey methods. This will provide vital species occurrence data, helping Logan City Council:
- protect and enhance core greater glider habitats
- improve planning schemes for wildlife corridors and environmentally significant bushland.
© Wildlife Qld
Collecting greater glider scat samples.
© Wildlife Qld
Greater glider spotlight and scat search.
Project activities
Key project activities include:
- Desktop mapping: Conduct detailed desktop mapping of each proposed survey site to identify regional ecosystems, critical/essential habitats, and existing greater glider sighting records.
- Site visits: Perform site visits to ground-truth desktop mapping results.
- Detection dog surveys: Carry out conservation detection dog surveys at each site, targeting greater glider scat (faecal pellets) as evidence of presence. Surveys will be conducted at the following four sites in the Logan LGA:
- Spring Mountain Forrest Park
- Park Ridge South
- Birnham Range Reserve
- Cornubia Nature Refuge
- Spotlight surveys: Conduct community spotlight surveys in the same areas to gather photographic evidence of greater gliders.
- Analysis: Analyse and map the collected data using GIS.
Project progression: 2024
In August, the Queensland Glider Network team collected greater glider scat during a spotlight survey. The samples will be used to help conservation detection dogs fine-tune their ability to sniff out greater glider odour. Further scat samples will be collected from different ecosystems to target various eucalypt scents.
Extinction is forever, so our efforts to protect endangered species must reflect the urgency of their situation. Using detection dogs as a survey tool provides a fantastic opportunity to identify and safeguard Greater Gliders in Logan, giving them the best chance for long-term survival despite the pressures of an expanding human population.
Partners & sponsors
- Logan City Council