Cygnet River Conservation Reserve

What an exciting day, starting with the hunt for Duck Lagoon. We didn't find any lagoon or ducks but were greeted by a koala and discovered the Cygnet Park Sanctuary. It is a 310-hectare former sheep-grazing property on Kangaroo Island that Bio·R manages for conservation. Across the cleared areas of the property, 350,000 tube stock of over 200 plant species were planted, complementing a mix of direct-seeded natives, bringing the total to about 1,000,000 plants. This has created a woodland of high structural and floristic diversity, which now sits alongside the Cygnet River with its original riparian vegetation.

First established in 2009, these censuses indicate that the number of birds using the property has increased from 1000 to over 4000 birds in less than 10 years. Crucially, Cygnet Park Sanctuary now better provides for the endangered Glossy Black-Cockatoo. In 2009, only a few Glossy Black-Cockatoos were using the property, increasing to about 16 birds only seven years later. Following the devastating bushfires on Kangaroo Island in the summer of 2019-20, the number of Glossy Black-Cockatoos increased to about 36 (or 8% of the population of about 450 birds), demonstrating that Cygnet Park Sanctuary is already fulfilling Bio· R's intended purpose of creating habitat for wildlife, including species of conservation concern.Read more