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Safe Havens Large Forest Owls Project Update - December 2025
Saturday, 6th December 2025
Spring Update
Since the last update, the Large Forest Owls team have been continuing to work hard, recently installing the 450th nestbox as part of the Safe Havens Project. This brings the total number of nestboxes in the network to 812, spanning the Richmond and Clarence Valley lowlands of northern NSW.
After a wet winter, the team recently finished their round of spring monitoring which showed that 85% of nestboxes are being used by twelve different native species. Nestboxes are checked twice a year, and some have permanent cameras installed recording their usage, providing us with great imagery including the photo from this article. The results from monitoring has shown the nestboxes are effective in providing homes for wildlife, including breeding habitat, in areas where hollow bearing trees have previously been removed by forestry, agriculture and bushfire.
We are also happy to share that our field ecologists Hank and Sue have found a new Barking Owl nest tree on one of our project properties. Additionally, the project outcomes were presented at the Ornithological conference held in Perth.
What’s next?
The team are now getting ready to run a couple of further workshops, including one with local Bundjalung Rangers from Minyumai and Jali Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), where they will be talking to the Rangers about owl identification, habitat use, and survey methods they can use on their Country. They are also continuing to analyse the data collected from the acoustic monitoring and nestbox programs. These results provide a clearer picture of the occupancy of owls across the study area, and the effectiveness of the nestbox program to support hollow dependant wildlife.