In winter, many wildlife struggle to find food – you can help.

Many of our local native wildlife suffer food shortages during winter as productive habitats typically found on the coastal floodplains, coastal dunes and inland slopes, are often heavily cleared and poorly conserved, with many now classed as endangered ecosystems.

These habitats – such as banksia woodland, paperbark forest, littoral rainforest, lowland subtropical rainforest and lowland eucalypt forest – provide fruit and flowers during winter for fruit-doves, parrots, honeyeaters, possums, gliders and bats.

Even highly mobile wildlife such as the vulnerable Grey-headed Flying-fox are under threat from this food shortage. Wildlife that feed on fruit and nectar are critical dispersers of seed and pollen, decline in their populations compromises the health of
our native forests and the resilience of our landscapes.

With support from the Australian Government’s Bushfire Recovery funding, Healthy Land and Water is distributing 15,000 winter forage plants used by Grey-headed Flying-fox and other wildlife to community organisations and public and private
landholders for planting in targeted locations across South East Queensland to mitigate future food shortages.

The following list of plant species native to South East Queensland, are known to provide winter food for Grey-headed Flying-fox and other wildlife.

If you would like to be involved in planting winter food for wildlife, please complete and submit an Expression of Interest, using this link, by 06 February 2022.

Please address any enquiries to Liz Gould (Principal Scientist, Healthy Land and Water) by phone 0400 748 157 or email liz.g@hlw.org.au