Wildlife Watch

Willoughby’s Wildlife Watch program allows everyone in Willoughby to help protect and preserve the indigenous animal population. By contributing locally you are part of maintaining world-wide biodiversity.

If you are a keen wildlife watcher and want to report significant wildlife sightings Or to receive regular updates about our wildlife workshops and events you can contact council on 9777 1000 or you can report your wildlife sightings online.

Other things you can do to help local wildlife:

Children can join in:

• The Holiday Wildlife Watch program
• Awareness Activities.

Adults can:

• Attend information nights, like The Living Environment Talks
• Go on bird-spotting and spotlight walks through the Guided Bushwalk program
• Make their backyard bush-friendly.

Willoughby Wildlife Bulletin

Pool to pond and beyond

A pool converted into a wildlife sanctuary

This year Willoughby City Council will be introducing the Ku-ring-Gai Council Program Pools to ponds. This project helps owners of disused swimming pools turn them into thriving wildlife sanctuaries whilst maintaining their asset value (and potentially enhancing it with the right sort of landscaping). The process is simple, firstly you stop the tedious and sometimes expensive use of chemical cleaners. Then you add plants to your pool, in some cases this may require some underwater construction. You can also add some special features like an island which can be either fixed in place or free floating. Lastly you can artificially populate your pond with some native fish. The end result, depending on your own creative vision and landscaping skills, will be a wonderful wildlife oasis that you can still enjoy as a passive recreation area (that will be wonderfully cool in summer).

Already over 20 pools in the Kuring-Gai area have been converted with fantastic results. Featured on Channel Sevens’ Better Homes and Gardens, some of the ponds are absolutely unique beautiful garden features that provide essentially habitat for a wide range of wonderful wildlife from, frogs, fish and dragons to dragonflies (but no pest mosquitoes – yes there are non pest species too), herons and microbats. These ponds are also of regional wildlife biodiversity significance as they are effectively recreating a freshwater ecological system which has just about been lost from our local areas. Species such as Gudgeons, freshwater crayfish, and many water species dependant on insects and some microbats will most benefit, as their habitat is so degraded elsewhere that their long-term survival in the north shore would otherwise look very uncertain.

So if you would like to turn your pool in to a beautiful wildlife haven pool or you would like to create a pond, council can provide you with all the help you need. Wildlife officers are available to visit your property to give you some hands on advice and provide fish and some plants to get your pond underway.