Can fencing be wildlife-friendly?

Fences and netting can affect wildlife in gardens of any size. Here, Gardens for Wildlife Coordinator Emma McPhee shares practical ways to reduce the risks.

When I moved to a rural property six months ago, I inherited decades of fencing and acres of orchard covered in netting. With a background in wildlife ecology rather than horticulture, what I noticed first wasn’t the infrastructure – it was hundreds of metres of barriers to wildlife movement.

Black netting stretches over the orchard to protect fruit from birds in summer. Barbed wire runs along paddock fences to keep sheep in, while wallaby wire reaches right down to the ground level, excluding hoppers altogether.

You don’t need a large property for fences and netting to affect wildlife. A single fruit tree, boundary fence, veggie patch, chook yard or narrow gap beside a shed can create risks for birds, possums, reptiles and small mammals.

Over the past six months of settling in and observing, I’ve been learning which animals move freely through this landscape – and which parts of it still get in their way.

A resident platypus slips between our dam and next door’s, apparently navigating fences with ease. Eastern barred bandicoots visit at dusk, passing through multiple fences before tucking into the paddock’s soil invertebrates. Eastern quolls and brushtail possums seem entirely unfazed by fences – or by personal space for that matter. Watching them, I began to relax a little about my plans for drastic changes.

Then I found a tired, confused tawny frogmouth stuck in the narrow gap between the boundary fence and the orchard netting.

The poor bird must have tried flying away countless times, but rather than pointing upwards through the opening, it repeatedly flew sideways into the wall of netting before falling back to the ground.

After some rehabilitation at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, we were able to release it into a nearby stand of black gums. The experience sharpened my focus on reducing the impacts our fences have on wildlife.

To make sure I was heading in the right direction, I went to two trusted sources: WIRES and the Wildlife Friendly Fencing project. Here’s what we’re doing.

Removing barbed wire

Having seen what barbed wire can do to unsuspecting wildlife during my years in Queensland, it’s the first thing on the list to go. It can cause serious injury to birds, gliders, and bats, often in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

We’re replacing it with well-considered electric fencing and two top lines of high-tensile, non-barbed wire. This is particularly important in areas of high wind, low visibility, or where there is no tall vegetation to guide animals away from the fence line.

In a garden setting, this might be as simple as checking whether old barbed wire is still needed along a boundary, around a disused chook yard, or beside an overgrown corner of the block. If it no longer has a clear purpose, removing it can make a real difference.

Removing fences where they’re not needed

The areas where wildlife already moves freely through the property will become a dedicated corridor, centred on the creek line and dam.

Opening these areas to anything pademelon-sized will mean an increase in rabbits, but that’s where a holistic approach to land management becomes important. Revegetation of the wildlife corridor and targeted pest control can work together rather than against each other.

In smaller gardens, removing barriers might mean thinking about how animals move between your place and the next. A small gap beneath a fence can help bandicoots, blue-tongue lizards and other ground-dwelling animals move safely between gardens. Keeping dense vegetation near fence lines can also provide cover for smaller animals as they move through.

Where pets, livestock or vegetable gardens need protection, fencing still has an important role. The aim is not to remove every barrier, but to ask which ones are truly needed and whether they can be made safer.

Reducing entanglement risk

Some fences are still needed, particularly around the orchard, but they can be modified to make them safer.

We’re starting with known problem areas, including the gap where the tawny frogmouth became trapped. By increasing the distance between the boundary fence and the orchard netting, birds will have enough space to fly clear if they enter the area.

We’re also laying a skirt of mesh along the ground at least 300 mm out from the fence line, to discourage digging and reduce the risk of animals becoming trapped at ground level.

As for the acres of netting: we are repairing and tensioning it. This is as important over a large orchard as it is over a single tree in your backyard. Woven netting pulled tight over a proper frame is far safer than loose or sagging material. Slack netting catches and entangles wildlife; taut netting is much more likely to deflect it.

Watching and learning

Our next step is to install a wildlife monitoring camera to learn more about how our local species are actually using the landscape – and which parts they are avoiding.

You don’t need a large property to do this. Many Gardens for Wildlife members use cameras, quiet observation, tracks, scats and scratchings to understand who is visiting their garden and how they move through it.

Whether you are caring for a rural property, a bush block or a small garden, the same principle applies: notice where wildlife is already moving, remove the hazards you can, and make the places you share a little safer for the species that have always called them home.

What’s already clear on my property is that the wildlife here has adapted to decades of human change. The least we can do is start adapting in return.

Banner photo by Bill Wakefield and Els Hayward