Humans aren’t the only species facing a housing shortage, but there’s some good news for the tree dwelling residents of Plunkett Conservation Park in Logan. The Friends of Plunkett Conservation Park have been awarded a Logan City Council EnviroGrant to install 30 nest boxes along Quinzeh Creek in the northwest of the park. It’s a big win for a group that only formed in late 2025, and a chance to talk about a problem that most people never notice: our forests are running out of hollows.
Why Hollows Matter
More than 300 native animals across Australia use tree hollows. Around Logan, that includes sugar and squirrel gliders, brushtail and ringtail possums, microbats, rosellas, lorikeets, owlet-nightjars and several species of owl. For these animals a hollow is a bedroom, a nursery, and a safe place to escape predators and hot days.
These animals can’t make their own hollows, so they depend on them forming through broken branches, fungi, termites and fire, a process that can be painfully slow. Hollows for a greater glider or large owl take at least 150 years to form, and in some tree species they can take over 250 years!
Hollows are Disappearing
Over the past century, clearing, logging and urban spread have removed old trees far faster than new ones can replace them. Studies in South East Queensland lowland forests found less than four living hollow-bearing trees per hectare, in places where there should be dozens. More than 40 percent of the hollow trees still standing were already dead, and these stags usually fall within 50 years, and often much sooner.
Plunkett has a history of pine forestry and selective logging, so it’s also short on big old hollow trees. The park is now protected and recovering, but there’s no way to fast-track a century of tree growth and hollow formation.
Greater Gliders: A Cautionary Tale
A few decades ago, greater gliders were one of the most common species seen when spotlighting eastern Australian eucalypt forests. Their population plummeted by more than half in 20 years, and the Black Summer fires hit them hard. This previously abundant species was listed as Vulnerable under national environment law in 2016, and then upgraded to Endangered in 2022.
These fluffy tree teddies need plenty of hollows. Individual gliders in southern Queensland use between 4 and 20 different den trees in a home range of only a few hectares, and they can’t cross wide gaps in the canopy. Greater gliders have been reported from Quinzeh Creek Park, less than 2 km from Plunkett. That makes the creek corridor a vital link that could let them move back into the park.
For a long time, people thought greater gliders rarely used nest boxes. But most earlier studies only took a snapshot of occupancy, with a pole-mounted camera or a single climb repeated once or twice a year. Recent work by Friends of Parks Queensland in collaboration with Wildlife Queensland has turned that idea on its head. Using cameras fitted to greater glider boxes and left running for months, we’ve found that greater gliders are using nest boxes fare more often than we thought.
The Plunkett project includes boxes designed specifically for greater gliders, alongside designs for smaller gliders, possums, birds and microbats. Every animal that moves into a box is also one less competitor for the natural hollows that remain.
From Weeding to Wildlife
Friends of Parks Queensland supports our member groups with ecological expertise, training and practical help. Weeding and bush regeneration remain the core business of many of our member groups, but more and more we’re helping groups take the next step into monitoring and protecting the threatened species that call their parks home.
Plunkett is a great example of what’s possible. If your group has an idea for a threatened species project, we’d love to hear from you.
Get Involved
Once the boxes are installed, Friends of Plunkett will run regular monitoring events that are open to the public. You’ll help the team use a pole-mounted inspection camera to see who has moved in.
Keep an eye on the Friends of Plunkett Conservation Park Facebook page and the Friends of Parks Queensland events calendar for dates.
A big thank you to Logan City Council for supporting this project through its EnviroGrants program.
