Wildlife Land Trust / Sanctuaries / SA / Aldgate Valley Refuge

David Mussared is the owner of Aldgate Valley Refuge, a property located approximately 20km southeast of Adelaide, South Australia. The property is a dedicated wildlife sanctuary and residence, with around 1/3 fenced off for revegetation and rehabilitation as part of a district Landcare project, and 2/3 currently used for agriculture (sheep and goats). The native vegetation on the property makes up a small part of a ‘community wildlife corridor’ which stretches for about 5kms and includes both private land and public reserves. It is David’s intent to continue weed management on the sanctuary, as well as to complete some revegetation (the majority now occurring through regeneration.)

The property covers 3.2 hectares, of which approximately 1/3 is set aside as a ‘sanctuary’ featuring predominant vegetation types of mountain white gum (Eucalyptus dalrempeana) and manna gum (E. obliqua) overstory woodland with a complex understory, and swamp dominated by square twigsedge (Baumea tetragona) and various fern species, which feeds into a dam.

Examples of wildlife species known to occur on the property include koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), ring-tailed (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) and brush-tailed (Trichosurus vulpecula) possums, western grey kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus) and water-rats (Hydromys chrysogaster), as well as numerous bushland birds and some water birds.