Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary: A Protected Nature Reserve and Ecological Landscape Map

The land that is now Mulligans Flat lies on Ngunnawal country. Before widespread clearing, the valley held a chain of ponds linked by inconsistent channels, supporting a diversity of plants, animals and human use. Stone artefacts, tree scarring and an old songline along the Old Coach Road survive as evidence of long Aboriginal connection to this landscape, and contemporary traditional owners continue to take part in caring for country through ranger programs and educational sessions at the reserve.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the area was used as freehold and then leasehold grazing land, but the pressure applied here was lighter than in many comparable areas near Canberra. By the early 1990s its unusually intact woodland habitat was recognised as critical for several threatened species, including many of the rare woodland birds documented by the Canberra Ornithologists Group.

In 1992 seven environmental groups asked the federal Minister for the Environment to protect the area from urban expansion. Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve was formally established in 1994 under Canberra Nature Park. Protection expanded when Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve was added in 2004 and the Throsby Offsets in 2014. Community engagement deepened with the founding of the Friends of Mulligans Flat in 2011, and a major scientific partnership, the Mulligans Flat-Goorooyarroo Woodland Experiment, was begun by the ACT Government, CSIRO and the Australian National University. A fox-proof fence was built across more than eleven kilometres in 2008 and 2009, introduced predators were removed, and the first reintroductions of locally extinct mammals and birds began in the 2010s. In 2018 the fenced area was expanded to roughly 1253 hectares, nearly tripling the protected footprint.

Mulligans Flat occupies a gently undulating valley on the northern edge of Canberra. Its surface is shaped by a volcanic ridge along the eastern side and a fault-driven quartz ridge to the west, both of which once supplied stone for Aboriginal tool-making and trade.

The vegetation is dominated by eucalypt woodland with native grasses beneath. Roughly half a dozen species of gum grow across the reserve, most prominently yellow box and Blakely's red gum, both now nationally threatened, alongside other remnant eucalypts. Between them, open native grassland, scattered wildflowers and a chain of seasonal wetland areas lead down to a large central dam.

The sanctuary is enclosed by more than eleven kilometres of predator-proof fencing, with smaller internal fences creating kangaroo and bettong exclosures. Walking, running and cycling trails cross the woodland, linking the reserve with the neighbouring Goorooyarroo and Throsby landscapes, and the older quarry sites and natural ridges are still visible in the topography today.

The vegetation community protected here is the white box, yellow box and Blakely's red gum grassy woodland with derived native grassland, a vegetation type that has been reduced to a small fraction of its original extent across southeastern Australia. Together with Goorooyarroo, the sanctuary protects the largest remaining connected patch of this critically endangered woodland in the country.

Around 150 species of wildflowers have been documented in the reserve, supported by the shade and habitat structure of mature eucalypts. Old yellow box and Blakely's red gum trees in particular provide vital nesting hollows for declining woodland birds, while the grassy understorey supports invertebrates such as the golden sun moth and small reptiles like the striped legless lizard.

The dam and the chain of seasonal pools add a wetland dimension to an otherwise dry woodland environment, supporting frogs, waterbirds and aquatic invertebrates that knit the terrestrial and aquatic layers of the sanctuary together. Restoration work, including the addition of coarse woody debris on the ground, has measurably increased invertebrate numbers and, by extension, food for reintroduced mammals.

Mulligans Flat supports one of the richest woodland fauna assemblages of any reserve of its size in the region. Its eucalypts and grassy understorey shelter more than a hundred wildflower species, rare moths such as the golden sun moth, and reptiles such as the striped legless lizard, while older gum trees act as nest hollows for the vulnerable superb parrot and other declining woodland birds.

The sanctuary is unusual for the deliberate return of mammals and birds that disappeared from the ACT and adjacent New South Wales decades ago. Eastern bettongs, absent from the mainland for roughly eighty years, were reintroduced in 2012, followed by bush-stone curlews in 2014, eastern quolls in 2016 and 2017, and brown treecreepers along with New Holland mice through subsequent translocation and captive breeding efforts.

Other woodland species, including kangaroos and a wide suite of smaller marsupials and reptiles, benefit from the predator-proof fence and the gradual recovery of the understorey. Researchers regularly monitor how the reintroduced animals interact with each other and with the restored habitat, providing one of the clearest pictures anywhere in Australia of how a whole woodland community can be rebuilt.

Conservation at Mulligans Flat is built around three linked goals: protecting what remains of a nationally threatened woodland, removing the pressures that caused its decline, and rebuilding the species that should live there. The reserve was classified as an IUCN Category IV protected area, a habitat and species management area, in 2011, formalising its role as an intensive recovery site rather than a wilderness reserve.

The habitat it protects, the white box-yellow box-Blakely's red gum woodland with derived native grassland, is listed as critically endangered under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and as endangered in New South Wales. Only an estimated 30 percent of the original eucalypt woodland is thought to remain across its range, so the intact old growth at Mulligans Flat carries conservation significance well beyond its local setting.

Key management actions include the multi-kilometre fox-proof fence, the eradication of rabbits, cats and red foxes, exclusion fencing for kangaroos and bettongs, weed control, restoration planting and the long-term reintroduction program run with the ANU Fenner School. The partnership with CSIRO and the Australian National University has effectively turned the reserve into an outdoor laboratory, where each reintroduction is carefully monitored and used to refine translocation tactics for similar projects elsewhere in Australia.

Mulligans Flat lies on Ngunnawal country, in a landscape that holds a long Aboriginal history. Stone artefacts, tree scarring, and the nearby songline along Old Coach Road show that the valley was used for hunting, gathering, tool-making and trade well before European clearing arrived.

The traditional resources of the flat were shaped by a series of ponds and seasonal channels that supported a wide range of plants and animals, providing food and materials for the local community. Quartz and stone from the volcanic and fault ridges were shaped into tools that moved through regional trade networks.

In the contemporary era, traditional owners take part in managing the reserve through the ACT Parks and Conservation Service Aboriginal Ranger Program and through the Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, which runs educational sessions in the sanctuary. A welcome to country is part of the self-guided walking tour app, anchoring the reserve in the continuing cultural relationship between the Ngunnawal people and this country.

Mulligans Flat is a fenced, ecologically intensive restoration site in north Canberra that protects the largest remaining connected patch of the nationally critically endangered white box-yellow box-Blakely's red gum woodland.

Its predator-proof fence made it the first Australian woodland reserve to clear foxes, cats and rabbits, opening the way for the return of eastern bettongs, bush-stone curlews, eastern quolls and other locally extinct species. The reserve combines rare woodland habitat, cultural heritage of the Ngunnawal people, and a long-running research partnership with the ANU and CSIRO, all within easy reach of central Canberra.

The sanctuary is open year round and the woodland has a different character in every season. Spring is typically the most rewarding time for visitors interested in wildflowers and active birdlife, when roughly 150 species of native flowers come into bloom and woodland birds are most visibly busy around nesting hollows in the older eucalypts.

Summer brings warmer, drier conditions, higher dam levels and good reptile activity, while autumn softens the light across the grassy understorey and surfaces the colour of the yellow box and Blakely's red gum canopies. Winter is the coolest and quietest period, with crisper tracks, calmer weather for cycling and walking, and easier wildlife observation in the more open leaf litter. Visiting early in the morning generally offers the best chance to see woodland birds and any recently released mammals without heat stress.