Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary is a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...

in the Avon Valley, north-east of

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

in south-west

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. It is in the Avon-Wheatbelt

Bioregion A bioregion is a geographical area, on land or at sea, defined not by administrative boundaries, but by distinct characteristics such as plant and animal species, ecological systems, soils and landforms, Human settlement, human settlements, and ...

and is owned and managed by the

Australian Wildlife Conservancy The Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is an independent Australian nonprofit organisation, working to conserve threatened wildlife and ecosystems in Australia. AWC is the largest private owner and manager of land for conservation in Austral ...

(AWC).

History

Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary consists of several properties consolidated to form a corridor between the

Walyunga Walyunga National Park is a national park in Western Australia, 35 km northeast of Perth along the Great Northern Highway. There is also an eponymous locality of the City of Swan, but the boundaries of the national park and the locality are ...

and

Avon Valley National Park Avon Valley is a national park in Western Australia, 47 kilometres northeast of Perth. It was named after the Avon River (Western Australia), Avon River, which flows through it. The area is an undulating plateau with the sides of the valley ...

s. Negotiations during the 1990s culminated in its formal opening in 1998. Since then areas previously cleared have been subject to a rehabilitation program, and walking tracks constructed for public use.Paruna: History
/ref>

Landscape and climate

Paruna is in the

Darling Range The Darling Scarp (), also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, West ...

, a landscape of hills along a rocky escarpment, with river valleys. The climate is

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

with winter rainfall and dry summers. Average annual rainfall is .

Ecosystems

Most of the reserve is dominated by

wandoo Wandoo is the common name for a number of Western Australian ''Eucalyptus'' species, all of which have smooth white bark. The original "wandoo" is ''Eucalyptus wandoo''. Additional species have been given this name because of a perceived likeness w ...

and powderbark

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

s, with extensive areas of

heathland A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...

and some patches of

jarrah ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with rough, fibro ...

and marri forest. Flooded gum and

paperbark ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles, bottlebrushes or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They ...

occur along the Avon River.Paruna: Ecosystems
/ref>

Fauna

Significant mammal species present are

chuditch The western quoll (''Dasyurus geoffroii'') is Western Australia's largest endemic mammalian carnivore. One of the many marsupial mammals native to Australia, it is also known as the chuditch. The species is currently classed as near-threatened. ...

and

honey possum The honey possum or noolbenger (''Tarsipes rostratus''), is a tiny species of marsupial that feeds on the nectar and pollen of a diverse range of flowering plants. Found only in southwest Australia, it is an important pollinator for such plants ...

, while an important bird is Carnaby's black-cockatoo. In collaboration with CALM, and with an ongoing program to control exotic predators such as

fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

es, various native mammals that would have occurred on Paruna in the past are being successfully reintroduced. These include the

woylie The woylie or brush-tailed bettong (''Bettongia penicillata'') is a small, near threatened mammal native to forests and shrubland of Australia. A member of the rat-kangaroo family ( Potoroidae), it moves by hopping and is active at night, diggi ...

quenda The quenda (''Isoodon fusciventer''), also known as the southwestern brown bandicoot or western brown bandicoot, is a small marsupial species endemic to Southwest Australia. Though it was originally treated as a subspecies of the southern brown ...

black-flanked rock-wallaby The black-flanked rock-wallaby (''Petrogale lateralis''), also known as the black-footed rock-wallaby or warru, is a species of wallaby, one of several rock-wallabies in the genus '' Petrogale''. A shy, nocturnal herbivore, its two main subspe ...

and the

tammar wallaby The tammar wallaby (''Notamacropus eugenii''), also known as the dama wallaby or darma wallaby, is a small macropod native to South and Western Australia. Though its geographical range has been severely reduced since European colonisation, the ...

.Paruna: Wildlife
/ref>

References

External links

* Nature reserves in Western Australia Australian Wildlife Conservancy reserves 1998 establishments in Australia {{Australia-protected-area-stub