Mammals

Mt. Rothwell’s conservation success is due to the construction of feral-proof fencing, which surrounds and protects areas of good habitat. Mt. Rothwell’s fence saves native wildlife by excluding foxes, feral cats and dogs, plus rabbits and other introduced herbivores.

The design makes it an “exclusion” fence, not an “inclusion” fence, because animals on the outside cannot get into the sanctuary, but animals that are on the inside can, in theory, get out. The fence is only 2 metres high, as in Victoria, rural fences can only be 2 metres high by law to allow for the dispersal of the large kangaroos.There’s a considerable financial investment of $15,000 – $20,000/km to build this sort of fence but it is not vastly different from more ‘normal’ types of farm fencing and is elegant in it’s simplicity.

The important features of the fence at Mt. Rothwell are as follows: -
At the top of the fence, an overhanging lip extends for 30cm which makes it impossible for animals to climb over and much harder for animals to jump over.

Three electrified strands of wire are present, running at between 5,000 - 7,500 volts and around 4 amps. These wires will not kill an animal, but will shock it into jumping off the fence. Energisers create a pulsating electrical current along the hot wires and the brand used at Mt. Rothwell is the commonly used type in electrified stock fences. There is a hot wire at the top of the fence along the end of the overhanging lip and the other two strands run on the inside and outside of the fence at the 1 metre mark. Most importantly, these hot wires will trigger an alarm in the office and page a staff member if something happens to break the current (e.g. tree falling on fence).

The wire netting is strung loosely to its supports, making the fence slack and insecure to animals that might try to climb it.

A lighter gauge wire netting is used from the 1 metre mark to the top, and a heavy gauge wire netting is used from the bottom to the 1 metre mark to stop foxes or dogs from biting or chewing through.

A 30cm-wide wire netting skirt lies flat on the ground both sides of the fence (not buried underneath) and its pegged down to prevent animals from being able to burrow under it.

A solar panel and box is located just east of the Zone 1 gate, which is part of the computerised telemetry system that monitors the entire fence-line and indicates on a display in the office where any faults are located.

The gates themselves are located within larger 2.4 meter panels of fencing, so that the outer strainer posts are taking the weight of the fence-line itself, not the gateposts. The taller electrified wires are kept well away from people above the gate. The height of the gate also makes it more difficult for a feral animal to climb.

The fence-line is checked visually, metre by metre, every day by staff to ensure there are no holes in the wire netting and that there have been no incursions under the wire skirting.