Hiltaba, a former Eyre Peninsula sheep station in South Australia, turned into key reserve by Nature Foundation
Hilbata Nature Reserve was created to open an almost unbroken east-west corridor of nearly 750 kilometres on South Australian Eyre Peninsula for native animals, including the yellow-footed rock wallaby, to move freely.
Images courtesy Nature Foundation and Wikipedia
Hiltaba Nature Reserve, a former sheep station of 78,000 hectares next to Gawler Ranges National Park on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, was taken over by the Nature Foundation in 2012.
The reserve, with ancient granite hills overlooking diverse grass and woodlands, was home to species such as the yellow-footed rock wallaby, the slender-billed thornbill and desert greenhood orchid. Birdlife ranges from the short-tailed grass wren to the 1.5 metre tall Australian bustard.
Nature Foundation’s work at the reserve has focused on reducing threats from grazing pressure and predation. Total grazing pressure is from the combined impact of herbivores, native and introduced, on native vegetation. The foundation removed all domestic stock and most goats. Conservation included tackling degradation caused by rabbits and monitoring macropods. Feral foxes and cats also were reduced to help native fauna. Regular surveys monitor native flora and fauna at Hiltaba and feral pests.
The Nature Foundation worked with the Gawler Ranges Aboriginal people – the Barngara, Kokatha and Wirangu peoples – who lived the area for at least 30,000 years. The tribal land of Whipstick Billy, still alive around 1910, was said to have been centred on Hiltaba.
Around 1844, John Charles explored the region, using a bullock dray, Around 1857, Aboriginal guides led a government-equipped party with pack horse, headed by Stephen Hack from Streaky Bay, through the Gawler Ranges, searching for sheep-farming land. Hiltaba, with Yardea and Paney Station, were the first pastoral leases taken up in the 1860s. James Hiern had the Hiltaba lease in 1868 and sold it to business partner Anton Schlinke, who’d migrated from Prussia, in the 1840s.
Schlinke added many improvements but wasn’t able to farm it successfully, owing to rabbits and dingoes, and gave the lease back to the crown. Much later, his son William took over the lease. The Fitzgerald brothers, who lived there from around 1892 to 1912, built the dam and the original home. In 1918, Carl Hermann Nitschke bought the lease, and it was passed down through his family. His son, test cricketer Homesdale “Slinger” Nitschke, built the later homestead in 1936.
Cattle were introduced but numbers of cattle and sheep fluctuated. In 1918, there were about 2,000 sheep and a few hundred cattle; by 1939, there were 11,500 sheep. Cattle were removed from the property in the 1960s. Rabbits, dingoes, kangaroos, feral goats, irregular rainfall and saline water all challenged farming on the property. The MacLachlan family bought Hiltaba in 1986 and transferred it in 1995 to Janet Angas (née MacLachlan) and her husband Alastair. The millenium drought ended the property as a sheep station.
The South Australian government department of environment, water and natural resources, with Damien Pearce a leader, encouraged the Nature Foundation to buy Hiltaba Station with the help from the federal government's Caring for Our Country fund and the state government.
A prime purpose of the nature reserve was to help to create an almost unbroken east-west corridor of nearly 750 kilometres for native animals, including the yellow-footed rock wallaby, to move freely. The reserve has many species of kangaroos and wallabies as well as the southern hairy-nosed wombat, echidnas and dunnat, with lizards including Gould’s goanna and black-headed monitors, and snakes. Birds include the emu, mulga parrot and Port Lincoln parrot.
Two budget bush camp grounds were opened on the property and the station’s old shearers’ quarters offered accommodation. The Warren Bonython walking rrail, a loop of 10 kilometres, started behind the Hiltaba homestead and involved a steep climb to the summit of Mount Hiltaba, along rocky creek beds, ledges and slopes.
