Dr Jonathon Howard, NPA Executive
Our wildlife can get entangled in structures such as fencing and netting and cause injury or mortality. While these structures may be in place to restrict the movement of stock or prevent access to fruit trees, their presence can also result in non-target animals becoming entangled. Recently, people from the NSW DCCEEW looked at the wildlife rescue data and here is what they found.
A variety of species across aquatic, terrestrial and arboreal environments are susceptible to wildlife entanglements. For some taxa, such as flying-foxes and coastal raptors, it appears entanglement is the major source of anthropogenic-derived injury. This is a not new finding. For example, study back in 2021 focusing on flying-fox rescue data found barbed wire, netting, and fishing tackle causes a disproportionately high number of flying-fox rescues.
A total of 295 vertebrate wildlife species were reported as getting entangled in NSW. This included sixty species of mammal, 192 species of bird, 47 species of reptile, and three species of amphibian. Despite a lower diversity, mammals made up almost half of all entanglements reported. Of these reported mammal entanglements, just over seventy percent were bats with 28% being kangaroos or possums and gliders.
For birds, passerines where the most common group suffering entitlement (24 percent) followed by pelican (about 20%), parrots (11%) and then gulls (10%).
In all reporting periods, the largest proportion of reported entanglements involved species not listed as threatened under NSW legislation. But the effect on threatened species is still significant- combined, it equates to threatened bird and mammal species making up 22 percent of entanglements – a total of 648 events. Mammals consistently represented most threatened species associated with entanglement across the entire study period. The grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) being the most frequently reported threatened species.
Materials associated with wildlife entanglement were extremely diverse, including items such as baling twine, rope, string, plastic, fruit netting, barbed wire, mesh, fishing nets, fishing lines, and hooks.
There are two key take home lessons that can help reduce entanglement. First backyard netting of fruit trees should use smaller apertures (characterised by a small aperture less than 5 mm × 5 mm) and keeping this netting taut as it is less likely to cause flying fox entanglement. Second don’t leave any fishing material behind: dispose of any unwanted hooks or line.
Acknowledgment: Timmiss L et al. (2026) Untangling wildlife entanglements: patterns represented in rescue data from New South Wales, Australia. Pacific Conservation Biology 32 (2): PC25035.