Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area - Bruce Quin
Hosted by Ben Cullen
Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area is a fascinating place. Covering around 600 hectares, it’s a landscape of forest, swamps and winding creek lines in the Yarra Valley, and home to two critically endangered species: the Helmeted Honeyeater and the lowland population of Leadbeater’s Possum.
It takes an extraordinary number of people to care for a place like Yellingbo. Over many years, agencies, scientists, researchers, volunteers, neighbouring landholders and community groups have worked to restore, repair and protect habitat and support the species that depend on it. DEECA, Zoos Victoria, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water and the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater are among the many organisations and people who have been part of that effort.
And few people are more closely associated with that story than Bruce Quin.
Bruce has spent more than 33 years looking after one of our most threatened species, and his name has become synonymous with the recovery of the Helmeted Honeyeater.
It’s been a monumental effort. Bruce has been at the heart of decades of work to preserve this bird and help stop it from disappearing, building an extraordinary knowledge of the species along the way. His knowledge of birds more broadly is remarkable too, and he has always been incredibly generous in sharing what he knows.
Bruce is also a kind and gentle man. He’s modest, caring and incredibly pleasant to be around. I was lucky to spend this time with him.
For more than three decades, Bruce has been one of the faces of the Helmeted Honeyeater’s recovery. He has watched generations of birds come and go, known individual birds, and accumulated a depth of knowledge that can only come from spending so much of your life caring for and understanding a species.
It’s an extraordinary contribution, not only to the Helmeted Honeyeater, but to conservation more broadly. The knowledge Bruce has helped build over those years will continue to inform how we think about threatened species and how we work to prevent extinctions long into the future.
In this episode of Finding Melbourne’s Nature, I join Bruce on his rounds through Yellingbo, walking from one supplementary feeding station to another. Along the way, we encounter Helmeted Honeyeaters, explore the habitat they depend on, and experience some of Bruce’s remarkable knowledge firsthand.
https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/places-to-see/parks/yellingbo-nature-conservation-area
https://www.helmetedhoneyeater.org.au/
https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/liwik-barring-conservation-area
https://www.zoo.org.au/fighting-extinction/local-threatened-species/helmeted-honeyeater/