Australian cities are becoming increasingly more populated, but the battle to secure a home isn't only being felt by humans. Our wildlife is also contending with a loss of habitat, and authorities are trying to do their bit to help.
The Lake Macquarie City Council has begun using a specialised tool called a HollowHog to create hollows in trees for animals to seek shelter in. The natural process of hollow forming can take more than 100 years, and authorities hope their intervention will help fast-track shelter availability for native animals.
"Twelve hollows have been created initially as a trial," Lake Macquarie Landcare Coordinator, Simon Lubinski, told Yahoo News. "We have some more hollows being created this Saturday at a separate site in Lake Macquarie.
"Over the program, we're aiming for 50 to 60 hollows created annually across the city's natural areas," he said, explaining that the work first started in June.
The HollowHog drills a small opening in a tree's trunk, then creates a much larger cavity of up to 60 centimetres deep and wide further inside where animals can rest, nest and socialise.
Lubinski likened the procedure to "keyhole surgery" and explained the trees are "carefully selected to ensure we're not compromising their integrity."
More than 300 native species rely on tree hollows, so creating more in urban landscapes is an easy way to help support wildlife in increasingly more urbanised landscapes.
"Species that we're targeting include gliders (squirrel, sugar and feathertail), microbats and native parrots," Lubinski told Yahoo. "Specific hollow sizes and shapes are created after ascertaining what species have either already been identified onsite, or species likely to be in the area."
Randwick City Council in Sydney has also been doing its bit to create more housing options for wildlife, recently installing simple nesting boxes. Within weeks of 10 state-of-the-art nesting boxes being introduced in May, rainbow lorikeets were sighted nesting in the hollows.
Professor Sarah Bekessy from RMIT's Centre for Urban Research has been calling for a rethink of how built-up areas can be shared with native wildlife.
"At the moment we do development in a way that sees (nature) as a problem," she told Yahoo News previously. "Biodiversity is actually seen as a 'constraint layer' rather than an opportunity we should maximise in the planning process.
"The evidence is now absolutely compelling that connection to nature is really critical for our health and for our mental wellbeing, for our physical wellbeing and for our immune response."