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Brookfield Conservation Park is a conservation park located in South Australia, about 130 km northeast of Adelaide.
| Brookfield Conservation Park South Australia | |
|---|---|
  Brookfield Conservation Park | |
| Nearest town or city | Blanchetown |
| Coordinates | 34°21′22″S 139°29′24″E |
| Established | 6 July 1978 |
| Managing authorities | Department for Environment and Water |
| See also | Protected areas of South Australia |
The area that became Brookfield Conservation Park was first settled in 1836 as a pastoral lease.[1] Pioneer farming families kept sheep, which were confined in brush yards overnight and protected by shepherds living in simple slab huts.[1] The area was later named Glen Leslie Station; during this period, the station grazed up to 2000 sheep and eucalyptus mallees on the land were razed for wood and charcoal.[1] In 1971, using a $55,000 donation from the Forest Park Foundation of Peoria, the Chicago Zoological Society purchased the land as a conservation reserve for the southern-hairy nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons).[1][2] The station was renamed Brookfield Zoo Wombat Reserve, after Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.[1][2][3] Six years later, the land was gifted to the Government of South Australia.[1][2] Brookfield Conservation Park was formally proclaimed on 6 July 1978, under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972.[1][3] Beginning in 2008, the park is now managed in partnership with Conservation Volunteers Australia.[3]
Brookfield Conservation Park comprises three main habitat types: open mallee Eucalyptus; arid woodland including sugarwood (Myoporum platycarpum) and dryland tea-tree (Melaleuca lanceolata); and arid shrubland including bluebush (Maireana spp).[3] The park is home to an important population of the endangered southern hairy-nosed wombats.[3] Other mammal species include fat-tailed dunnarts, common dunnarts, short-beaked echidnas, red kangaroos, and western grey kangaroos.[3] The park's birdlife includes two species of fairywren, the splendid fairywren and purple-backed fairywren.[4] Other notable birds include emus, ground cuckoo-shrikes, Australian owlet-nightjars, malleefowl, galah, Australian ringneck, crested bellbird, mulga parrot, black-eared cuckoo, Gilbert's whistler, elegant parrot, and red-backed kingfisher. Reptiles species that live in the park include the sand goanna and the eastern brown snake.[3]
Dirt road running through the park.
Accommodation for researchers.
Derelict charcoal pit along the Charcoal Pits Walk.
A southern hairy-nosed wombat.
Two galahs.
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