Wildlife Land Trust / Sanctuaries / VIC / Fort Runi

Lyn Thom is the owner of Fort Runi, a property located approximately 45km south of Colac. The property is a residence and dedicated wildlife sanctuary featuring an organic vegetable and berry market garden, and it is Lyn’s intent for it to remain for these purposes.

The property covers 1.56 hectares with permanent springs flowing through two forested gullies. Huge blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) trees form a canopy for native shrubs and tall tree ferns (Cyathea australis) tower over a variety of mosses and fungi, with other dominant species including southern blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus), mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii), soft tree (Dicksonia antarctica) and kangaroo (Microsorum pustulatum) fern. A small water catchment is home to native fish, yabbies, various frog species and a resident platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). Spruce trees close to a century old tower around the house, providing a popular food source for crimson rosellas (Platycercus elegans), and revegetation along boundaries and within the catchment area has been occurring for around 20 years.

Wildlife species known to inhabit Fort Runi include antechinus, bats, ringtail possums (Pseudocheirus peregrinus), skinks, snakes, carnivorous Otway black snails (Victaphanta compacta), and a wide range of birdlife including king parrots (Alisterus scapularis), yellow-tailed black (Calyptorhynchus funereus) and sulphur-crested (Cacatua galerita) cockatoos, flame (Petroica phoenicea) and eastern yellow (Eopsaltria australis) robins, grey shrike-thrushes (Colluricincla harmonica), Bassian thrushes (Zoothera lunulata), rufous (Rhipidura rufifrons) and grey (Rhipidura albiscapa) fantails, white-browed scrub wrens (Sericornis frontalis), pied currawongs (Strepera graculina) and laughing kookaburras (Dacelo novaeguineae).