Habitat Pods
Vegetation grows through, up, and around the degrading cardboard shelters, regenerating living habitat for wildlife. ReHabitat pods are emergency wildlife shelters to protect wildlife after a natural disaster, as their habitat regrows.
Habitat pods are flat-packed cardboard emergency shelters for wildlife, which can be used as a disaster response after bush fires (or floods, or other forms of habitat destruction or degradation).
In the critical post-fire period, wildlife need shelter from predators and the elements, while they wait for the vegetation to grow back. Thick regrowth reappears around 12 months after a fire. Rather than pulling shelters out once they are no longer needed (and damaging sensitive regrowth), ReHabitat pods are designed to be left in place to biodegrade away. Regenerating vegetation grows up through and around the pods, recreating living habitat as the temporary shelters slowly degrade, leaving no trace.
Field trials showed collapsed and degrading cardboard pods create a thick mulch-like layer on top of the soil, attracting invertebrates (food for insectivores like bandicoots!), and likely trapping moisture and nutrients while insulating the soil. These effects are expected to encourage and speed up vegetation regeneration.
Habitat pods are made from cardboard, delivered flat-packed, and assembled in the field. Our year-long field trials showed they withstand heavy rain and buffer environmental temperature extremes. When deployed in clusters they can also create warm spots that benefit basking animals such as reptiles and lizards.
We’d love to chat to you about how ReHabitat pods can benefit your project.
For more information, please get in touch.
Target Species
Target animals such as eastern pygmy possums, antechinus, bandicoots, and bush rats all readily use the pods.
Reptiles bask on the outside of the pods (which tend to be a few degrees warmer than ambient) and moved into the crevices formed by the de-laminating cardboard.
As the pods collapse, they form a thick mulch layer that attracts insects – providing a much-needed food source for reptiles and small mammals.
