TEN sugar gliders are being put through their paces in their own gym as part of a program developed by Bulimba Creek Catchment group B4C.

Volunteers from the Carindale-based environment group built the glider gym as part of a release program to improve the survival rate of orphaned or injured sugar gliders as they are released back to bushland.

The gym was recently set up at the Petrie home of registered wildlife carer and B4C operations manager Stefan Hattingh.

The first group is due to be released by mid-March.

Mr Hattingh said the gym was designed to get the baby gliders “survival fit”.

“I refer to them as mini possums on Red Bull. They are so active and so fast,” he said.

“You have to get them in a large enclosure to get them fit and moving. It is learnt behaviour to jump and glide and do all these things.

“You want to give them the best chance you can. Until they get that active and fast, they are a sitting duck for any predator.

“All carers are guilty, you overfeed the gliders and they just get fat. A fat glider can’t glide.”

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The 7m long enclosure has nest boxes, ropes and pulleys and logs with hollows.

“I pull on pulleys and I put food in the middle of this enclosure so they have to jump on food and jump away from it,” Mr Hattingh said.

“It is in their nature to run and jump and glide and there is a breeze blowing through, they chase each other and they lose weight and they get fit.”

media_camera Wildlife carer Stefan Hattingh. Picture: AAP/Renae Droop

The gliders in training in the gym have become stars, featured last week with live streaming on the ABCs’ Wild Oz program online.

The orphaned gliders also form groups in the glider gym, bond and are released together to improve their chances of surviving.

Mr Hattingh said pressures of development and road widening were forcing gliders into smaller pockets of habitat more so than other wildlife.

“They are common if you have intact habitat. Here (in the southeast suburbs), the numbers are going down. Our parks show that some areas they don’t find them anymore and other areas there are only a few left.”

media_camera Wild sugar gliders pictured at a rescue home in Petrie. AAP/Josh Woning

Working with gliders is a big change for the former university lecturer in conservation and ecology, who moved to Australia from South Africa five years ago.

His experience with wildlife had been working with elephants and lions and herding a group of rhinos on a game farm.

He developed his passion for caring for the tiny gliders when he realised the threat urbanisation presented to them.

“People don’t realise that a tree that is lopped can break a link to a corridor for these gliders. A koala can get down and walk to another spot, gliders can’t.

“If they cannot glide across, that link is broken and they are isolated from the ones on the other side.

“Because of habitat fragmentation we find they are going through genetic bottlenecks because they can’t get across, for instance, the Gateway Motorway. It cuts their habitat in half. Whenever you have a road wider than 30m, the younger ones can’t get across.”