Yahoo TV

STORY: Meet Australia’s new animal real estate agent.

Conservation biologist Matt Stephens is creating new homes for wildlife using the ‘Hollowhog.'

It’s a game-changing tool that he invented to create artificial hollows in trees just as Australia’s wildlife grapples with the loss of habitat created by logging and bushfires.

[Matt Stephens, Conservation biologist]

"So, this is the Hollowhog, this is what I invented."

According to The Wilderness Society roughly 300 native wildlife species in Australia rely on hollows to nest and shelter.

That includes 31% of native mammals and 15% of native birds.

The Hollowhog can closely replicate nature, but faster.

"Naturally a hollow will take the minimum of 70 to 120 years to start forming and then you know, the fact that we can rapidly install one of these hollows within less than an hour is, you know, a real gamer-changer. And to think that then that hollow that we have created may last potentially two or three hundred years into the future, and each year producing another generation of fauna."

The Hollowhog is a tool that carves into the wood of the tree, creating an entrance hole.

"It's a high speed-spinning cutting head with tungsten carbide tips that spins at about 11,000 rpm, a long spindle or shaft, and then with the ability to suck all of the wood chip out and the exhaust comes out here. And so effectively I can now carve that 50mm diameter, I can carve all the way in as far as I can reach, and in any direction I want once I'm inside."

While nest boxes have been one solution, Stephens says there were limitations.

Nestboxes only last around 7-10 years, while tree hollows will not only last but also grow.

“Over the years that hollow will further develop and so it will grow larger and larger and as long as the living tissue of that tree can continue to wrap more layers around the outside and outpace the rate of that hollow’s development, that tree will remain stable."

The Hollowhog has already been used to carve thousands of hollows across Australia.

The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service started using it to create much-needed habitats for Australia’s wildlife.

The Department of Primary Industry has also got involved, as have landcare groups and tree surgeons like Eamon Dempsey.

who right now is using it to install hollows on Stephen’s property.

[Eamon Dempsey, Tree surgeon]

"The very first time I ever got my hands on a Hollowhog and actually started carving, it really filled me with hope that my career doesn't have to be all about cutting trees down, and that there is actually potential there for me to have a more positive environmental impact."

Stephens hopes the tool will help Australia's hollow-dependent wildlife exist past the current rate of extinction.

He’s already seen a variety of species use the hollows, from marsupials to parrots and even lizards.

“Long after I'm gone, maybe 300 years into the future that the hollow that we carved, for example, the hollow that we carved today, will still be operating, it will still be there, potentially as a home for wildlife, just thinking about that I just think it's a really exciting thing."