Karte Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

Clo­sures and safety

This park is closed on days of Cat­a­stroph­ic Fire Dan­ger and may also be closed on days of Extreme Fire Danger.

You can deter­mine the cur­rent fire dan­ger rat­ing by check­ing the Fire Ban Dis­trict map on the CFS website.

Check the CFS web­site or call the CFS Bush­fire Infor­ma­tion Hot­line 1800 362 361 for:

• Infor­ma­tion on fire bans and cur­rent fire conditions
• Cur­rent CFS warn­ings and incidents
• Infor­ma­tion on what to do in the event of a fire.

Lis­ten to your local area radio sta­tion for the lat­est updates and infor­ma­tion on fire safety.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office
28 Vaugh­an Tce, Berri
Phone: (+61 8) 8595 2111
Email: rm.​npws@​sa.​gov.​au

Book­ing enquiries please email
DEW.​RMOnlineBookings@​sa.​gov.​au

Emer­gency contacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing bush­fire) and police emer­gency situations

Phone: Triple Zero (000)

Police Assis­tance

Phone: 131 444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice SA – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: 0417 192 335

Injured Wildlife:

With­in the park

Please con­tact the River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office on (08) 8595 2111 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0417 192 335 (out­side of busi­ness hours).

Out­side of the park

Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Karte Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 30km north west of Pin­na­roo. Access is via Pin­na­roo to Lox­ton Road.

• Park map

Assis­tance dogs are per­mit­ted in most pub­lic places and are there­fore wel­come in South Australia’s parks and reserves. Assis­tance dogs must be appro­pri­ate­ly restrained on a lead and remain under your effec­tive con­trol at all times while in a park or reserve.

As per the dogs in parks and reserves pol­i­cy, if the dog is not an accred­it­ed assis­tance dog, they must be trained to assist a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to alle­vi­ate that dis­abil­i­ty and meet stan­dards of hygiene and behav­iour appro­pri­ate for a dog in a pub­lic place. How­ev­er, refusal may be giv­en if the per­son with the dis­abil­i­ty is unable to pro­duce evi­dence the dog is an assis­tance dog with the appro­pri­ate training.

Before tak­ing your assis­tance dog into a park that does not nor­mal­ly allow dogs, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you con­tact us so we can pro­vide you with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on any poten­tial haz­ards with­in spe­cif­ic parks that may affect your dog. Please con­tact the park via the con­tact details pro­vid­ed under the con­tact tab or con­tact the vis­i­tor ser­vice cen­tre via email or on Face­book.

Dogs are not per­mit­ted in this park.

Dis­cov­er which parks you can walk your dog in on our find a park tool or read 12 dog-friend­ly walks in Ade­laide Parks by Good Liv­ing for inspiration.

The Karte camp­ground has pic­nic tables, toi­lets and fire pits avail­able. The Karte Con­ser­va­tion Park hike is accessed from the camp­ground and fea­tures inter­pre­tive signage.

• Remote area trav­el information
• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA
• SA Marine Parks
• Impor­tant: Col­lec­tion of fire­wood with­in Nation­al Parks is prohibited
• Please note, mobile phone cov­er­age is lim­it­ed with­in the park

The veg­e­ta­tion in the park pro­vides habi­tat for the endan­gered malleefowl, mallee whip­bird and a num­ber of rare orchids. More than forty species of bird call this park home.

Malleefowl

Malleefowl, as the name sug­gests, live in the mallee areas of Aus­tralia and are rat­ed as nation­al­ly endan­gered. Large patch­es of unburnt mallee in South Aus­tralian parks pro­vide impor­tant habi­tat for these unique birds.

Unlike most birds, malleefowl do not spend sev­er­al weeks at a time sit­ting on eggs. Instead the eggs are buried in a sand and com­post mound that pro­duces enough heat to incu­bate the eggs. They ded­i­cate up to eleven months a year car­ing for the nest, yet take no inter­est in their young once they have hatched.

Giv­en that it’s such a long and inten­sive process to cre­ate the right con­di­tions for the eggs to hatch, it would be rea­son­able to expect that the work­load is shared between the male and the female. In fact, this is not the case. The male digs and builds the mound, which is around one metre height and three metres wide. This is a com­plex and exhaust­ing task. The right amount of com­post has to be incor­po­rat­ed at the right depth. The male must wait for enough rain to wet the com­post before build­ing the upper lay­ers of the nest. The female lays one large egg each week until she has laid 15 – 20 eggs. The male opens up the mound to receive each egg, then buries it to the right depth. He then reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tors and adjusts the nest tem­per­a­ture. This involves reg­u­lar­ly ​‘test­ing’ the sand at dif­fer­ent depths, and scrap­ing sand on and off the mound to keep it at a con­stant temperature.

Flo­ra and fau­na species lists

To down­load flo­ra (plants) and fau­na (ani­mals) species lists for this park, use the ​‘Cre­ate Sim­ple Species List’ tab under ​‘Flo­ra Tools’ or ​‘Fau­na Tools’ in NatureMaps.

First Nations peo­ples have occu­pied, enjoyed and man­aged the lands and waters of this state for thou­sands of gen­er­a­tions. For First Nations peo­ples, cre­ation ances­tors laid down the laws of the Coun­try and bestowed a range of cus­tom­ary rights and oblig­a­tions to the many Abo­rig­i­nal Nations across our state.

There are many places across the state that have great spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to First Nations peo­ples. At some of these places, Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al pro­to­cols such as restrict­ed access are pro­mot­ed, and vis­i­tors are asked to respect the wish­es of Tra­di­tion­al Owners.

In places where pro­to­cols are not pro­mot­ed vis­i­tors are asked to show respect by not touch­ing or remov­ing any­thing, and make sure you take all your rub­bish with you when you leave.

First Nations peo­ples con­tin­ue to play an active role in car­ing for their Coun­try, includ­ing in parks across South Australia.

• DEW Park management
• DEW Abo­rig­i­nal partnerships

Dur­ing the ear­ly part of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, much of the land in the area was cleared for agri­cul­ture. The area that is now Karte Con­ser­va­tion Park was left uncleared as the sand dunes were unsuit­able for agriculture.

In 1988, Pin­na­roo Area School stu­dents, as part of a Bicen­ten­ni­al Project, con­struct­ed a walk­ing trail. The Friends of South­ern Mallee Parks adopt­ed the trail and now help to main­tain it.