ABSTRACT Virtual wildlife fencing presents as a cost-effective measure for roadkill mitigation, which aids in reducing fragmentation of wildlife populations by facilitating safer movement of wildlife across the landscape. In this study, we conducted an audit of a virtual fence installation in south-east Queensland, Australia. We assessed its reliability in flows of traffic and the effect that installation parameters and site conditions had on its effective operation in an urban setting. We made observations on the behavioural response of Eastern Grey Kangaroos Macropus giganteus to the acoustic signals produced by the fence. We found that the fencing activated consistently in response to headlights at dusk and dawn, and when traffic flows were dense, despite considerable variations in the range of installation parameters. However, we identified that the response of the virtual fence to headlights was affected by road curvature and we identified inconsistencies in the timing and pattern of activation in response to traffic. Behavioural observations showed a significant increase in kangaroo vigilance in response to the acoustic signal of the fence when resting or grazing, and kangaroos detected the acoustic signal up to 50 m away. While virtual fencing operates effectively and is a low-cost roadkill mitigation option that can be applied to the urban environment, more research is needed to better understand the effect of its acoustic and visual signals on wildlife behaviour and efficacy in busy urban environments.

Drones are a modern alternative to manned aircraft for aerial surveys, however approaching wildlife with drones may still cause disturbance. Understanding the factors influencing animal responses to drone flights is fundamental for informing guidance on lowest-impact flight practices. We reviewed scientific literature on drone flights conducted to approach wildlife and collated and quantified references to factors that should be considered in the development of guidelines and policies. The most referenced controllable factors were approach distance, noise emissions and airspeed. Other frequently referenced controllable factors included drone type, take-off distance, flight pattern, pilot experience and competence, whether consecutive flights were conducted and flight duration. The most referenced environmental factors were animal taxa, biological state of animals and ambient noise, followed by whether conspecifics are present, weather variables, habitat variables, whether animals have received previous exposure to anthropogenic settings, animals’ behaviour prior to drone flights and whether predators are present. Policies and protocols that address these factors have an increased probability of minimising disturbance of drone flights. The variability in animal responses across different taxa, different ways drone flights are performed and the different circumstances they are deployed in highlights the need for taxa-specific protocols that also account for geographical and biological variations.

ABSTRACT The views of veterinary professionals were surveyed to inform the New South Wales Government about the extent, cost and nature of services they provide to free-living native animals and their interactions with the volunteer wildlife rehabilitation sector. Our aim was to better understand the challenges faced by veterinarians and veterinary nurses and the veterinary practices they work from. The survey was part of an extensive review of the New South Wales wildlife rehabilitation sector to inform strategic improvements to volunteer standards and service delivery. We found New South Wales private veterinary practices and their staff provide an essential network of support for the rehabilitation of sick and injured free-living native animals. Nearly all responding private veterinary practices provided some type of service pro-bono. The annual value of free services and products was estimated to be $1,038,650. Reported average weekly animal caseload was about five with birds the most frequent patients. Cost of services was the main challenge faced by practices, followed by knowledge and skill of staff. Veterinarians and veterinary nurses considered their formal training to not be very useful in teaching skills relevant to free-living native animals and sought further professional development opportunities in animal assessment, treatment and rehabilitation techniques. Most respondents were satisfied with the standard of care afforded to native animals by volunteers. Complaints focused on delays in native animal pick-ups and communication with practice staff. We make recommendations for improving veterinary capacity and strengthening relationships with the volunteer wildlife rehabilitation sector.

ABSTRACT As we enter an era of global mass extinctions, it is important to tackle wildlife research and conservation from multiple fronts, including those made available by wildlife organisations, zoos and sanctuaries. Captive studies are particularly useful when studying free-ranging populations is difficult, and/or when controlled conditions are required. Yet, despite the significant role that they play in supporting research and conservation of species and ecosystems, they are rarely recognised in the scientific literature. Here we present a case study of the Australian Dingo Foundation (ADF), a private organisation and captive breeding facility that actively supports research and conservation efforts relating to the dingo ( Canis dingo ). Over the past decade (2010 to 2020), the ADF has facilitated research across eight research disciplines that include archaeology, behaviour, biology, cognition, evolutionary psychology, non-lethal management, reproduction and parental behaviour, and vocalisations. This has resulted in at least 21 published scientific studies which are summarised in this paper. As this case study demonstrates, captive facilities have the potential to contribute to the understanding and conservation of dingoes by providing practical alternatives to, and/or supplement studies of free-ranging populations. We conclude by outlining some of the implications and limitations of conducting research using captive dingo populations.

ABSTRACT The provision of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation services in New South Wales (NSW) relies heavily on the volunteer sector. The NSW Government regulates the sector and is responsible for identifying measures for its support and delivery of services. To inform this process, we undertook an extensive review of the sector. We report here on the results from our survey of NSW volunteer wildlife rehabilitators, who have collectively reported over 1,000,000 rescues of sick and injured free-living wildlife over the past 16 years. The survey provided a unique insight into the demographics of the sector, the challenges faced, and the value of their contribution to wildlife rehabilitation. Volunteers’ views on the operation of wildlife rehabilitation providers cover five key areas: governance, training, standards of care, service capacity and reporting, as well as the support received from other stakeholders, NSW Wildlife Council (the peak body for the sector), veterinary professionals and government. We found that the volunteer wildlife rehabilitation sector in NSW provides a significant public good that is of high value to the environment, community and government. We make recommendations for investment and strategic improvements to the capacity of the sector to continue to deliver services including transitioning wildlife rehabilitation providers towards a system of accreditation in the future.

ABSTRACT People's behaviour towards the conservation of Australian wildlife is important, because people's actions are the main causative factor associated with the demise and future recovery of wildlife conservation. We investigated the type and prevalence of behaviour performed by NSW residents towards wildlife conservation, investigate participants’ willingness to perform conservation behaviours in the future, and identify the barriers preventing people from engaging in conservation action. New South Wales (NSW) residents (n=312) participated in an online questionnaire in a cross-sectional study. Overall, participants’ intention to engage, and rates of actual participation, in conservation behaviours was low. The latter was mostly due to lack of time, money, knowledge, and the impact of health and fitness levels. The knowledge gained from this study can be harnessed to inform future policy and management decisions, design interventions to change conservation behaviours, and provides a foundation for further enquiry into the ‘human dimensions of wildlife’. There remains a wildlife conservation ‘attitude-intention-action gap’, where we are limited with our knowledge on how to transform pro-conservation attitudes into conservation action, which warrants further research.

ABSTRACT People's attitudes towards the conservation of Australian wildlife is of particular importance as the types of attitudes people hold can have a significant impact on conservation solutions. We investigated attitudes held towards Australian wildlife and conservation solutions. A sample of 312 residents participated in an online questionnaire. An ‘ecoscientistic’ attitude was the most commonly held attitude, highlighting that wildlife are appreciated for the role they play within our ecosystem. There was a significant association between age and attitude towards Koala Phascolarctos cinereus and Crownof-thorns starfish Acanthaster planci conservation and a significant association between socio-economic status and attitude towards Brush-turkey Alectura lathami conservation. Most participants agreed that action should be taken towards wildlife conservation in the future. Conservation managers and other key stakeholders need to capitalise on this information to increase public support for Australian wildlife, and encourage conservation action. Significant associations between attitude and some sociodemographic characteristics were observed, however more research between attitude and sociodemographic associations is recommended, including in other regions of Australia and internationally.

ABSTRACT Technologies for remotely observing animal movements have advanced rapidly in the past decade. In recent years, Australia has invested in an Integrated Marine Ocean Tracking (IMOS) system, a land ecosystem observatory (TERN), and an Australian Acoustic Observatory (A2O), but has not established movement tracking systems for individual terrestrial animals across land and along coastlines. Here, we make the case that the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, an open-source, rapidly expanding cooperative automated radio-tracking global network (Motus, https://motus.org ) provides an unprecedented opportunity to build an affordable and proven infrastructure that will boost wildlife biology research and connect Australian researchers domestically and with international wildlife research. We briefly describe the system conceptually and technologically, then present the unique strengths of Motus, how Motus can complement and expand existing and emerging animal tracking systems, and how the Motus framework provides a much-needed central repository and impetus for archiving and sharing animal telemetry data. We propose ways to overcome the unique challenges posed by Australia’s ecological attributes and the size of its scientific community. Open source, inherently cooperative and flexible, Motus provides a unique opportunity to leverage individual research effort into a larger collaborative achievement, thereby expanding the scale and scope of individual projects, while maximising the outcomes of scant research and conservation funding.

ABSTRACT There have been significant advances in the development of animal-borne sensor technologies, or biologgers, in recent years. This has resulted in tremendous capacity for wildlife researchers to remotely collect physiological, behavioural and social data from wildlife in circumstances that were unthinkable just decades ago. While this technology can provide us with a unique insight into the “secret lives” of wild animals, there is a need to evaluate the utility of these new sensors versus traditional wildlife research methodologies, and to critically evaluate the integrity of the data collected by ensuring that these devices themselves do not alter the physiology or behaviour of the recipient animal. This paper reports on the development of a light weight “animal borne video and environmental data collection system” (AVED), which can be deployed on animals as small as 11 kg, whilst still meeting the desired 3% body weight threshold. This AVED (referred to as the “Kangaroo-cam”) simultaneously collects video footage and GPS location data for an average of 19 h. Kangaroo-cams were deployed on seven kangaroos as a proof of concept of their potential utility for the study of location specific behaviour and diet in a medium-sized terrestrial herbivore. Following device recovery and data processing, we were able to successfully score 83 foraging events which allowed us to determine diet based on visual identification (to the family level) of plants consumed. This approach could be further broadened to include a comparison of plant species consumed versus plant species encountered to provide a novel approach to diet selection analysis. When combined with GPS mapping of foraging locations, this approach would allow researchers to address questions on diet selection at both fine (within patch) and broad (habitat) spatial scales, overcoming some of the limitations of traditional diet selection methodologies. However, animal capture and collar deployment caused a significant elevation in stress hormone concentrations within the first 24 h post-capture, which highlighted the need to incorporate a time-delay capacity into these devices. We conclude the paper by reviewing recent advances in the development of AVED technology and providing suggestions for the improvement of this Kangaroo-cam device.

ABSTRACT Aerial surveys are a powerful means of collecting ecological data in terrestrial and marine systems that may otherwise be difficult to acquire. Increasingly aerial observations are made with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as drones. As this technology has improved in reliability and affordability it has replaced the traditional use of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Drones do, however, have limitations; primarily in their limited flight duration, potential to disturb wildlife and concerns over safety. Here we introduce an aerostat, a ground tethered blimp, as a logistically simple and economical alternative to drones and other aircraft. Blimps differ from drones by using helium for lift, thereby conserving battery life. This technology offers the advantage of near-continuous coverage of locations, as well as providing a safe and accessible alternative aerial platform for a range of applications. We demonstrate the viability of blimp-mounted cameras in a notoriously difficult area to conduct research: the high-energy nearshore marine zone. Specifically, we sought to determine the likelihood of encountering marine megafauna using real-time video and whether their presence was correlated with the occurrence of baitfish. Stingrays were observed more often than other species and the occurrence of seals was correlated with the presence of baitfish. The continuous coverage allowed the observation of foraging behaviour in sharks and seals for extended periods. This demonstrates the utility of this novel technique to improve human safety and enhance ecological research.

ABSTRACT Animal welfare is an important concern wherever people are called upon to kill wildlife. Notwithstanding the ethical dilemmas surrounding the killing of wildlife in various situations, if an animal is to be killed we have a duty to select the method that produces the best animal welfare outcomes. However, many wildlife professionals face practical challenges, a lack of peer-reviewed literature to inform evidence-based decision making and limited access to different methods such as free-bullet firearms and euthanasia drugs. Penetrating captive bolt devices are currently being used for the euthanasia and killing of some wildlife species in Australia. However, there remains a paucity of peer-reviewed literature about animal welfare and the use of captive bolt devices to kill wildlife in Australia. We explore animal, operational and equipment factors that may influence the animal welfare outcomes of killing by captive bolt and make recommendations for future investigation.

ABSTRACT Koobabbie is a 7,173-ha cereal and sheep growing property in the northern wheatbelt of Western Australia. Unlike most wheatbelt properties that have been extensively cleared of native vegetation, Koobabbie retains 41% of its area under native vegetation. It is listed as an important bird area by BirdLife Australia and BirdLife International, and is a significant part of the region's conservation estate. Half of Australia's cockatoo species occur on the property, including the endangered Carnaby's Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus latirostris . The Major Mitchell's Cockatoo Cacatua leadbeateri occurs in small numbers on the property, while the Galah C. roseicapilla and Western Corella C. pastinator occur in large numbers, and compete with Carnaby's Cockatoo and Major Mitchell's Cockatoo for nest hollows. The owners have been culling Galah and Western Corella since 1997 to reduce competition for nest hollows. In addition, several other species of native animal, and three species of introduced mammal are culled, also for conservation and economic production purposes. This paper reports on the culling, and concludes it is an appropriate part of farm management for conservation and economic production objectives.

ABSTRACT Despite their conspicuousness within urban environments, the ecology of commensal species is poorly understood. Urban environments are thought to provide abundant foraging and shelter resources for commensal species such as Black Rats Rattus rattus , but these assumptions are rarely tested. In this study, we tested whether Black Rats in the inner western suburbs of Sydney were shelter limited by placing piles of disused railway sleepers within small (<1 ha) areas of regenerating bushland surrounded by houses and railway lines. The piles of railway sleepers were intended to provide refuge habitat to small mammals and were monitored for 123 days using motion-sensitive cameras. Rat activity was positively associated with sites that had the log piles added, with no rat activity recorded at any of the control sites (without log piles), despite the presence of predators (domestic cats and foxes) at all sites. Rats rapidly investigated the log piles (mean time to first rat observation ± SE: 27.25 ± 14.34 days), but were only recorded intermittently over the monitoring period, suggesting that they did not permanently inhabit the sites. Our results suggest that black rats are likely to be limited by refuge opportunities within urban areas, and will rapidly investigate shelter opportunities. Removing available shelter habitat is likely to be an effective means of reducing rat populations within urban areas, particularly adjacent to bushland sites that are vulnerable to black rat invasion.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the place of pest species in agricultural landscapes in Australia. Drawing on historical, ethnographic and philosophical research, we consider the very particular—reductive, utilitarian, monological—ways of understanding and valuing landscapes that lead to some animals being classified as pests. We propose that paying attention to pests might offer a productive way into challenging these logics and opening up more creative and inclusive agricultural possibilities.

ABSTRACT We review the linkages between food security, nutrition and wildlife conservation in the early 21st century. Declines in wildlife populations and habitats have occurred in parallel with increasing human population and the global emergence of the double burden of under- and over-nutrition. Nutrition-sensitive landscapes and nutrition- and gender-sensitive value chains are key to delivering optimal food and nutrition security and environmental outcomes. Neglected or underutilized crops and sustainable harvest of wild food have the potential to play a number of roles in the improvement of food security that include being: (a) a way to reduce the risk of over-reliance on very limited numbers of major crops and animals; (b) a way to increase sustainability of agriculture through a reduction in the carbon footprint of agriculture and maintenance of biodiversity; (c) a contribution to food quality; and (d) a way to preserve and celebrate cultural and dietary diversity. Dietary diversity and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of animal-source food produced can be promoted through the consumption of all edible parts of the carcass, including highly nutritious offal. We argue that adopting a nutrition-sensitive landscape approach would improve consumer understanding of food systems, nutrient cycles, ecosystems services and potentially linkages between dietary diversity and biodiversity.

ABSTRACT A citizen science project was begun on 11 February 1997 with a regular live-to-air wildlife talkback segment on ABC North Coast NSW Local Radio. Listeners were encouraged to phone in to report interesting observations. This public endeavour aimed to promote interest in wildlife among the listeners and to find the range of interest that the public have with wildlife, determined by the number of species that listeners would report. The 18 years of wildlife talkback radio resulted in 342 identifiable species discussed providing evidence that the public was interested in a very wide array of wildlife species. Additional to the reports of well-known fauna species, one report of an extinct bird was received and unusual reports were regularly received describing mammals unknown to Australian zoology. This paper includes some of the stories that were received and these may contain errors and fabrications. They are recorded here so that others can learn of them. Parts of this paper are excerpts from my book, Australian Cryptozoology , and this paper now also gives new information. The only physical evidence for the existence of one of these animals was the discovery of a unique method of predation on wood-boring beetle larvae. This involved the precise removal of pieces of wood, 12 to 15 cm long, 3 to 4 cm wide and 1 to 2 cm thick, within one metre of the ground. This created distinctive vertical slots in the base of small green wattle trees Acacia irrorata . On the 27 th and 28 th October 2003 in the Jimna State Forest adjacent the Conondale National Park in South-east Queensland over 500 trees were examined and found to contain this precise method of predation on wood-boring beetle larvae.

How many people fully appreciate the environmental problems which Australia faces as it enters the final decade of the century? As put by an increasingly large number of the world's ecologists, ten years is the time remaining for the world to avert global ecological catastrophe. if Australians fully appreciated the seriousness of the planet's environmental problems and could understand that Australia was part of a global ecosystem, we would hear less about saving individual species or reserving small parcels of land as national parks and more about habitat conservation and ecosystem management on a national and global scale. There is the risk that emphasizing the conservation of individual species diverts attention and resources (time, money, and people) from understanding and correcting the causes of species decline and extinction. This can leave species that are common to become scarce, then rare, and finally to become extinct. It is a view I have argued in various forms for nearly 20 years (Recher 1971, 1976, 1985; Recher and Rohan-Jones 1981).

Using Fraser Island in Queensland and Penguin Island in Western Australia as study areas, this paper examines changing management policies and practices with regards to human-animal interactions in wildlife tourism settings. In particular, the shifting relationships between people and dingoes, and between people and penguins, are explored in these Australian settings. Data drawn from interviews, observations and management policies show that as perceptions of wildlife change, management of human-wildlife interactions must also change.

A revised computer-based wildlife inventory programme has been developed to aid the collation and mapping of fauna and flora information. Field data woks have been produced to facilitate the collection of significant records in a format that is easy to handle. Current maps for the records for the terrestrial vertebrate classes are presented.