NESP and threatened species
Sun, 22 Oct 2017The TSR Hub is a serious investment by the Australian Government in the science of saving threatened species, but it’s not where the NESP investment ends.
The TSR Hub is one of six National Environmental Science Programme hubs and each is making its own important contribution to the national effort to
recover our threatened species. The TSR Hub is always keen to acknowledge our many collaborators across our broad suite of projects, however, with
this editorial I’d like to look beyond our own hub and highlight the good work being done on threatened species by our sister hubs.
The Clean Air and Urban Landscapes (CAUL) Hub is focusing on the sustainability
and liveability of urban environments. Biodiversity conservation (including threatened species management) lies at the centre of many of its projects
and TSR and CAUL are collaborating on several projects including studies of urban populations of frogs and flying foxes. Other research of the CAUL
Hub includes understanding urban residents’ interactions with nature and developing protocols for reintroducing species into cities.
The Tropical Water Quality Hub works to build Great Barrier Reef resilience through research projects that improve water quality and reducing other pressures on these ecosystems. Many projects focus on improving prospects for the coastal, seagrass and reef habitats that sustain threatened species such as turtles and dugongs.
Which raises a key insight we all should keep in mind; the key to the successful recovery of Australia’s threatened species does not lie in only one research centre or network. Rather, it depends upon multiple approaches engaging a variety of different skills and insights.
Australia has an enormous challenge ahead in recovering its many threatened species. NESP science in all its forms and places give us a much better chance of meeting that challenge.
Professor Brendan Wintle
Top image: Sawfish, Photo: Peter Kyne, Marine Biodiversity Hub
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Honours project opportunity on feral cats at two QLD National Parks
Thu, 11 Oct 2018We are offering an honours project looking at feral cats in two national parks. The student will analyse spatial data to quantify and compare home range, habitat use, and activity times of feral cats at both sites, and interpret these data in terms of risks to threatened species at the sites (bridled nailtail wallabies, bilbies, and others), and ecology and control of invasive predators.
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Bundles of quoll joy in Booderee
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Fifteen tiny quoll pouch-young have been born to three female eastern quolls from a pioneer group of 20 animals released into Booderee National Park. In a big win for the reintroduction project, these are the first eastern quolls known to be born in the wild on the Australian mainland for more than 50 years.
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Detecting and protecting the Kangaroo Island dunnart
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Mouse-sized carnivorous marsupial the Endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart has only rarely been seen in the past 20 years. TSR Hub researcher Rosemary Hohnen is on the job working with local partners to develop better monitoring methods for the elusive species, and to evaluate the impact of feral cats on its persistence. Here she gives us a taste of the action, and despite the tiny size of the mammal there is a lot of heavy lifting…
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Filling the breeding knowledge gap: Bioacoustic monitoring of Endangered black-cockatoos
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Monitoring the nests of endangered species of cockatoos has not always been practical using traditional methods. However, new bioacoustic methods are now being applied to the monitoring of two endangered sub-species of cockatoo in southern Australia, the south-eastern red-tailed black-cockatoo and the Kangaroo Island glossy black-cockatoo. Daniella Teixeira, PhD candidate at The University of Queensland, takes up the story.
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John Kanowski: A life in ecology
Mon, 24 Sep 2018Threatened Species Recovery Hub researcher profile.
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