In a wildlife conservation first, artificial Intelligence technology and 24-hour surveillance will be used to monitor the plains-wanderer, a critically endangered bird, as well as threatened marsupial species like the kowari and bilby
Key points:
- Australian Wildlife Conservancy is using camera surveillance to monitor the “last populations” of some endangered species in Queensland’s outback
- Researchers are setting up 60 monitoring station across 637,000 hectares near Boulia
- The critically endangered plains-wanderer hasn’t been seen at this property before
Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is setting up 60 monitoring sites at Coorabulka Station near Boulia in outback Queensland.
The station spans 637,000 hectares and for 12 months will host the small monitoring sites which can detect and record audio and image data using bio-acoustic recorders and round-the-clock cameras.
“[The plains-wanderer is] one of six species next thought to go extinct in terms of the bird world,” AWC regional ecologist Alexander Watson said.
Dr Watson said having access to such a large area of potential plains-wanderer habitat will allow the organisation to learn about these often elusive birds.
“They’re often very cryptic, very hard to see, and they occur in very remote areas.
“They’re all vulnerable to extinction.”
24-hour surveillance
The monitoring stations are being built to withstand the harsh western Queensland climate, and will be solar powered.
Once the data has been recorded over a 12-month period, the images will be analysed by AWC using AI technology to describe the distribution and status of the plains-wanderer, bilby and kowari’ across the station.
“It’s never been done before,” Dr Watson said.
“We’re just collecting and understanding as much information about these species that occur there, and also the threatening processes.”
Dr Watson said unlike the bilby and kowari, the plains-wanderer has never been recorded on Coorabulka Station, but historical records suggest other properties around the channel country have hosted the critically endangered bird.
“[We’re] trying to find the last populations of these wild animals,” he said.
Landmark pastoral partnership
Partnering with the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo) in 2022, the AWC has deployed a number of audio monitors across two other properties to confirm the presence of the plains-wanderer.
Desktop studies conducted by the AWC suggested 70 species found across NAPCo’s 6 million hectares are listed as threatened.
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Dr Watson said it’s vital that the AWC is able to work with large pastoral companies to conserve threatened species and their habitats.
“Seventy per cent of Australia is under pastoral lease, so effectively 70 per cent of Australia’s biodiversity is found on cattle stations,” he said.
“We can’t conserve everything, so we really need to develop these partnerships with pastoral companies and also traditional owners.”
For NAPCo CEO Allan Cooney, it’s a mutually beneficial partnership.
“It’s a 146-year-old company,” he said.
“We’re quite conservative land managers, so it’s more about understanding what we’re doing right so that we can do more of it.
“For AWC, it’s about them getting an understanding of what sustainable management looks like on a cattle operation, and how it interacts with wildlife and the natural environment,” he said.
“We want that biodiversity on our land because we know that it gives us healthy cattle.”