Debbie Saunders

Wildlife Drones

Radio-tracking tagged wildlife remains a critical research technique for understanding the movements, behaviours and survival of many species. However, traditional hand-held tracking techniques on the ground are labour intensive and time consuming. Therefore, researchers are increasingly seeking new technologies to address these challenges, includi...

Provides a summary of Wildlife Drones radio-tracking system capabilities and use cases of this technology on different species and across different landscapes.

Understanding animal movements that underpin ecosystem processes is fundamental to ecology. Recent advances in animal tags have increased the ability to remotely locate larger species; however, this technology is not suitable for up to 70% of the world’s bird and mammal species. The most widespread technique for tracking small animals is to manuall...

The Swift Parrot was among the first of Australia’s birds to be scientifically described and illustrated following European settlement in 1788. Within 60 years of settlement, key habitat throughout the species’ range was being lost. A unique compilation of historical and recent information on Swift Parrot habitat loss demonstrates how past events h...

Migratory birds spend a large proportion of their lives within non-breeding habitats. However, knowledge of how they respond to variable winter resources is limited, especially for small migratory species. Citizen science programs provide an effective way to collect data on small migrants over large spatio-Temporal scales. Here we present survey da...

The application of autonomous robots to efficiently locate small wildlife species has the potential to provide significant ecological insights not previously possible using traditional land-based survey techniques, and a basis for improved conservation policy and management. We present an approach for autonomously localizing radio-tagged wildlife u...

With significant technological advances for tracking individual animals, we now have a much greater understanding of biological phenomenon such as animal migration. The ability to track migratory movements of individuals that return to the same sites each year has shed light on many aspects of migration that were not previously possible. However th...

Most cavity-dependent species select tree-cavities with a narrow range of characteristics so that only a small subset of available cavities may be suitable for any species. Most surveys for tree-cavities are done from the ground using binoculars to reduce effort, but this technique is prone to error. These errors are likely to contribute to the los...

Recent reviews of the conservation literature indicate that significant biases exist in the published literature regarding the regions, ecosystems and species that have been examined by researchers. Despite the global threat of climatic change, similar biases may be occurring within the sub-discipline of climate-change ecology. Here we hope to fost...

The swift parrot (Lathamus discolor, Psittacidae) is an endangered, austral migrant that inhabits forests and woodlands of south-eastern Australia. With a small population size (2500 birds), broad winter distribution (1 250 000 km2) and often cryptic nature, the swift parrot is a challenging species to study. In autumn they migrate north from their...

Migratory birds are dependent on a combination of suitable wintering, migration and breeding habitats. Identification and protection of these habitats is essential for the conservation of the birds. The endangered Swift Parrot (Psittacidae: Lathamus discolor) migrates north from Tasmania to south-eastern mainland Australia in search of suitable win...

Since the SOAB 2003 report, the Swift Parrot Recovery Program has continued, with 900 to 1100 surveys conducted by volunteers within the species’ winter range each year (except in 2006 when there was a period with no survey coordinator). Despite these generally high levels of survey effort, the numbers of Swift Parrots detected across their winter...

There has been much debate about the relative merits of single-species vs ecosystem-oriented research for conservation. This debate has become increasingly important in recent times as resource managers and policy makers in some jurisdictions focus on ecosystem-level problems. We highlight the potential strengths and limitations of both kinds of re...

There has been much debate about the relative merits of single-species vs ecosystem-oriented research for conservation. This debate has become increasingly important in recent times as resource managers and policy makers in some jurisdictions focus on ecosystem-level problems. We highlight the potential strengths and limitations of both kinds of re...

Conserving habitat for wide-ranging fauna species provides a challenge because impacts on these species tend to be dismissed based on the assumption that there is sufficient habitat in other areas of its range. This incremental loss of habitat is a serious conservation issue for a diversity of bird species. As knowledge of wide-ranging and migrator...