Stephanie Clark and Margot Law, NPA Citizen Science Officers
NPA’s citizen science team has just got back from the 2018 Citizen Science Conference in Adelaide. NPA showcased its citizen science projects and won a highly commended award for our poster “Landholders ask: Who’s living on my land?” The conference filled us with enthusiasm and ideas for more citizen science activities and community based programs. Autumn is going to be a jam-packed season of citizen science activities – keep an eye on our Facebook and website for updates!
The ‘Who’s living on my land?’ project, where we train rural private landholders to survey land for wildlife with infrared, has five workshops planned for the first half 2018. We are running workshops in the Southern Highlands, Snowy Mountains, Riverina and Shoalhaven. RSVP is essential. Since 2013, NPA has trained over 500 people to use infrared cameras and found many threatened species including Koalas, Spotted-tailed Quolls and Long-nosed Potoroo.
Bringing Back the Buzz to the Cumberland Plain Woodland is getting ready for another season of surveying pollinators and butterflies at our bushcare sites – if you want to join in the fun, sign up at bringbackthebuzz.org.au
The ‘Dragons of Sydney’ project uses citizen scientists to help collect data which directly contributes to understanding how the Eastern Water Dragon is able to survive in urbanised areas in Sydney. We have plenty of dragon surveys planned with schools and community groups across Sydney over the next two months. Our project featured on ‘ABC Saturday Breakfast’, where we talked all things water dragons. We are currently running a Sydney-wide ‘Backyard Survey’, and need your help to find out what features of private outdoor spaces are correlated with the presence (or absence) of Eastern Water Dragons. If you want to get involved, jump online and fill out the survey.