Have you ever wondered what wildlife gets up to on your property? The National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) is helping private landholders answer the question “Who’s living on my land?” using infrared cameras to survey their land for wildlife.
Landholders from the Shoalhaven region are invited to come along to a free workshop in Ulladulla on the 6th August 2018 to learn how to use and then borrow infrared cameras. Landholders have an opportunity to become a citizen scientist for two weeks and put up an infrared camera on their property. Infrared cameras work by detecting heat in motion; it gets triggered to take a photograph whenever a warm-blooded animal walks in front of it and works both day and night. These cameras are a great new tool being used to survey animals because they are non-intrusive and can be easily used by anyone.
“People participating in the ‘Who’s living on my land?’ wildlife survey are sometimes in for a surprise with what they find. We have had landholders discover Koalas, Spotted-tailed Quolls and deer that they didn’t know were there before. It’s hard to conserve a species or create a pest management plan if you don’t know what’s there,” says Margot Law, NPA Citizen Science Officer.
The ‘Who’s living on my land?’ project is working with the Atlas of Life on the Budawang Coast, a local biodiversity database, to help Shoalhaven landholders discover their species.
“Most of our species records come from public land and road sides – so this is an exciting opportunity to find what species may be persisting on private land. It can be overwhelming when you first start to learn about all the species that occur in your local area. The Atlas of Life on the Budawang Coast is a fantastic resource to help you identify species from photographs. You can upload photos of plants and animals from your property and local naturalist experts will identify them for you.” Says Ms Law.
“We hope that our participants can use this information to change some of their land management practices – whether it is working with Landcare or Local Land Services or initiating their own monitoring program with the Atlas of Life on the Budawang Coast. Conservation on private land can make a huge difference to the environment!”
Event details:
Date: 6th August 2018, 10.30am-2.30pm
Venue: Ulladulla Civic Centre, 81B Princes Hwy, Ulladulla NSW 2539
RSVP essential: whoslivingonmyland.org/future-workshops/ or call 02 9299 0000 and ask for Margot.
Media contact – Margot Law (margotl@npansw.org.au or 0439 407 063)
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