Free-roaming domestic cats are a widespread invasive species, occurring throughout the globe in urban and rural environments alike. We aimed to estimate cat occupancy and abundance within forested habitat in a fragmented agricultural region of Indiana, USA. Overall, we found the distribution of free-roaming cats across a rural agricultural landscape varied temporally and was associated with proximity to human structures and the proximity of other forest habitat. Similarly, abundance was found to vary spatially and temporally. Photograph by Zachary Olson.

Measuring the effectiveness of lethal wildlife control at a local scale is important but extremely challenging. By thinking of culling as a predator–prey interaction, we create a mechanistic model that we fit to field data on relative abundance. This leads to a realistic understanding of searching efficiency, allowing data from the culling process itself to be used to evaluate effectiveness. Photograph by John Darling.

This paper describes a novel method for validating the predicted behavioural states obtained from fitting a hidden Markov model to the movements a lioness in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. The predicted state sequence is compared with field observations. Typically, the true behaviour of the tracked animal is not known, so the results of fitting state–space models to the GPS locations cannot be confirmed. Photograph by Victoria Goodall.

This study reports the results of an industry-wide survey to benchmark bird diversity in remnant native vegetation on cotton farms spanning a 1260-km north–south subcontinental gradient from Central Queensland to Southern New South Wales. We recorded 185 bird species in remnant and planted native vegetation on cotton farms. Bird composition, abundance, richness, diversity and composition differed among the nine native vegetation types, and each remnant vegetation community had a generally distinct bird assemblage, indicating that all vegetation types contribute to regional biodiversity in cotton-growing zones in inland eastern Australia. Photograph by Rhiannon Smith.

With limited resources for wildlife management, it is vital to maximise the effectiveness and reduce costs of management programs. We investigated an option for improving koala fertility control programs by administering levonorgestrel implants to female young as well as their mothers. This practise increases the effectiveness and reduces the costs of koala management programs compared with treating only adult females. Photograph by Geoff Shaw.

It can be impractical to measure an animal’s body mass when equipment needed to weigh individuals is inadequate or unavailable. In this study, scale mass, sex and standard age and morphometric data sourced from hunter-harvested white-tailed deer was used to formulate and validate body-mass-estimation model. Measuring a deer’s body mass has importance in assessing trends in individual and population health. Photograph by Carlton Ward Jr.

The removal of the European rabbit using warren ripping was followed by an increase in native mammals and lizards in treatment plots compared with control plots. Warren ripping is an effective method to remove rabbits in arid-zone Australia and we assessed changes in small vertebrate, insect and bird populations. This highlighted the importance of rabbit management for native animals in arid-zone Australia. Photograph by Peter Elsworth.

More than 10 000 shipments encompassing more than 78 million live fishes were imported to Australia between 2010 and 2016 for the aquarium trade. Our study examines publicly available data of aquarium fish imports to Australia during 2010–16, collated and curated by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR). Records apportioned by DAWR were categorised as ‘marine’, ‘cichlid’, ‘goldfish’, ‘gourami’, ‘poeciliid’ and ‘other freshwater species’, which offered limited resolution in assessing the diversity of aquarium fish imported to Australia. Graphic art by Eden Cartwright (Bird Circus), arranged by Alejandro Trujillo-González.