This paper provides an introduction to night parrots in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia from the dual perspectives of Indigenous rangers and scientists working together to understand their ecology on the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area. We describe night parrot roosting habitat and use firescar mapping and predator surveys to develop recommendations for the protection of night parrots in this area.

Kukatja summary: Ngatjangkura inni kulu kulkurru ngaka ngurrupa IPA. Rangers kamu scientists paya warakuyarra kutjungka tjatuwana mangininpa. Kulkurruya Ngurra tjanapa nginaya mangalwana. Ngampurrpala tjana kangikuwa warukamarra wilpinpa murtitikirlpaya kamu murtika.

A short video describing our project can be seen here.

This article belongs to the Collection Indigenous and cross-cultural wildlife research in Australia.

We conducted a survey, and present a case study, of the perspectives of non-Indigenous practitioners and Traditional Owners who had been involved with conservation translocations. The main finding was to acknowledge the importance of recognising and adopting the cultural dimension of conservation translocations when conducted on Indigenous Country. Results highlight key guiding principles to assist increased partnerships between Traditional Owners and western practitioners. Photograph by Wild Deserts.

This article belongs to the collection Indigenous and cross-cultural wildlife research in Australia.

This paper outlines the Eastern Maar approach to biocultural landscape restoration. The paper outlines the principles that guide the practice and how culturally significant entities are central to the way we view and understand Country. Finally, the paper highlights ways that non-Maar people and organisations can partner with us to care for Eastern Maar Country. Photograph by David Roberts.

This article belongs to the Collection Indigenous and cross-cultural wildlife research in Australia.

Amidst growing international calls for inclusive conservation, and a backdrop of declining species and cultural diversity, Indigenous-led conservation approaches are of growing importance. This study established a working list of priority animals of concern to Yolŋu Yirralka Rangers and Ŋalapalmi (knowledge holders) in the Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area. This priority animal list will guide Indigenous-led fauna management and equitable, collaborative fauna research grounded in Yolŋu priorities. Photograph by Yirralka Rangers.

This article belongs to the Collection Indigenous and cross-cultural wildlife research in Australia.

Karajarri and Ngurrara Rangers collaborated with scientists to investigate how fire management in the Great Sandy Desert could help mammals and reptiles. We found that some species prefer particular spinifex post-fire ages, from recently burnt to long-unburnt, and that patchworks of spinifex ages benefit mammals. This means that we should aim to reduce fire size and increase the area of mature/long-unburnt spinifex. Our work provides ecological information from a little-studied region of Australia, and highlights the role of Indigenous land managers in biodiversity conservation. Photographs by Anne Jones.

Translated summary: the two ranger groups have decided not to translate the summary into their languages. Although there are many language speakers from Ngurrara, the most fluent Karajarri speaker passed away last year, and translating complex sentences is now challenging. Out of mutual respect for their collaboration, the rangers prefer not to include a summary that is only in a Ngurrara language. However, we use words from both languages in the text. A short video about our project can be seen here.

This article belongs to the collection Indigenous and cross-cultural wildlife research in Australia.

We explored whether mesocarnivores use residential yards, and how certain features influence mesocarnivore occupancy, relative abundance, and interspecies temporal activity overlap. Mesocarnivore occupancy of residential yards was influenced by yard-level features, such as fences, as opposed to surrounding landscape composition. With residential lawns becoming a more prominent landcover type worldwide, understanding how they provide resources for wildlife in suburban settings and how yard features can create hot spots of conflict with wildlife would be beneficial. Photograph by Emily Johansson.

Reptiles partition their activity among their microhabitats for thermoregulatory, predatory, and refuge opportunities. We investigated whether a habitat specialist, the endangered pygmy bluetongue, preferentially occupied vacant spider burrows in specific microhabitats in agricultural grasslands. Pygmy bluetongues showed strong positive and negative associations with various microhabitats. Our results have implications for selecting appropriate microhabitats when installing artificial burrows for lizards at future translocation sites and land-management implications to ensure landscape heterogeneity for successful conservation. Photograph by Kimberley Michael.

Lures improve predator detection on camera traps, although it is unknown which are effective for attracting Felis catus. We tested how three lures affect the capture of feral cats in south-eastern Tasmania. Cats were attracted to all lure treatments; however, their activity decreased when Tasmanian devil activity increased in response to a lure, indicating limitations of lures owing to interspecific interactions. Photograph by Alexandra J. Paton.

Passive acoustic monitoring has the potential to aid in the effective monitoring of endangered species, but analysis of recordings is challenging. We developed a call recogniser for the southern black-throated finch, and compared its ability to detect the species at new locations with manual bird surveys. We found strong agreement between the two methods suggesting this to be a useful tool in the conservation of this species. Photograph by Juan Mula Laguna.

The amphibian chytrid fungus has descimated frog populations but infection outcome depends on the frog’s life stage. We investigated chytrid infection patterns in tadpoles and found that they are often infected with higher pathogen loads than are adults and juveniles. This suggests that tadpoles could act as a reservoir for infection and further opens the door to additional research into immune responses of different amphibian life stages. Photograph by Matthijs Hollanders.

The introduced Tasmanian fallow deer population is believed to have grown exponentially within the last 25 years, impacting agriculture and conservation. This study compared two aerial survey methods – human observers and thermal imaging – to improve population monitoring. Human counts produced more reliable population density estimates in this study, but thermal imagery allowed precise spatial analysis of how deer were distributed within the landscape. Image by Cameron Wells.