Aboriginal conversations usually occur around a fire so that we can sit on Country and immerse ourselves through talk and connect with our Country (natural world). The act of Yarning serves as a medium to establish and build respectful relationships, exchange stories and traditions and preserve and pass on cultural knowledge. This interview with Doc Reynolds began like all other initial Yarning conversations on who we are and where we belong. Image by Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. Source: https://www.facebook.com/etntac/.

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

Warning: this article contains names and images of deceased Aboriginal people.

Even though Indigenous Peoples manage significant proportions of Earth’s biodiversity, conservation finance mechanisms often fail to incorporate Indigenous cultural values. This study presents a proof of concept for a new Biocultural Credit Assessment Framework that prioritises Indigenous concerns, indicators, targets and actions to inform an Indigenous-led biocultural conservation project. Following a fauna survey, nine Elders identified six concerns, ten indicators, six targets and six actions that could potentially feed into a biocultural credit market to diversify income and enhance Indigenous-led conservation. Photograph by Daniel Smuskowitz.

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

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) 2 causes an often fatal infection in rabbits and hares; however, there are concerns about the host specificity of this virus. We investigated scavengers of rabbits for infection with RHDV2 and found no evidence of productive infections. This study has provided insights into the safety of RHDV2, addressing potential routes of spread and possible reservoir hosts. Photograph by Roslyn Mourant.

Macropods are prone to stress during capture, making the development of capture methods challenging. Currently, the most common methods used are trapping, suited for small macropods, and darting for the larger ones. A modified ‘nylon drop-net’ technique, typically used for African ungulates, was successfully employed to capture 40 agile wallabies with no fatalities during or after the procedure. Photograph by Miguel A. Bedoya-Perez.

Examining Australia’s subfossil record can be valuable in assessing whether the current diversity of small-bodied mammals seen across northern Australia is ‘normal’. In this study, we aimed to analyse fossils from cave sites in north-eastern Queensland and showed that local pre-European small-mammal communities were much more diverse than are the region’s extant faunas recorded by modern surveys. We demonstrated that recent losses of small-bodied mammals maybe greater than previously realised, prior to the fauna being documented in the region. Photograph by Vikram Vakil.

1080 baiting is commonly used to manage invasive species and reduce livestock predation, but the potential for some non-target species to be harmed by baiting is not well-understood. We monitored non-toxic baits and found that non-target species, particularly native mice, located and interacted with baits more often and quicker than target predators did. Current baiting practices have the potential to harm non-target species. Optimising baiting methods should be prioritised to minimise undesirable impacts and ensure effective management outcomes are achieved. Image by Rachel Mason.