ABSTRACT A diverse range of corporations, businesses and organisations play an important role in threatened species conservation. During the unprecedented bushfire season in Australia in the 2019–20 summer, corporations, businesses and organisations contributed significant financial and in-kind support for the Saving our Species Program’s threatened species recovery efforts. On the eastern coast, a combination of food shortages and heat stress events resulted in large numbers of Grey-headed Flying-foxes Pteropus poliocephalus requiring rescue and rehabilitation. Prolonged drought and intense bushfires reduced available foraging resources for the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby Petrogale penicillata and Mountain Pygmy-possum Burramys parvus. Corporations donated produce to feed flying-foxes in care and provide supplementary feeding for wild populations of rock-wallabies and pygmy-possums. Local businesses and organisations also supplied resources, funding and food storage capacity to support these conservation actions. The contributions from corporations, businesses and organisations in these case studies totalled more than $70,000.

ABSTRACT Anurans inhabiting Australia’s semi-arid and arid zones display eruptive breeding patterns. They emerge in large numbers to reproduce after significant rainfall before burrowing deep underground, where they remain concealed for extensive periods until favourable conditions return. This cryptic life history hinders documentation of the natural history and ecology of arid adapted amphibians of Australia. Fundamental information for some species such as geographic distribution thus remains uncertain. Here, we report range extensions for two species of Cyclorana. Cyclorana are a genus of 14 burrowing frog species that occupy arid, semi-arid and monsoonal regions of Australia. We document a 188 km southerly range extension of Cyclorana cryptotis, and an 88 km northerly extension for Cyclorana maini; both within the Davenport Murchison Ranges bioregion of the Northern Territory. Our observation of C. cryptotis is significant as it is the first record of the species in the Davenport Murchison Ranges bioregion.

Following the third session of the forum, we held a question and answer session facilitated by Paul Willis. The presentations covered by this plenary session were: Citizen science for turtles: Risk, potentials and successes (Claudia Santori, University of Sydney)Unleashing the potential of citizen science for NSW (Erin Roger, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage)How social media can create impacts for research (Paul Willis, Media Engagement Services)A citizen-driven tool to help monitor avian biodiversity in urban greenspaces of Sydney (Corey Callagham, University of New South Wales)Where the wild things go: a new epoch for animal biotelemetry (Peggy Newman, Atlas of Living Australia) The posters covered by this plenary session were: From scats to traps: how scat samples paved the way for future research (Rebecca Gooley, University of Sydney)Characterising the diet of Tasmanian devils introduced to an offshore island (Elspeth Mclennan, University of Sydney)What we can do with poo: studying the gut microbiome of the endangered Tasmanian devil (Rowena Chong, University of Sydney)Using passive acoustic recording and automated call identification to survey koalas in the southern forests of New South Wales (Brad Law, NSW Department of Primary Industries)

This paper examines the history of aerial baiting in Australia since the first operations commenced in 1946, initially targeting the dingo (Canis dingo). It was believed that dingo populations had proliferated during the Second World War, and posed a threat the re-emerging wool and meat industry. New technologies took advantage of skilled air force pilots, and the surplus of aircraft available post World War 2, to commence an inexpensive, sustained and landscape wide approach to pest management. Aerial baiting has continued to develop as a technology since this time. However, it was 21 years before Australia started the first comprehensive research trial into its efficacy in controlling the target species. The results of these tests that commenced in 1968 were an overwhelming failure. More tests in the 1970s had similar results, yet the broad-scale poisoning of pest species from the air continued. The application of aerial baiting in dingo/wild dog control is believed to have a temporal effect, anecdotally achieving short-term goals towards reducing livestock losses from predation. There is no conclusive data, however, to support this claim. The true impact of aerial baiting on target and non-target native species, and ecosystem function, is potentially great. It is not possible to gain accurate data on the impact of these programs due to the inaccessible nature of the terrain and/or lack of funding for before-after-control-impact (BACI) research and analysis. However, it is possible to conclude from reviewing historical and contemporary land baiting trials, that there is reason to be greatly concerned. Aerial campaigns originally designed to protect agricultural interests have been re-deployed in recent conservation programs, designed to protect biodiversity and to eradicate an increasing number of introduced “pest” species. A review of the scientific and historical data raises concerns about the ethics, inefficiencies, indefinable impacts, and high uptake of baits by non-target species, throughout aerial baiting operations in agricultural and conservation zones. The report concludes that the impact of aerial baiting is essentially incalculable, and potentially environmentally hazardous. The risks of these programs have been greatly understated in published reports and reviews over the past 70 years.

Environmental DNA, or eDNA—DNA shed from organisms and extracted from environmental samples—is an emerging survey technique that has the potential to transform biodiversity monitoring in freshwater ecosystems. We provide a brief overview of the primary methodological aspects of eDNA sampling that ecologists should consider before taking environmental samples in the field. We outline five key methodological considerations: (i) targeting single species vs multiple species; (ii) where and when to sample; (iii) how much water to collect; (iv) how many samples to take; and (v) recognising potential sources of false positives. The need to account for false negatives and false positives in eDNA surveys, and the power of species occupancy detection models in accounting for imperfect detection, is also discussed.

Following the second session of the forum, we held a question and answer session facilitated by Paul Willis. The presentations covered by this plenary session were: Back to the future: Aerial surveillance from ‘blimps’ for ecology and conservation (Kye Adams et al. University of Wollongong) Using drones to monitor large and complex breeding bird colonies (Mitchell Lyons, University of NSW) Sniffing solutions to enhance koala conservation (Romane Cristescu et al. University of the Sunshine Coast) Collect, connect, upscale: revolutionising the uptake of citizen science in bird research and conservation (Micha Jackson, University of Queensland).

People's behaviour towards the conservation of Australian wildlife is important, because people's actions are the main causative factor associated with the demise and future recovery of wildlife conservation. We investigated the type and prevalence of behaviour performed by NSW residents towards wildlife conservation, investigate participants’ willingness to perform conservation behaviours in the future, and identify the barriers preventing people from engaging in conservation action. New South Wales (NSW) residents (n=312) participated in an online questionnaire in a cross-sectional study. Overall, participants’ intention to engage, and rates of actual participation, in conservation behaviours was low. The latter was mostly due to lack of time, money, knowledge, and the impact of health and fitness levels. The knowledge gained from this study can be harnessed to inform future policy and management decisions, design interventions to change conservation behaviours, and provides a foundation for further enquiry into the ‘human dimensions of wildlife’. There remains a wildlife conservation ‘attitude-intention-action gap’, where we are limited with our knowledge on how to transform pro-conservation attitudes into conservation action, which warrants further research.

ABSTRACT This short essay comes from a presentation at the “Killing for Conservation” symposium organised by RZSNSW late in 2017. It uses the conceit of a literary killing and its fall-out to exami...

Following the second session of the forum, a question and answer session was facilitated by Paul Willis. The presentations covered by this plenary session were: John Woinarski (Charles Darwin University) - Killing Peter to save Paul: when is it appropriate to cull native species to benefit other native species?Ricky Spencer (Western Sydney University) - What ‘impact’ will the killing of two million cats by 2020 have on feral cat populations?Rod Kavanagh (Australian Wildlife Conservancy) - Conservation fencing: little cost but significant benefits for threatened native species.Libby Robin (Australian National University) - Eradicating the ugly.George R Wilson and Melanie Edwards (Australian Wildlife Services) - Professional kangaroo population control leads to better animal welfare, conservation outcomes and avoids waste. (Paper included post forum.)