Fauna Research Lab in Joondalup | College & University

Fauna Research Lab

Locality: Joondalup

Address: 270 Joondalup Drive 6027 Joondalup, WA, Australia

Website: http://www.wildlifelab.org

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25.01.2022 The latest paper from the wildlife lab is free to access and looks at how Australian Ravens on Rottnest are attacking the threatened bobtail lizard sub-species found on the island. Read it here: https://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR18051

25.01.2022 Lab master's student Michael Main recently had some of his work on urban foxes featured in Bushland News. Read it here! https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au//BushlandNews_iss113_Autumn%20F

24.01.2022 For anyone interested in Bird Banding activities in WA, there is now Facebook page where various local banding groups regularly publish banding reports. It is a great way to find out more about what banding activities are going on in our state, and for people wanting to get involved, it is an excellent way to connect with trained bird banders.

23.01.2022 It is not often you can say that you pushed back the extinction of an entire species, but how about three? We are very proud of the work our TSR Hub researchers... in the ANU Difficult Bird's Research Group have done to buy time for orange-bellied parrots, swift parrots and forty spotted pardalotes. Here is a snapshot of what they have been up to.

23.01.2022 This week the lab's new honours student Sarah Anderson and 3rd year project student Bec Will have been learning frog survey and swabbing techniques from collaborator Dr Matt West at Melbourne University. We are collaborating on a study looking at the prevalence of chytrid fungus on motorbike frogs (Litoria moorei) in WA and why they seem to be doing OK compared to their closely related and declining east coast sister species Litoria raniformis and Litoria aurea.

22.01.2022 Yet another sad but inspirational example of nature adapting to human disturbance in this photo by Mike Lohr of a juvenile coconut crab using a broken lightbulb!

21.01.2022 If you're stuck at home and still wanting to make a difference for Australian wildlife, please have a look at this link. The APVMA is the organisation that re...gulates pesticides in Australia. They're calling for public comment on new regulations on anticoagulant rodenticides. Please send them a quick email and let them know what changes you would like to see! I'll be doing the same. See more

21.01.2022 Some of Mike's research on boobooks and rodenticides recently featured on Today Tonight:

21.01.2022 A great article about some of our research that's happening on Rottnest Island. The story was written by a Science and Comms ECU graduate who is a content creator for Particle, Scitech's new science news publication.

20.01.2022 I just got word that the paper I submitted on rodenticide exposure in boobooks has been accepted pending minor revisions! I'll be working to get the edits sort...ed as quickly as possible and, if all goes well, it should be published in the next few months. Stay tuned and I'll be sure to post a link to it when available. Hopefully, it contributes to better conservation outcomes for boobooks and other wildlife impacted by secondary rodenticide poisoning. See more

20.01.2022 Congratulations to Michael Main who just had his first masters chapter published. This study is a global review of the environmental factors that determine Red Fox home ranges. It is available open access here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.13115

19.01.2022 See Rob's article just out on the challengesfor conservation of the new Night Parrot find http://theconversation.com/still-here-night-parrot-rediscov

18.01.2022 Professor Richard Fuller is running three free Zoom sessions on scientific writing. It is open to all, but aimed at honours and masters students, postgrads and ...postdocs; loosely based on the session he gave at the Student Conference for Conservation Science a couple of years ago. It wont be flashy or particularly well organised, but on the plus side there wont be any practical exercises either! This is one sequence of content that extends over the three sessions. Youll probably get some benefit from joining any single session, but best to join all three if possible. Join us at 12-1pm (Brisbane time) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week (22nd, 24th, 26th June). Well schedule further sessions if people are keen. Zoom link is https://uqz.zoom.us/j/6397054818 UPDATE Session 1 recording is at https://youtu.be/98XMNPOPJEw Session 2 recording is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYnkMdarYEA Session 3 recording is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFB0jGbrjVs

18.01.2022 Congratulations to Dr Mike Lohr who graduated today after finishing his outstanding PhD studies on the impact of rodenticide on boobook owls.

18.01.2022 Rob and I just wrote up an article for The Conversation which highlights the role that reptiles may play in sending rodenticides up the food chain in Australia.... There are also some deeply concerning implications for indigenous Australians who use large reptiles as a traditional food source. Hopefully this creates a bit of awareness on these issues and helps get the ball rolling on some research to identify the scope of these threats to humans and wildlife. See more

17.01.2022 Update on Mike Lohrs research. Congratulations to Mike on having his thesis finalised and accepted!

17.01.2022 Just did the last dissections for a project looking at anticoagulant rodenticides in Tasmanian Devils and all four Australian quoll species. There have been some concerning results in the few quolls we have already tested. I'm curious to see what we get from a much larger sample size.

16.01.2022 An exciting find in our Palau Megapode research - could this be a sign of adult birds excavating nest mounds to breed? Pic by Mike Lohr.

15.01.2022 Rob is pleased to be an author on a recent paper on the Threatened Ecological Community of Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain. Together with a team of authors, we summarised the current state of knowledge of Banksia woodlands and the future research gaps. You can read it in full here: https://www.publish.csiro.au/bt/BT20089

14.01.2022 The latest story on our fight to help save our Western Ground Parrot.

14.01.2022 This week’s #AskAnExpert is Professor Richard Fuller. Richard is a Professor in conservation and biodiversity at The University of Queensland. He is also an inc...urable birdwatcher. He studies the relationship between people and nature and also has a major research program on migratory species, charting the threats they face as they travel through different countries, and how we can conserve them better. Watch his video below to hear him talk about all things people, nature and migratory birds and answer some of the questions you submitted. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question or who has tuned in to watch!

14.01.2022 In the latest from our Palau fieldwork, Mike Lohr photographed this beautiful Palau Racer, one of Palau's 5 native terrestrial snakes including the wolf snake, Pacific Boa and two species of Blind Snake.

11.01.2022 Raptors Are The Solution just published this article on Mike Lohr's rodenticide research. More to come soon when the final results are in later this month!

11.01.2022 I just got word that the review of rodenticide use, non-target impacts and regulation in Australia has officially been published! It's free to download for the... next 50 days so have a look at it while you can. Hopefully, it draws attention to this issue and helps get the ball rolling on measures to reduce unintentional poisonings of native wildlife and potentially humans. Feel free to pass it along to anyone you think will be interested. See more

10.01.2022 Rob’s article with collaborator Cheryl Lohr on the Western Spotted Frog will be coming out very soon in Landscope magazine.

09.01.2022 One of our lab members is helping supervise this project. You can help support this science by contributing any mice you've trapped around your house or shed in the Perth metro area.

08.01.2022 It was a pleasure for Rob Davis of the Fauna Research lab to accept the Perth Zoo prize for "research contributions to conservation" for Paul Radley's detailed Ph.D. study on the endangered Palau Scrubfowl. Paul graduated last year from the lab and was supervised by Rob and Dr David Blake, and is now working in Hawaii so couldn't make it back. His excellent work has resulted in one published paper with several more under review and has contributed further to the knowledge on this species. Some of this information has been used to update the conservation rankings for this species under the IUCN Redlist. Well done Paul for exemplifying the lab motto of "Conservation through Applied Research".

07.01.2022 Is there such a strong consensus in the scientific community on climate change simply because anyone proposing alternate explanations is black-balled and suppre...ssed? This is one of the most frequent questions I get here on Facebook. It's a lot easier for someone to claim they've been suppressed than to admit that maybe they can't find the scientific evidence to support their political ideology that requires them to reject climate solutions and, to be consistent, 150 years of solid, peer-reviewed science, too. But over the last 10 years, at least 38 papers were published in peer-reviewed journals, each claiming various reasons why climate wasn't changing, or if it was, it wasn't humans, or it wasn't bad. They weren't suppressed. They're out there, where anyone can find them. So we took those papers and - thanks to the superhuman efforts of my colleague Rasmus Benestad - recalculated all their analyses. From scratch. And you know what we found? Every single one of those analyses had an error - in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis - that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus. It's real, it's us, it's serious.

07.01.2022 We have a great opportunity currently available to join the wildlife lab as a PhD student! We are offering a tax-free scholarship of $38000/year courtesy of ECU and the Gunduwa Regional Conservation Association, for the right candidate interested in the ecology of saline landscapes. Please see the flyer for details and contact Rob or Eddie for further info or to express interest.

07.01.2022 Get behind this Australia first campaign for a rodenticide free Margaret River to save owls.

06.01.2022 Massive news today with the first confirmed Night Parrot sighting in WA since Rob's sighting in the Fortescue Marshes in 2005. This is fantastic news for conservation and to know we have a distinct population of this critically endangered species persisting in WA. http://www.abc.net.au//night-parrot-sighting-in-wa/8377624

05.01.2022 This weeks #AskAnExpert is Professor Richard Fuller. Richard is a Professor in conservation and biodiversity at The University of Queensland. He is also an inc...urable birdwatcher. He studies the relationship between people and nature and also has a major research program on migratory species, charting the threats they face as they travel through different countries, and how we can conserve them better. Watch his video below to hear him talk about all things people, nature and migratory birds and answer some of the questions you submitted. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question or who has tuned in to watch!

04.01.2022 Update on Mike Lohr’s research. Congratulations to Mike on having his thesis finalised and accepted!

04.01.2022 Monitoring at Julimar State Forest has confirmed that the site is home to one of the healthiest known chuditch populations in WA! Recent trapping at Julimar res...ulted in the capture and release of 36 chuditch, many of which were new juvenile recruits and females with pouch young. Fox baiting and native animal monitoring at the site is delivered by the department's flagship fauna recovery program, Western Shield. See more

04.01.2022 Just released today is a paper on the threatened and endemic birds of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. We report on the most rigorous on-ground surveys ever undertaken and revise the conservation status of the 14 endemic and 38 near-endemic birds on the island https://www.cambridge.org//B41674840861DC81DE22F94841F135A6

03.01.2022 Some of you may already have your copies in hand but Landscope @waparkswildlife just published an article on my project. Here are a few photos and a summary: ...While most of us are tucked up in bed at night, Edith Cowan University PhD student Mike Lohr can be found in dense scrub, listening for the call of the southern boobook owl. Mike is investigating the possible causes for the decline of Australias smallest owl and is optimistic that his research will generate some solid recommendations for improving conservation outcomes for predatory birds, owls in particular. You can read more about Mikes project in Parks and Wildlifes LANDSCOPE Magazine. Copies can be purchased for $7.95 from shop.dpaw.wa.gov.au or from a selection of newsagents.

03.01.2022 Keep an eye out for today's edition of Today Tonight. It will feature results from some of Mike's work to understand the impacts of rat poison on one of our native owl species.

02.01.2022 Robs article with collaborator Cheryl Lohr on the Western Spotted Frog will be coming out very soon in Landscope magazine.

01.01.2022 Hi All, We have just learned that our friend and long-term ECU sessional Nathan Rowe is suffering from cancer. Many of you would have benefited from Nathan's legendary lab classes and enjoyed interacting with him over the years. Please consider supporting his GoFundMe page to help with medical expenses and send him your support. https://www.gofundme.com/fund-for-nathan-rowe-khirgan

01.01.2022 See the latest paper from Paul Radley on the impacts of climate change on the world's meagpodes. His recent paper is here and you can contact us for a copy. https://www.cambridge.org//D8F8A6FBC0806F8229205DC15409085E