Citizen Science with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy – ABC Science Week Wildlife Spotter
Wildlife Spotter — the ABC’s citizen science project for National Science Week 2016 — invites ordinary Australians to be citizen scientists from the comfort of their own homes, contributing to real science by identifying quolls, malleefowl, Tassie devils, cats and many more animals captured in photos. These citizen scientists will identify animals in roughly a million images taken all across Australia by automated cameras.
Wildlife Spotter is the online citizen science project for National Science Week 2016, undertaken by ABC Science in conjunction with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, Australian Museum, Deakin University, Charles Darwin University, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, and WWF Australia. It is supported by funding through the Australian Government Inspiring Australia strategy.
Participants will help answer questions such as:
- – How many endangered bettongs are left?
- – Are native predators like quolls and devils are competing with cats for food?
- – How common are common wombats.
Spot wildlife for ten minutes or ten hours — every animal identified will help our scientists. Should you need extra help, you can click through a short online tutorial.
As well as helping us understand living Australia, you could win one of two Go Pro Hero 4 cameras. School participants could win a visit from Dr Karl. Register to enter the competition, which is open until Monday 5 September.
How is the Tasmanian Land Conservancy involved?
The Tasmanian Land Conservancy was invited to contribute images taken by monitoring cameras on the TLC’s private reserves.
Each year thousands of images are taken through our monitoring program. Volunteers process the data by identifying the animals that are captured in the images. The TLC are thrilled to participate in the National Science Week citizen science program and strongly believe in the power of nationwide citizen science program that draws in Australians of all ages.
The TLC is a not-for-profit environment organisations that protects nature in our own reserves and in partnership with private landholders. The TLC uses science to inform conservation management of our reserves.
Media Release: National Science Week’s Wildlife Spotter seeks citizen scientists
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