Be part of research that supports the creation of the Great Forest National Park. Our NatureWatch citizen scientists help to monitor the fauna across the area of this proposed new national park using wildlife detection cameras for small mammals and rodents, song meter audio recording devices for detecting birds and evening stagwatching and spotlighting for nocturnal possums and gliders.
Key threatened species we are searching for include: Leadbeater’s Possum, Greater Gliders, Southern Brown Bandicoots, Powerful Owls and Sooty Owls.
This project is kindly supported by Bank Australia and the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife.
What is stagwatching?
Stags are old trees that provide essential tree-hollows for native possums and gliders who emerge each night to forage. Stagwatching involves sitting on the forest floor and looking up to the silhouette of the stag tree against the night’s sky to watch for emerging animals. We partner with Professor David Lindenmayer’s research team from the Australian National University. NatureWatch volunteers contribute to over thirty years of ecological research investigating the possums and gliders of these forests and the decades of impacts from timber harvesting and bushfire.
Eco-acoustic monitoring
To determine the range of birds in an area we use recording devices deployed over long periods of time in the forest. The audio data is then analysed by Dr Karen Rowe of Museums Victoria to verify the presence of target species or determine the range of birds using the area as habitat.
