Countryside Critters: monitoring wildlife on private land

To monitor changes in the status of different wildlife species over time in private native forests. An additional aim is to look at the effects of land use history such as private native forestry as practiced under the latest codes of practice.

Countryside Critters is open to landholders with private native forests in the North-east region of NSW. To check your eligibility, please visit our postcode checker.

There are few studies that monitor how the status of wildlife changes in private forests, yet private forests make up the bulk of forests in NSW. They make an important contribution to the conservation of many species.

Audiomoth recorders can detect vocalising wildlife such as koalas, owls and gliders as well as the ultrasonic echolocation calls of microbats. Camera traps can record wildlife that use the forest floor, such as bandicoots, possums and other ground-dwelling species. The species recorded will vary depending on the habitat, season and location of your property.

The monitoring equipment is typically deployed for 10-14 days. Participants are only required to set up the equipment at the beginning of the survey period, retrieve it at the end, and return it using the postage materials provided by the project team.

Properties are surveyed each year in spring as part of this long-term monitoring program. Repeat surveys are important for understanding how wildlife populations change over time and how they respond to disturbance events.

Each landholder will receive a personalised report for their property about what species were recorded. Trends over time showing changes in site occupancy for different species in relation to drought, fire, floods and other events will be compiled and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

One audiomoth samples an area of about 3 ha (100 m radius) for louder calling species, which is considerably less than the human ear. For microbats, an audiomoth will record bat echolocation over an area of about 0.1 ha (20 m radius), but bats will rapidly come and go as they fly throughout their habitat when feeding.

No. Audiomoth recorders and camera traps passively record sounds in the environment and do not emit any signals or calls. These technologies are widely used in wildlife research because they provide an effective way to detect animals without handling or directly interacting with them.

Microbats call at a high frequency (pitch) when they are echolocating, which is above the range of human hearing. This is referred to as ultrasound.

Camera traps have a motion sensor to trigger a photo when movement is detected. At night the photo is illuminated by infrared light that is invisible to most animals.

DPIRD uses in-house species recognisers built using artificial intelligence to scan recordings for sounds that match a particular species. These recogniser hits or matches are then validated by the team at DPIRD.

No. we will keep your data securely and compile it with those of other landholders for analysis of trends across the region. Details about species recorded will not be shared in relation to your property. However, you are welcome to add the species records that we provide to you in a landholder report to the government database called NSW BioNet should you wish.