Help our wildlife stay one step ahead

Today Australia's wildlife faces ever greater challenges. Climate change is disrupting ecosystems. Biodiversity is in decline. Introduced feral predators are driving extinctions.

To keep pace, conservation must keep evolving. That's why our national science team is exploring new ways to work more efficiently and effectively with limited resources.

Solutions exist – if we remain adaptive, collaborative and open to new approaches.

But Australia's wildlife can't afford for those solutions to stay on the drawing board. Will you help us stay one step ahead?

The sooner we understand what's happening in our landscapes, the sooner we can respond to threats before more species disappear.

Below, you'll find some examples of how we're testing and scaling new technologies. Your gift today can help us turn promising ideas into practical solutions that find and protect threatened wildlife faster.

Hedley Grantham

Hedley Grantham
Chief Scientist
Bush Heritage Australia

Feral cat control

In collaboration with eVorta and Timberscope, we’re trialling Humane Animal Net Devices (HAND) at sites across Australia. Here’s how they work:

  • Staff set up remote devices to run on solar power
  • Each uses thermal imaging to detect animals and AI image recognition to filter for cats
  • When a cat’s found the net trap activates and staff are alerted.

The first phase of this project was made possible by grant funding from the Australian Government’s Saving Native Species Program.

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Ecologist James Smith demonstrates a HAND cat trap.
An Eastern Barn Owl perched on a branch at night.

Owl pellet surveys

Owls are remarkable hunters. Swift, silent and precise.

At Pilungah Reserve, on Wangkamahdla Country, in Queensland ecologists collected 128 Eastern Barn Owl pellets. These regurgitated bundles of fur, bone and feathers show just what the owls were eating.

Analysis identified the region's northernmost record for the vulnerable Dusky Hopping Mouse since 1972. In just weeks, they'd uncovered a species traditional surveys hadn't found.

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eDNA monitoring 

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is genetic material left behind in soil, water and air.

At Edgbaston Reserve, on Bidjara Country in central Queensland, we've been using eDNA to monitor the health of globally significant artesian springs. They're home to 37 species found nowhere else, including tiny fish, snails, crustaceans and worms.

Now we've begun using eDNA to understand pre-European ecology at other Bush Heritage reserves. Results can help show us how to restore ecological processes, and identify places where locally extinct species could one day be reintroduced.

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Red-finned Blue-eye fish.

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