Dr Ryan Witt Drone Presentation in the Myall Coast Region
 
Thursday 1st September, Newcastle Uni scientist Dr Ryan Witt and his assistant, PhD-student Shelby Ryan, presented their interim findings from their recent drone surveys carried in the Myall Coast region.
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 There were about 50 people in the Silver Dolphin Room at the Tea Garden Hotel with ultimately standing room only at the back.
 
Points made by Ryan and Shelby included:

• Their research has been on optimising the use of drones to locate and identify wildlife, particularly koalas.
• They mostly use a Mavic Pro drone but with specialist thermal sensors, very hi-res camera and spotlight added.  The camera and spotlight are on a gimbal enabling zooming in on specific targets.
• They sometimes use a larger drone that can cover larger areas because of longer flying times but the camera isn’t as good.
• Researches must have permission to fly drones over the area they are surveying.
• Permission is easier to obtain for national parks (1 permit for the entire park).  Surveying over private land (minimum 25 Ha) is more difficult (permission required for every property).
• They focus on landscape-scale animal abundancy surveys
• They use thermal sensors on the drone to identify animals in the tree canopy
• Sites for surveying are selected based on vegetation types (e.g., E. Robusta – Swamp Mahogany)
• On a selected large site, they survey 10-20% of the area in 25-hectare sections in parallel linear transects (the drone controls this using GPS sensors)
• Results are then extrapolated over the entire site
• They surveyed each site 3 times (1 per night for 3 nights) to try to ensure they don’t miss the presence of any animals (koalas can be missed if underneath some vegetation types – e.g. Banksias)
• Drones are flown about 60 metres above the ground.  
• Detections are verified as koalas by spotters on the ground looking upwards and using the GPS co-ordinates supplied by the drone. Photos of the koalas are taken.
• This year the Uni team have surveyed 126 sites in 5 national parks.  They have detected 128 koalas.
• Their latest survey has been on our coast from Seal Rocks to Yacaaba
• They found that koalas here are very sparsely evident.
• The nearest to us was at Brambles Green (a mother and baby).  None were spotted in Hawks Nest or Yacaaba
• They showed video footage of thermal images in the tree canopy (green background but animal as a small yellow dot).
• A video was shown when they switched on the spotlight and zoomed the camera in on the “hot spot”.  We could actually see the koala moving and they even zoomed in on the animal’s nose.
• When they zoomed in on the Brambles Green koala, it could be clearly seen that there were two koalas (mum and juvenile)
• They showed a video of a thermal image of dingo prowling through the bush near Big Gibber, I think.  They flew the drone to follow the dingo’s path for quite some time.
• A question was asked of Ryan why we can’t just bring koalas to town to replace those no longer here (this is called translocation).  He said there are a number of reasons:
  • The koalas may well starve to death because the enzymes in their microbiome may not be able to digest the local tree leaves, even if they are the same tree type.  These enzymes are transferred from mother to baby during early development.
  • There may be genetic reasons that koalas from one area should not be translocated to another
  • Koalas are very territorial, particularly males, and may not fit in with any existing habitat
  • Ironically, some translocations have resulted in OVERPOPULATION (e.g., Kangaroo Island and Victoria)
  • The processes for successful translocation are not well understood.  Research is being undertaken at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital on this very issue.

 
 
Ian Morphett
Secretary MKEG
September 2022