In November 2014 MWH contributed to the Great Victoria Desert Biodiversity Trust threatened species scientific workshops. The Trust is a newly established organisation, whose mission is to implement research and landscape-scale conservation activities in the Great Victoria Desert.
The Marsupial Mole is difficult to detect as individuals rarely venture above-ground. One of the most appropriate methods to detect it involves digging in a sand dune to create a trench, the walls of which are inspected for signs of burrows.
Held in collaboration with the Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife, the workshops were designed to review and prioritize critical research activities and identify possible on-ground management actions for the Great Victoria Desert. The focal species were the Malleefowl, Marsupial Mole and Sandhill Dunnart, each of which is listed as threatened under the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (the EPBC Act).
MWH personnel were invited to the workshops due to their experience working with these threatened species and also within habitats in the Great Victoria Desert. MWH’s Dr Blair Parsons and Mr Chris Knuckey gave scientific talks at the Malleefowl and Marsupial Mole workshops, respectively. MWH has just completed a major set of ecological baseline surveys in the Great Victoria Desert targeting all three of these threatened species, and is highly experienced in surveying for threatened species in remote regions in general.
Personnel attending the workshops were from a variety of industry, regulatory and scientific organisations. The principal aims of the workshops were to:
- review what is known about each species;
- discuss knowledge gaps and prioritise research needs to address these gaps; and
- discuss on-ground management actions associated with threat mitigation, to ensure that these species persist in the Great Victoria Desert bioregion.
Tracks of the Marsupial Mole, a burrowing species known to occur in sand dunes within the Great Victoria Desert.
These workshops are the latest example of the active contribution MWH biologists make in the conservation science arena, particularly regarding threatened species management. Other recent examples of MWH’s presence in this space include a presentation on survey methods for threatened bats at the 2014 Goldfields Environmental Management Group Conference, Kalgoorlie, and a presentation on Malleefowl in Western Australia at the 2014 National Malleefowl Conference in Dubbo, Queensland.
If you have a need for threatened species surveys, management or research, MWH can assist. For more details contact the Terrestrial Ecology discipline lead, Dr Blair Parsons, on (08) 9388 8799 or at blair.c.parsons@mwhglobal.com.
