Community Wildlife Survey
(2006 & 2010)

Data from surveys

Contents

• 2010 Survey
• 2006 Survey
• Koalas seen in local area
• Quolls seen in local area
• Quolls increasing in local area
• Some data analysis
• Probabilities of sighting koalas
• Koala occurance index in (parts of) Sydney basin
• Rate of information accumulation in the survey
• Information accumulation for brushtail possum
• Information accumulation for quoll
• Information accumulation for cane toads
• Roadkill map of NSW
• Published paper in Wildlife ResearchJournal

Summary data from the 2010 survey

This page will be progressively updated as 2010 surveys are completed

Some results from the 2006 survey

We asked respondents about 10 different species. Specifically if they thought the species was expanding or contracting. Below are the summary responses by postcode regions of some of the 2006 data.

Koala seen in local area

Quoll seen in local area

Quoll in local area - in species increasing?

In the analysis of the 2006 survey data we determined

• the probability of survey respondents sighting the species given that the species was in the locality; and
• the occurrence value of the species throughout any particular 10km x 10km area.

The graphs below give the range of values we calculated for particular regions of NSW.

Koala sighting probabilities in the New England Tablelands

These probabilities refer to the chance that a person reported a koala (in this case) sighting given that koalas were actually in that locality. We used 625ha (~ 2.5km x 2.5km) as the size of this locality area for all species.

Koala occurrence values in (parts of) the Sydney basin

We didn't survey most of the urban area in the Sydney basin. However areas around Campbelltown and the Blue mountains were included.

These occurrence values refer to 16 of the localities referred to in the previous detection probability graph and show how much of a 10km x 10km area koalas are likely to have had occupied at the time of the 2006 wildlife survey.

To determine the usefulness of the information supplied we examined the amount of new information that was added with each survey form processed. The following graphs show how quickly we were gathering new information about animal locations. Each line on the graphs is for a different region of NSW. Curves that rise sharply and then flatten out indicate that most of the information of the survey for that region was quickly obtained.
On the other hand a curve that continues to climb at about the same rate indicates that up to the last survey submitted new information was being made available. We used these curves to assess how successful we were in finding out about the occurrence of the wildlife we targeted.

Information accumulation for Brushtail possum

Information accumulation for Quoll

The quoll being a rare animal is not usually sighted, and when it is sighted it is likely to be in different places to sightings reported in previous survey reports. Hence the curves are similar in most of the areas of NSW and continue to rise at a steady rate.

Information accumulation for cane toad

Note for the cane toad one curve rises significantly faster than the rest. That curve is for the Far North coast of NSW where cane toads have successfully invaded from Queensland. In this region the data establishes the pattern of toad occurrence very quickly.
The curves for the rest of the state are much more jagged than other species because of the extreme rarity of positive cane toad sightings.

We asked for sightings of animals killed on roads. To some extent road kill indicates that there is a population of animals in the areas adjacent to the road. This helps to also determine the locations where these species move around.

The next map shows the road kill and of course it clearly shows the pattern of NSW roads.

Roadkill map from 2006 wildlife survey returns

Published paper on one species in the wildlife survey

The team has presented findings based of the 2006 survey in the csiro publication Wildlife Research Volume 36 Number 3 2009 pages 262–273. The article Combining a map-based public survey with an estimation of site occupancy to determine the recent and changing distribution of the koala in New South Wales is available from the journal website
http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/144/issue/5078.htm