362 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
objectives and ongoing participant coordination improves the quality of the data,
particularly through identification of survey sites for repeated surveys, and
stratification across habitat and management types. However, data collection
methods still need to be appropriate to the skill sets of the program participants
For example the Great Cocky Count is a monitoring event run by BirdLife every
year, collating count data across roost sites for Carnaby’s cockatoos Zanda
latirostris, Baudin’s cockatoos Zanda baudinii and forest red-tailed black cockatoos
Calyptorhynchus banksii naso in south-western Western Australia. The objective of
the project is to collect abundance data on the three species of cockatoo at roost
locations in order to assess and report on population trajectories and important
sites, and also to engage the community in cockatoo conservation. Project
managers direct participants to specific locations across the study landscape,
ensuring that appropriate sampling occurs across the landscape, and those data are
comparable between years. These data have shown an annual decrease of around
13.8% in cockatoo numbers on the Perth-Peel Coastal Plain (Peck et al. 2016).
Program objectives, outlined at the beginning of a program, determine the
types of data required and how they will be collected. With citizen science projects,
additional consideration needs to be given as to whether a volunteer can
realistically be expected to collect the data required, or will have the requisite
skills. Apart from bird abundances, other types of data collected by volunteers is
usually qualitative. Threats, habitat variables and even breeding/nesting data tend
to be categorical, requiring participants to select fixed options either on a proforma
or within a database. This tends to be less daunting for inexperienced participants,
and does not require high levels of skill. The use of standardised proformas
improves confidence in the quality of data supplied.
Participant engagement
For any citizen science program to be successful, the support and involvement of
the community is essential. Projects may involve a large number of people (e.g.
the Birdata project) or small groups of highly committed, passionate volunteers
and researchers. BirdLife optimises success with community engagement by
focusing on recruiting, training and retaining high calibre volunteers who are
suited to the project.
Recruitment is the first step in a citizen science project. There is no single
driving factor that motivates volunteers to participate in citizen science programs,
but an interest in science and conservation is high priority for participants in the
Threatened Bird Network (Upton 2016). Birds are valued across many sectors of
the community, which helps with recruitment. Many people have a bird story that
they will inevitably share given the chance, and this provides a good platform to
initiate conversations around more complex conservation issues and pique the
interest of potential participants in threatened species projects. Threatened species
provide a sense of urgency to a project, and many involve interesting fieldwork (e.g.