390 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
malleefowl are most efficiently surveyed and monitored by counting their
incubator mounds, which the birds tend to reuse annually. By visiting every
recognisable mound in an area each spring-summer breeding season and noting
whether it is being actively maintained or not, the number of birds breeding at that
site can be monitored relatively easily. This is an activity that is suitable for citizen
scientists because specialist skills or experience are not required to determine
whether a mound is in use.
Under the auspices of the National Malleefowl Recovery Team (NMRT), the
monitoring effort has grown from a handful of sites in the early 1990s, to over 150
sites in 2016 involving over 4000 mounds. The ensuing network of monitoring sites
(typically 2–5 km^2 ) provides a broadly representative sample of malleefowl
populations across the continent, encompassing a wide range of habitat types and
climatic conditions (Fig. 31.2). The aim of the monitoring program is to track
trends in malleefowl abundance throughout their range by providing reliable and
repeatable measures of the breeding populations. Understanding where
populations are most susceptible to decline is essential information for
conservation planning and also provides a means of measuring the effectiveness of
management interventions.
Citizen scientists
Although much of the early monitoring was performed by government agencies
and consultants, citizen scientists have played a pivotal role in monitoring
malleefowl mound activity in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia
since the 1990s, and have more recently contributed to monitoring programs in
New South Wales. This involvement of citizen scientists has led to massive cost
savings and reduced the reliance on annual funding. This has allowed an
expansion of the monitoring program, and has also fostered national collaboration,
which has led to standardisation of methods and processes, and improved data
quality and control.
The national malleefowl monitoring program involves the organisation and
deployment of hundreds of volunteers each year. Much of the organising is done by
regional volunteer coordinators who assign people to sites and ensure they have the
necessary equipment and documentation for the task. Training sessions are held in
most states where monitoring occurs every year and all people involved in the
monitoring are encouraged to attend to refresh themselves about safety and data
procedures, learn about new developments, and to socialise.
The data collection process is made as easy as possible to encourage
participation and ensure consistency between sites. In the field, volunteers
generally work in pairs or small groups, using GPS to navigate from mound to
mound. Data are collected electronically on smartphones running the
Cybertracker application (Cybertracker has been used on a variety of devices since
2003, replacing paper records at that time). The application enables users to