Monitoring platypus in the Stanley River ...
Clean flowing water, earth banks and overhanging vegetation are what platypuses like best in a habitat. These things provide them with great opportunities for food finding and burrow building and with protection from predators.
Come on an adventure with Seqwater and Totally Wild as we survey the area around Somerset Dam and Stanley River in search of this shy native creature.
Somerset catchment is croaking ....
Frogs are very sensitive to the environment and are widely used as indicators of ecosystem heath. During the wet season last year Seqwater, with the support of local landholders participating in the Land for Wildlife program, launched a low impact program to monitor the presence of frogs in the upper catchment of the Somerset Dam using nocturnal surveys and acoustic sensors developed by CSIRO to record frog vocalisations.
More than 300 hours of frog recordings were taken from the digital sound recorders. These recordings will subsequently be analysed by sound recognition software that can automatically classify frog species from their vocalisations and estimate the number of individuals of each species that are in the recording. Preliminary results revealed the presence of 10 different species of frogs, including one species considered endangered, the Giant Barred Frog; and two vulnerable species, the Tusked and Cascade Tree Frogs in catchment.
Flying around with Glossy Black Cockatoos …
Seqwater talked to Totally Wild about the different initiatives Seqwater is involved in to help protect the threatened species the Glossy Black Cockatoo.
The Glossy Black Cockatoo is listed as vulnerable under Queensland legislation. They have a very restricted diet, feeding only on the seeds in cones of She-oaks (Casuarina and Allocasuarina) and only on selected individual trees. Research has shown that they return to the same food tree time and time again, often ignoring nearby trees that are full of cones.
Seqwater initiatives include bird surveys with Birds Australia, Birds Queensland and the Brisbane Bird Observers Club which have revealed the presence of the birds on our land. We are teaching our lessees about the birds in partnership with SEQ Catchments, and importantly, we are planting their favourite food tree, the She-Oak, wherever we can. These tree plants help close the gaps between forests so the birds don’t have to travel far for their next meal!
Check out Seqwater’s Roboboat in action ...
Seqwater in conjunction with the CSIRO is trialling a remote water quality monitoring “roboboat”. The segment was filmed out at Wivenhoe dam and highlights how the remote controlled boat operates and some of the innovative water quality monitoring features that it can do.