As Australia grapples with ongoing biodiversity decline, two innovative new technologies that would enhance wildlife and insect monitoring were showcased at the Australian Land Conservation Alliance (ALCA) Conference in Hobart in October.
Designed to make ecological research more affordable, accessible and effective, BoomBox v2 and BugEye can provide researchers, conservation organisations and landholders with new ways to monitor wildlife and insects with minimal disturbance and improved accuracy.
Technology driving conservation outcomes
ALCA CEO Jody Gunn said new technologies were becoming critical tools for conservation practitioners to monitor wildlife more effectively, inform management decisions, and ultimately improve conservation outcomes.
"Australia's land conservation sector are leaders in the development and application of cutting-edge science, technology and innovation to help protect and restore nature, at scale.
“But innovation is only part of the solution, and it cannot substitute for the massive scale up in nature investment needed to halt and reverse nature decline.”
Smarter wildlife research
Australian conservation technology company Freaklabs used the conference to launch BoomBox v2, a next-generation wildlife monitoring platform that enables researchers to conduct sophisticated behavioural experiments remotely in the field.
Freaklabs CEO Jacinta Plucinski said BoomBox v2 had evolved from a research prototype first trialled in 2016 through collaborations with researchers, conservation organisations and land managers.
“BoomBox v2 combines camera traps with sound, scent, light and movement-based deterrents, allowing ecologists to study how animals respond to different stimuli without human intervention.
“Automated data logging and remote activation reduce field costs and make large-scale experiments easier to run in challenging environments,” said Ms Plucinski.
The original BoomBox technology is already supporting conservation projects overseas, including studies of urban wolf behaviour in Europe and trials of non-lethal predator deterrents to protect vulnerable native birds in New Zealand.
“We expect BoomBox v2 will have widespread applications across Australia's conservation sector, helping researchers and land managers test new approaches and gather better evidence to inform management decisions," Ms Plucinski said.
A new lens on insect populations
The conference also showcased BugEye, an innovative insect monitoring system led by Invertebrates Australia in conjunction with Western Sydney University. It uses UV lighting and high-resolution imaging to monitor insects over long periods without capturing or killing them.
Western Sydney University Entomologist Dr Eleanor Drinkwater said the technology had been designed to offer a more cost-effective and accessible alternative to existing monitoring methods.
“While BugEye was originally developed to track Bogong moth populations in remote alpine environments affected by climate change, we saw the potential for it to be used to make insect surveillance feasible for a wider range of conservation practitioners and landholders,” Dr Drinkwater said.
BugEye is currently at the prototype stage, with deployments planned in the Blue Mountains and at The Quoin in Tasmania later this year.
"BugEye could be used to monitor threatened species, detect pests and invasive insects, and track long-term changes in insect populations linked to climate and environmental change," Dr Drinkwater said.
"We're also developing AI-powered species recognition capability that could further enhance monitoring, identification and reporting."
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