At the beginning of 2015, the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) took over the management of the free-to-use OzTrack application that facilitates the uploading, editing, analysis, archiving and sharing of datasets from animal tracking research projects. As part of the transition to the ALA, OzTrack has been re-released as ZoaTrack to reflect the growing international community of animal tracking scientists using the web-based application.  OzTrack was initially developed at The University of Queensland as part of a NeCTAR-funded collaboration between The University of Queensland’s Schools of Biological Sciences, the Environmental Decisions Group, and the School of ITEE eResearch Lab.  When the initial project ended, the ALA stepped in to ensure the continued development and maintenance of the system with the long term goal of integrating the toolset into the ALA’s suite, and ensuring the legacy of existing animal location datasets.

Animal telemetry studies generate a wealth of complex data issues with formats, map projections, timestamps, algorithms and calculations.  ZoaTrack’s goals are to make spatial analytics tools easily accessible, so that researchers can spend less time wrangling the technology, and more time on science.   ZoaTrack has a broad base of research organisations involved in both the user community and on the steering committee.  The site manages both terrestrial and marine data and has an impressive collection of datasets across many locations and species. Users have the choice to openly share their datasets, or keep their data under embargo for a determined period.  The software is all open source so is free to use.  Once raw data is uploaded, users can easily run commonly used home range estimation algorithms and generate heat maps. They can add environment layers, do velocity and trajectory calculations, as well as apply cleansing filters and tools. Data and results can be exported in multiple formats.

Studies using ZoaTrack can be easily investigated from the site and showcase some intriguing case studies, including tracks made by Koalas, Cassowaries, and Crocodiles.

During August this year ECOCEAN and the WA Department of Education used the ZoaTrack platform as an outreach and education tool to hold a Whale Shark Race. 12 tagged whale sharks were assigned to West Australian primary schools and monitored by the students to see how far they travelled within a couple of weeks. Students were able to use ZoaTrack to learn more about marine ecology research and conservation. View an updated mapping of the 12 whale sharks here.

For more information about ZoaTrack, please visit the website www.zoatrack.org or to learn more about how biotelemetry is useful in ecological studies, check out this blog from the key ZoaTrack developers.

The integration into the Atlas of Living Australia will ensure the continued development and servicing of the ZoaTrack system, enabling this facility to evolve in parallel with the telemetry devices and helping ensure the long-term legacy of existing animal location datasets.

The Yugul Mangi Ranger Two-way Biodiversity Project is not just about working in Arnhem Land, but also communicating outcomes to the rest of Australia. For that reason, some of our team recently travelled to Sydney and Canberra for 2 weeks in March 2015. We gave presentations and are writing this blog to teach non-Indigenous people about the great things Indigenous people are doing in remote Australia for our Country and communities. We also want to encourage more cross-cultural collaboration between scientists and Indigenous people and for other Indigenous Ranger groups to get involved in the Atlas of Living Australia.

While down south, we did three presentations: a 3 hour workshop for 2nd year University students at UNSW for the Indigenous Perspectives in Science course; a 20 minute BioSeminar at Macquarie University to academics and Masters students; and a one hour presentation at ANU for our funding partners – the ALA and Australian National University (ANU) Centre for Biodiversity Analysis (CBA). Mostly, Kelvin Rogers (Yugul Mangi Ranger) led the talks, with smaller contributions from two Ngukurr school students (Lester Gumbula and Nehemiah Farrell) and Emilie Ens and Mitchell Scott from Macquarie University. Another aim of the trip was to deliver some animal tissue samples from Arnhem Land to Professor Craig Moritz (CBA, ANU) as he and his lab group are going to help us identify some species and possibly identify new species to science. We are excited about being involved in this process.

The primary aim of our presentation at ANU and our meeting at CSIRO in Canberra was to inform the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) mob about how we’ve been using their website, and how we can best integrate Indigenous content. We are working together to make it easy for everyone, including Aboriginal people, to contribute to this Australian Biodiversity resource. At the meeting we were joined (via video link) by representatives from CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences (Cairns) who are also working on this ALA Indigenous project with the Olkola Rangers (Nth Queensland).

A core aim of this project is also to work with the Ngukurr School and introduce young students to science, Ranger work and land management. We take Ngukurr students out on Yugul Mangi Ranger biodiversity surveys and also sometimes when we travel interstate to contribute to communications about the project. Ngukurr School is the main school in the region and teaches 300 children from the Ngukurr community of 1000.

The school principal selected high school students Lester Gumbula and Nehemiah Farrell to attend this trip as they both had high attendance, are doing well at school, and find ranger work and biodiversity surveys interesting. The students both contributed to the making and presentation of the talks. We hope that by rewarding good students in this way we will encourage other young people in the community to attend school and study hard.

In addition to the presentations, the team also visited numerous science labs and institutions as the Ngukurr School has a limited science education program. We visited the Glasshouses, Museum and Lizard Lab at Macquarie University, the Genetics Lab at ANU, the Australian National Botanic Gardens and Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra.

We also visited the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra where staff showed us how to use the computers to search for records of family and friends from Ngukurr. The AIATSIS Perfect Pictures database has over 140,000 photos which is about 20% of the total AIATSIS archives and can only be viewed at AIATSIS in Canberra.

“They got heaps of Ngukurr records, it’s a place where we can put our photos and other people can see them.” – Kelvin Rogers, Yugul Mangi Ranger

We then headed to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which has been based beside Old Parliament House in Canberra since 1972. As we were having a look around, we met the official fire-keeper. It was his job to keep the fire burning no matter what, day and night. It made sense to us that just like keeping a fire burning, this Tent Embassy was about maintaining a strong and continuous Indigenous presence in Canberra and in the minds of all Australians and international visitors. Talking to Indigenous and non-indigenous people staying at the Embassy, at the front of everyone’s mind was the closure of remote communities in Western Australia. We want people to know that Indigenous people living on and managing their own Country is key to land management (Remote Indigenous communities are vital for fragile ecosystems – article in The Conversation)

We invited some of members of the Tent Embassy to our talk at ANU and we were really happy that they came along to support us. Thanks!

A trip to Sydney and Canberra wouldn’t be complete without having a look around. We visited Centre Point Tower, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Royal Easter Show, surfed Sydney’s beaches and went to Parliament House (Canberra).

Thanks to the ALA and ANU/ CBA for supporting our trip and all the people who showed us around the science labs and institutions.

This post has been produced by the Yugul Mangi Rangers of south-east Arnhem Land. Read more about their Indigenous Ecological Knowledge projects on the ALA blog:

Learning by doing: Yugul Mangi Rangers and the Leichhardt’s Grasshopper: Arnhem Land

This pilot project explores questions on the benefits and risks to Traditional Owners of data sharing, and the resource opportunities the ALA offers to them.  At the end of this pilot our group would like to:

• establish and test a model for two-way information exchange between the ALA and Indigenous groups,
• provide a model that could be generalised to provide the framework by which the ALA engages with other Indigenous groups on knowledge exchange,
• help build trust between the ALA and Indigenous groups.

Work on the ground for this project will start in the middle of 2015, toward the end of the wet season.  At this time we would like to introduce ALA users to the Olkola people.

In December 2014, nearly 700,000 hectares of ancestral land was returned to the Olkola people.  Under the handover Olkola National Park, an area covering 269,830 hectares was established and will be jointly managed by the Olkola people and the Queensland government.

Olkola country sits in a unique position along the northern end of the Great Dividing Range with the headwaters of five rivers that flow into both the Coral Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Habitats of extensive wetlands, rare and unique tall open forests, remnant rainforest refugia and intact landscapes of savannah woodlands will be managed by the Olkola people.  Also on Olkola country are nine threatened regional ecosystems, (active Golden Shouldered Parrot nesting sites), two species of plants listed as threatened under the EPBC Act, as well as bora grounds and sites of cultural heritage and significance to the Olkola people.

Five clan groups make up the Olkola people, and each clan group speaks for their respective country and hold special significance and value to story places and animal totems associated with landscape features.  Rock-art, scar trees, burial sites, sacred sites occur across the landscape. Olkola people are returning to their ancestral country and are actively engaged to restore their values for their country and ensure these are properly managed.

The Atlas of Living Australia is currently supporting two Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) pilot projects. These projects are aimed at exploring and encouraging two-way knowledge sharing between traditional land custodians and the Atlas. More information on the Yugul Mangi pilot project can be found here.