Field data summary for: 'Status of the Bilby around the Edgar Range of the Southern Kimberley'

1. Summary of field data collected from October 8 - 10 2003.

No. of transects completed: 6
Total Km's: 87
No. of tracking points: 12
Bilby sign - Tracks: -
Burrows: 10
Diggings: -
Other: 1 (possible Bilby skeleton)

Feral sign - Cat: 6 tracking points
Dog 4 tracking points
Fox -
Cattle 11 tracking points
Donkey 1 tracking points
Pig 3 tracking points
Camel -

1.1 Scat/Bone Analysis

Specimens collected and sent off for analysis are:

4 dog scats
1 cat scat
1 skeleton (possible Bilby)

2. Trackers/young people

Two community members from Jarlmadangah Burru did the tracking work, John Watson and Nyabiru Watson. John is a senior traditional owner for this group and Nyabiru is a young adult and part of the Fire Control Team project (KRFMP) at Jarlmadangah.

There were also four teenage/young men John, Robert, Stanley and Joshua. They are part of the Yiriman 'Youth at Risk' Project. The Yiriman project attempts to build confidence and self-esteem for young people at risk through activity projects such as the Fire Control Team and Bilby project. These projects help to reinforce the value of good land management as well as the opportunity for young people to become involved in looking after country. These young men assisted with some tracking work.

3. Method
An initial meeting was held with traditional owners including trackers to determine where we might find bilby signs and a suitable basecamp location.

Vehicle transects were used. Our start and end points of each transect line were entered on the GPS.

Along each transect, points chosen by trackers were identified for tracking work.
At each point trackers searched an area of roughly 100m in diameter.

Information recorded related to fire history and type (hot, cool etc), land forms, habitat, tracking substrate. Every track was recorded in presence/absence format.
When Bilby signs were found it was recorded on the GPS and information specific to the sign (e.g. burrow) was noted (age, size, scats etc).

At the end of the field trip all information was collated into (1) above and a map is being produced using GIS technology t.

4. Palm-top Trial
Nyabiru Watson trialed a Palm-top. It had been brought from Alice Springs by Carol Palmer. It was still set up for Central Australian work however much of the animals were the same.

It was a good opportunity to trial this technology and Nyabiru preferred using this system of recording because he wasn't limited by having another person follow him around to record information on a data sheet.

The project will seek to purchase second hand 'palms' for future tracking work.

5. Variables
This was the first field trip for this project. Some transects were much longer than others. We aimed for areas that the traditional owners knew we would find burrows. Transect 1C was 50km long but only had two tracking points - we will go back to this transect to track other areas as identified by TO's.

It was a good chance for everyone to make a start on the project and trial land mapping, planning, areas to cover in the future, data recording and interpretation.

The data sheets also need fine tuning - we expect this to be an on-going process as people become more comfortable with this format over time.