Monday, 27 May 2013

Hello, Wongalara. Hello, work.

   For those that may be wondering, where exactly are we?  To begin with, in the Northern Territory.  For our American friends, that's like being in the upper mid-west.  Wisconsin, except tropical and without the cheese.  If you care to look it up, simply type the following GPS coordinates into Google Earth or Maps: -14.13993, 134.47457.  You'll find the homestead, and our house (it's one of the buildings you can see).  Zoom out and you'll see where we are in relation to the rest of the country, as well as just how far away from any other civilization we actually are.  We're tiny dots within the 427,000 acres that this property encompasses.  If you want to find out more general info on Wongalara sanctuary, just visit this link for the official website.  If you want to contact us or send us something special, the mailing address and phone number are on the right hand side of the blog webpage.  
   Formalities aside, what are we actually doing?  Our formal titles are "Research Assistants".  Basically, the peons.  We're doing the hard labor for a research project looking at the relationships between native wildlife (mainly rats and reptiles) and feral cats.  For those who may not know, feral cats (as well as numerous other invasive species) have decimated native Australian wildlife over the years.  We could explain at length the problems with feral cats in this country, but for now all you need to know is that they eat all kinds of other animals and with no real natural predators, they just keep multiplying.  We're the on-ground labor that collects the raw data for the project and feeds it to the research team to analyze.  In the end, it is hoped that this research can help to better understand the relationships between ferals and native populations of wildlife.  Stay tuned for future posts about our specific tasks, including trapping rats, reptiles, cats (luckily not at the same time), and our dealings with remote infrared cameras.    

  


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