OCSN application for Pines community funding round 1, August 2024

OCSN application unsuccessful

Oberon Citizen Science Network received the following communication from the Pines Wind farm developers on Tuesday 1st October 2024 regarding the application for community funding as detailed below:

Hi Alan,

Thank you for taking the time to submit a sponsorship application.

The sponsorship committee has finalised its selection and unfortunately your application was not selected from the many that were submitted.

If you have any questions, please let us know and one of the selection committee team can be in touch.

Kind regards,

The Pines Wind Farm Team

This is a copy of the application OCSN submitted to the August 2024 round of the Pines Wind Farm project community sponsorship program.

Warning

The application was prepared after carefully reviewing the guidelines and elegibility criteria as instructed on the Pines Wind Farm project community sponsorship program web page. The document containing the elegibility criteria and guidelines can be found here.

Unfortunately, when submitting our application via the provided online submission form, an additional elegibility criterion was discovered: that organisations applying must have been in existence for at least 12 months. This requirement was not mentioned in the elegibility and application guidelines document mentioned above, nor anywhere else that we can determine.

We hope that this additional elegibility requirement, which was disclosed only at submission time and only in the online form, is a mistake, for the following reasons:

• it represents an inconsistency between the two pathways provided for submitting applications, since the requirement is not mentioned or revealed at all when submitting an application by emailing the provided PDF application form;
• it penalises innovation and new initiatives in the community; and
• it is a blunt and clumsy way of discouraging opportunistic or bad-faith applications.

OCSN has requested clarification from the Pines Wind Farm organisation.

1. Name of the initiative:

   Surveying wildlife prevalence in Oberon LGA using eco-acoustics and time-lapse photography

2. Provide a short overview of your initiative:

   The Oberon local government area, in the NSW Central Tablelands, contains many increasingly rare sub-alpine environments at elevations between 1000 and 1350 metres, including the headwaters and upper reaches of several river systems which are host to endangered and threatened species, and habitats for a range of cold-tolerant flora and fauna. Remarkably little data is collected in a systematic or ongoing fashion to monitor the prevalence of fauna in the region. There is surprisingly little published scientific research, specific to the region, on key species, and much of what is available is decades old. Similarly fauna records for the region in databases such as the NSW BioNet Atlas are sparse and most are not recent. The recently-formed Oberon Citizen Science Network (OCSN) seeks to address these knowledge gaps, in partnership with academic researchers and other ecological and conservation organisations, by developing a series of science-based, systematic fauna survey projects to be carried out by its members, most of whom live in the region. We plan to use modern, technological means to efficiently conduct these surveys, in particular eco-acoustic methods and automated visual monitoring using time-lapse cameras. These devices will be deployed to, and retrieved from, survey sites by OCSN members, and the data so collected analysed by teams of OCSN members using both automated and semi-manual methods. All data and results will be made publicly available, with outreach to local schools to involve students in projects to use or analyse the data. Co-authorship of formal scientific papers by OCSN and its academic partners may also be possible.

3. Total sponsorship funding for the application:

   $3950

4. Timing of the initiative:

   1 October 2024 to 30 June 2026

5. Organisation name:

   Oberon Citizen Science Network (OCSN)

6. ABN/ACN

   TBA

7. Length of time the organisation has been operating:

   Four months

8. Short overview of your organisation:

   Oberon Citizen Science Network (OCSN) is a strictly non-political volunteer organisation for people interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, projects and promotion in the community. An application for incorporation of OCSN as a not-for-profit association has been submitted to Service NSW and approval is expected in September 2024. Further organisational details may be found on the OCSN web site. At the time of writing in late August 2024, OCSN has 28 members.

9. Which category best describes your organisation:

   Community organisation, not-for-profit

10. Contact name:

11. Address:

12. Phone number:

13. Email:

14. Location of the funding initiative / Distance from The Pines Wind Farm proposal site:

    0 to 50 kms

15. Which category best describes your initiative:

    Education and Training, Environment

16. Describe how the initiative will benefit the local community:

    For the members of OCSN participating in this initiative, it will build knowledge and appreciation of local fauna and increase awareness of the challenges faced by specific species in the face of ecological changes. It will also expose participants to modern, technology-based ecological survey methods, including field workshops in sensor operation and deployment, and training sessions in data analysis and data dissemination methods using free, open-source software. A significant number of OCSN members live in the southern part of Oberon LGA, adjacent to the Pines exploration areas, and have close ties to their local communities.

    There will be three technologies used in this initiative:

    1. AudioMoth digital eco-acoustic recorders – these small, open-source devices are capable of recording up to several weeks of high fidelity audio using just battery power. They come with a very good custom waterproof case. Typically they are deployed in hidden locations at target sites, left for a week or two, then collected and the recordings downloaded from them for further processing and analysis. The devices are widely used and well-regarded worldwide in eco-acoustic survey research. OCSN already owns two of these devices and has been testing (with success) them for frog, bird and bat call capture. Details of proposed analysis methods for the captured recordings are given in the next section.

    2. Brinno time lapse cameras – these cameras are often used on construction sites, but they are also ideal for capturing timelapse videos in natural environments. Recent research found that human reviewers could screen an hour’s worth of photographs of ponds and river segments taken every 3 second in just one minute with very good accuracy in identifying potential platypus movements. Candidate movements are then examined in detail, frame by frame to verify sightings. The task of reviewing such timelapse footage can be distributed to several OCSN members or other volunteers, after suitable training, to make larger scale surveys feasible.

    3. BirdNET-pi and Birdweather bird call identification stations – these are descibed in section 17.g below.

    Beyond the direct participation by OCSN members, this initiative will:

    1. increase community knowledge of and pride in our sub-alpine local habitat and the fauna which are part of it;

    2. provide current and ongoing data on fauna prevalence in various habitats for use in school projects, and as the basis for further scientific investigation and analyses;

    3. provide an example and motivation to school students to promote interest in STEM subjects and careers. Through the use of modern technological means for data collection, this initiative will appeal not only to students with an interest in biology or ecology, but also students (and community members) interested in embedded microprocessor devices and related technologies, engineering, statistical analysis and information technologies.

    All data collected by the initiative will be made freely available via the OCSN web site and local schools will be encouraged to develop learning projects or individual student projects (eg for the Investigating Science HSC school subject). Several OCSN members are teachers at local schools in Oberon LGA.

17. Describe how the initiative will benefit the broader community beyond the organisation/program being funded:

    This initiative seeks to promote interest in STEM in the wider community by adding to the extent and currency of data and knowledge on fauna and habitat in the Oberon region, by actively disseminating and publicising the results of fauna surveys undertaken through this initiative. Dissemination will be via the OCSN web site, social media (including local community groups on Facebook, as well as OCSN YouTube and TikTok channels) and community meetings, including a 2025 National Science Week STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) event at the Malachi Gilmore Hall in Oberon for which NSW and Commonwealth government science week community event funding will be sought. The intent is to engender in the wider community both greater awareness of and pride in the local natural environment, as well as promoting Oberon LGA as a centre of excellence in citizen science and STEM educational engagement.

    The initial focus of this initiative will be on surveying the prevalence of the following endangered, threatened and near-threatened species, both because there has been so little recent research done on them in the local region, and because there are already wider (but not local) research and/or conservation efforts for them, with which OCSN can partner:

    1. Koala: eco-acoustic monitoring for male koala mating roars, starting in and around the known remnant population of koalas in the Oberon LGA outside of national park areas, and then extending to other likely habitats, in consultation with the National Koala Monitoring Program – see also the information they provide on their audio monitoring methodology, which OCSN will adopt.

    2. Platypus: direct observation surveys at likely locations, as well as systematic deployment along waterway courses of time-lapse cameras, which have recently been shown to be an excellent method for platypus detection over longer periods (one to two weeks at a time, as detailed in this recent scientific paper). The initial focus will be on the Duckmaloi River, once famous for its abundant platypus population, in particular the upper reaches of the Duckmaloi and the headwater riparian systems which feed into it, as well as parts of the Fish River and tributaries further north in Oberon SLA. These surveys will be designed and undertaken based on advice from the Australian Platypus Conservancy) and the UNSW Platypus Conservation Initiative. All data collected will be contributed to the Australian Platypus Conservancy and through the platy-project web site, both of which in turn contribute data to the NSW BioNet Atlas. Video of a recent platypus sighting in the upper reaches of the Duckmaloi River by an OCSN member can be found here.

    3. Rakali (native water rat): rakali will also be surveyed using the same methods and equipment as the platypus surveys outlined above, initially as part of the platypus surveys given that their habitats are very similar. We will engage with the Australian Platypus Conservancy rakali project for advice.

    4. Booroolong frog: this frog species, which lives exclusively in rocky sections of high country rivers and creeks, is classed as critically endangered. There are known populations of this frog in Oberon LGA in the Sewells Creek riparian system near Essington and in the Abercrombie River system. In 2012 the NSW government published a national recovery plan for the species which listed several other known habitats for this frog in the Oberon region, including the upper reaches of the Fish River and the Duckmaloi Rivers. The plan called for regular monitoring of the populations in those areas, but it appears this was never done. OCSN plans to remedy this but undertaking systematic eco-acoustic surveys of the areas in the southern part of Oberon LGA identified in the recovery plan, using the equipment and methods decribed in section 16 above. The surveys will be planned in conjunction with herpetologists at the FrogID project located at the Australian Museum and UNSW, with particular regard to protection of possible Booroolong frog habitats from inadvertent introduction of the chytrid fungus pathogen through appropriate footwear hygiene and minimal impact monitoring using eco-acoustic devices rather than traditional but potentially distruptive direct observation methods.

    5. Other frog species: the surveys outlined in d. above will also be able to detect and estimate the prevalence of many other local frog species, some of which are threatened or known to be in decline, others still thriving. However this will require development and testing of automated methods for frog call recognition. We will partner with several research groups around Australia are developing such methods, including the Arthur Rylah Institute in Victoria (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBR2yQR2ilw ).

    6. Bat species: although microbat species in the Oberon region are not thought to be endangered or threatened, there is little awareness of them or their prevalance apart from when they roost in dwellings. This is largely due to their nocturnal habits and their predominantly ultrasonic echo-location calls. This iniative also seeks to develop and demonstrate the ability to detect microbat presence in forest environments through capture of their ultrasonic calls. This will be done with the same AudioMoth recording devices used for other aspects of this project – these devices are capable of sound sampling at a 384kHz rate and thus can readily capture the typical range of ultrasonic calls emitted by Australian microbats. The data will be analysed using the bat call recognition software developed and published by the Australian company Titley Scientific, a world leader in ecoacoustics. Several OCSN members are currently attending a series of training seminars in bat call detection provided by Titley. At a later date some Titley hardware devices may also be acquired if funding can be found, but not as part of this funding application.

    7. Bird species: several OCSN members have experience with deployment of Birdweather or BirdNET-pi bird monitoring devices at their homes or properties. This system, developed by Cornell University in the US, uses an advanced machine learning algorithm trained on the calls of thousands of bird species worldwide (including nearly a thousand Australian species) to automatically identify bird species from their calls as captured by the devices. The algorithm has been shown in the scientific literature to be extremely accurate, which is confirmed by the anecdotal experience to date of OCSN members. Part of this initiative is to subsidise the installation of several more Birdweather or BirdNET-pi devices at the homes of OCSN members, in the townships as well as rural locations. All Birdweather and BirdNEt-pi devices contribute data to the Birdweather network, and the data is then freely available for others to use. In addition, OCSN will separately collate, analyse and publish data from these Oberon SLA monitoring devices in a way that makes it even easier for the Oberon community to view, and for school students to access for projects.

    One limitation of the Birdweather and BirdNet-pi devices is that they carry out evaluation of the convolutional neural network model they use for call identification on the device, and this means they require several watts of power. Although this is negligible in the context of a household, it means they are not suitable for remote deployment. However, the AudioMoth devices already mentioned can be used to record ambient sound in remote locations, including bird calls, and these sound recordings can be processed off-line by the BirdNet algorithm to provide automated call identification. Several OCSN members have the requisite expertise in python programming and the use of the TensorFlow neural network framework required for such processing.

    The indicative budget for the initiative described here is as follows:

    • AudioMoth device with SD cards, rechargable lithium batteries and waterproof case: 3 devices at AU$300 each = AU$900

    • Titley Scientific AnaBat software license: AU$550

    • Brinno TLC2020 time lapse camera with waterproof case, rechargable lithium batteries and storage card: 2 devices at AU$850 each = AU$1700

    • BirdNET-pi or Birdweather monitoring stations: subsidy for 4 additional stations (balance to be met by host, total cost of each station is AU$400-AU$500) at AU$200 per station = AU$800

    Total funding sought: AU$3950