Rare barking geckos and Bungle Bungle sliders face extinction
New research has revealed the Pilbara barking gecko and Bungle Bungle robust slider are facing a heightened risk of extinction due to a rapidly warming climate.
International experts weigh in on Australia’s bird flu response
While the H5N1 bird flu strain is relatively new to Australia, experts who have monitored the spread in other continents say surveillance is key to tackling the deadly virus.
Birdsong data from Merlin ID app to help global biodiversity project
Cornell Lab for Ornithology plans data linkup between app and population monitoring on eBird platform
The Merlin bird ID app will allow users to feed real-time bird identifications into one of the world’s biggest citizen-science biodiversity projects in an update it is hoped will aid conservation of at-risk birds.
Since 2021, the free Merlin app, created by the Cornell Lab for Ornithology, has used machine learning to provide an almost instantaneous sound-identification service for birdsong, along with an image for each bird identified. In future, the detections of bird species recorded by people will be automatically collected on the global online database eBird, which contains more than 2bn bird observation records.
Great Barrier Reef avoids World Heritage ‘in danger’ listing
The UN body raised “utmost concern” over the site’s declining coral cover after mass bleaching events in 2024 and 2025.
‘We can’t wait’: WA town hopeful of economic benefits of reopening gold mine
The rebirth of the mothballed Badgebup Gold Mine is expected to bring new industry and inject hundreds of workers into one of WA’s premier farming regions.