Albury-Wodonga campus acoustic monitoring project for the David Mitchell wetlands

Charles Sturt’s Albury-Wodonga campus was master planned to incorporate a wetland system when the campus was established in the 1990s. Since then, the wetland system has become increasingly important habitat as urban development encroaches on the campus’s boundaries. The David Mitchell wetlands, as they are officially known, act as critical habitats for the nationally threatened Sloane’s froglet.

In 2021, a project was initiated by our staff from the School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences to establish acoustic monitoring recorders and water temperature loggers across the wetland system. Collected recordings are then analysed using specialist software to identify frog calls, including the Sloane’s froglet.

Students studying the Bachelor of Environmental Sciences and Management have been integral to the program’s success via routine downloading and maintenance of the recorders. In addition, collected data has and will continue to be used as the basis of student research projects that contribute to an improved understanding of the behaviours and distribution of the Sloane’s froglet.