Drones fitted with thermal imaging cameras are helping the Nyikina Mangala Rangers track one of Australia's rarest and most secretive wallabies.
The black-footed rock wallaby is an endangered subspecies of the rock wallaby and is only found in an isolated area of the west Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Also known as the West Kimberley rock wallaby, it is one of four subspecies in Australia.
The rangers have been monitoring the small population of wallabies, or wiliji as they are known by traditional owners, since 2013.
They live in rocky outcrops of the Erskine Range about 250 kilometres east of Broome, where the rangers spend countless hours scouring the area looking for scats and tracks, and setting up cameras.
Raymond Charles has been working on the project with Nyikina Mangala Rangers since the start and said the work was gruelling.
"It's hard work alright. That's a long walk, and a long walk back."
Now, thermal imaging cameras installed on the drones allow the rangers to track the heat signatures of the wallabies.
Head ranger Jeremiah "Modra" Green was taught to fly the drone by experts at Charles Darwin University and said aside from the early starts, the drones make the work much easier.
"When you fly the drone you can see more areas and you can go closer to the caves, fly to the caves and see what's there and where they travel, their tracks."
Mr Green said tracking the wallabies with the drones had also allowed the rangers to find better places for camera traps, helping get more accurate data on population numbers.
Planning for permanent monitoring program
The project is a partnership with the rangers under Walalakoo Aboriginal Corporation, the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF) and Charles Darwin University.
WWF-Australia species conservation manager Leigh-Ann Woolley said drones were proving to be an accurate and reliable way to inform conservation efforts.
She said they were comparing three techniques to track the wallabies including live trapping and tagging, camera traps, and thermal imaging drones.
The next challenge for the rangers is to protect the wallabies from bushfires, cattle, and feral cats — all direct threats to the future of the endangered marsupials.
Walalakoo Aboriginal Corporation chairperson Robert Watson said the rangers had a sense of responsibility to protect the wallabies living on Nyikina Mangala country.
"It's a rare species to the world. That makes it exciting and it really gives us a sense of purpose.
"It's not something that we can do on our own, that's why these meaningful partnerships are always very important."
