Gary Opit's Wildlife Weekend ABC North Coast NSW Radio 6.30 am every Saturday morning at 94.5 FM

Citizen Science and Cryptozoology, data received from listeners during 18 years of wildlife talkback on ABC North Coast New South Wales Local Radio.

Gary Opit

PO Box 383 Brunswick Heads, NSW, Australia, 2483

Published in the Australian Zoologist, Dangerous ideas in zoology, volume 38 number 3, 2017

Abstract

A citizen science project was begun on 11 February 1997 with a regular live-to-air wildlife talkback segment on ABC North Coast NSW Local Radio. Listeners were encouraged to phone in to report interesting observations. This public endeavour aimed to promote interest in wildlife among the listeners and to find the range of interest that the public have with wildlife, determined by the number of species that listeners would report. The 18 years of wildlife talkback radio resulted in 342 identifiable species discussed providing evidence that the public was interested in a very wide array of wildlife species. 

Additional to the reports of well-known fauna species, one report of an extinct bird was received and unusual reports were regularly received describing mammals unknown to Australian zoology. This paper includes some of the stories that were received and these may contain errors and fabrications. They are recorded here so that others can learn of them. Parts of this paper are excerpts from my book, Australian Cryptozoology, and this paper now also gives new information.  

The only physical evidence for the existence of one of these animals was the discovery of a unique method of predation on wood-boring beetle larvae. This involved the precise removal of pieces of wood, 12 to 15 cm long, 3 to 4 cm wide and 1 to 2 cm thick, within one metre of the ground. This created distinctive vertical slots in the base of small green wattle trees Acacia irrorata. On the 27^th and 28^th October 2003 in the Jimna State Forest adjacent the Conondale National Park in South-east Queensland over 500 trees were examined and found to contain this precise method of predation on wood-boring beetle larvae. 

Key Words

ABC radio; wildlife talkback; citizen science; identifiable species; cryptozoology; unidentifiable mammals; psychological element; eyewitness reliability; physical evidence.

A citizen science project was begun on 11 February 1997 with a regular live-to-air wildlife talk-back segment on ABC North Coast NSW Local Radio. Listeners were encouraged to phone in to report interesting observations. This public endeavour aimed to promote interest in wildlife among the listeners and to find the range of interest that the public have with wildlife, determined by the number of species that listeners would report. The 20 years of wildlife talk-back radio resulted in 342 identifiable species discussed providing evidence that the public was interested in a very wide array of wildlife species. Additional to the reports of well-known fauna species, one report of an extinct bird was received and unusual reports were regularly received describing mammals unknown to Australian zoology. 

I initiated these live-to-air broadcasts in 1997 to add an environmental dialogue to local radio and address issues concerning the environment. Dunlap and Van Liere proposed in their paper, the new environmental paradigm (1978), in the Journal of Environmental Education, that the source of the earth’s ecological problems is due to the anthropocentric worldview and that this could be challenged by a new environmental paradigm, in which individuals believe in the necessity of balancing economic growth with environmental protection.

During these broadcasts I gave a synopsis on seasonal wildlife behaviour and drew parallels between the behaviour of animals and the behaviour of people and how the health of humans, society and civilisation depended on the health of the surrounding natural environment. I also received listeners' calls identifying all species of fauna from their descriptions of morphology and vocalisations.

Besides the attempt to locally increase awareness of a new environmental paradigm, the aim of the broadcasts was to gather information about the distribution and relative abundance of well-known animals and to help broaden our understanding of the current distribution of our wildlife, particularly those that are rare or outside expected distribution. From 1997 to 2006 these were fortnightly broadcasts on Tuesday mornings from 10.15 am until 10.45 am. The segment was then renamed Wildlife Wednesday and continues to operate every week throughout the year from 6.40 am. Additionally I conducted a few nationwide broadcasts.

Between 11 February 1997 and 11 February 2015 I received approximately 900 phone calls, emails, some with photographs and illustrations, and identification requests posted onto the ABC North Coast New South Wales Local Radio Facebook site. The name of the caller, the date and locality of their sightings, a description of the species referred to and its behaviour were recorded and placed in a table of wildlife observations resulting in 342 identifiable species discussed. Of these, 61 were invertebrate species, eight were fish, 19 were amphibian, 36 were reptile, 181 were bird and 37 were mammal species.

All of these records had at least two pieces of biological information core to science, where and when the species was observed. Darwin Core standards define over 130 different pieces of natural history information that can be associated with an individual specimen record. The minimum Darwin Core data-set is identification with its special and temporal metadata which makes it a usable scientific record (Walker 2014). Major issues with the collection of this data were its reliability and the likelihood that listeners would not take the time and effort to communicate information on wildlife species that did not stimulate their interest. The values of these observations were that they promoted interest in wildlife among the listeners and provided a starting point for further investigation and verification.

Dunlap, R. E., & Van Liere, K. D. (1978). The new environmental paradigm: A proposed measuring instrument and preliminary results. Journal of Environmental Education, 9, 10–19.

Walker, K. 2014. BowerBird: a home for Australian citizen science. Wildlife Australia 51 4 summer, PP34. Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Brisbane