**Job Title:** Wildlife Spatial Ecologist
About the Role:
We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Wildlife Spatial Ecologist to lead our research on proactive surveillance and mitigation of wallaby browsing in softwood plantations.
The successful candidate will design and execute a project to understand how and why wallabies, and other non-focus animal species, spatially and temporally use young softwood plantations in a heterogeneous production forestry landscape and how this relates to damage to trees. The project will better understand management practices on population dynamics of wallabies and will also test and develop an optimal (efficient, cost-effective, easy to use) technological operational method for detecting and estimating wallaby populations and dynamics.
Main Responsibilities:
* Develop a technological operational method for detecting and estimating wallaby population dynamics.
* Provide operational knowledge of where, when and why macropod browsing occurs in softwood plantations and co-designed procedures to better target control measures proactively before damage occurs.
* Provide operational knowledge of where and when other non-target native and non-native species use mature and establishing plantations, providing quality biodiversity estimates for companies.
* Liaise with industry partners to co-develop monitoring tools, present interim findings, and refine deliverables to meet operational requirements.
* Engage continuously with plantation company stakeholders to align research activities with on-ground practices.
Key Requirements:
* Expertise in thermal and RGB drone operations, including orthomosaic generation.
* Proficiency in deploying and managing wildlife camera-trap networks and processing large image datasets.
* Experience developing and validating machine-learning and AI models for image object detection and classification.
* Strong background in experimental design, statistical sampling and analysis in field settings.
* Skilled in GNSS-based geolocation, GIS software (e.g. QGIS, ArcGIS) and programming (Python, R).
Benefits:
* A competitive remuneration package of up to $125,877 per annum.
How to Apply:
* To apply online, please provide the following supporting documentation: resume, cover letter outlining your suitability and motivation for the role, and your responses to the success criteria from the Position Description below.
Required Qualifications:
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