20 Mar 2024 Cost and Feasibility of Eradication Workshop
We recently hosted a two-day workshop on the ‘Cost and Feasibility of Eradicating Invasive Species’. The workshop was presented by Dr Dave Ramsey and Dr Michael Scroggie from the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research and Dr Dean Anderson from Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research (NZ).
The focus of the workshop was new software tools for the estimation of the cost and feasibility of invasive animal eradication, and involved presentations and discussion of the key concepts, parameters, and data requirements of the tools, demonstrations of each of the tools, and the opportunity for participants to trial the tools with their own data.
Of the 20 attendees, the majority were from the Western Australian Government Departments of Primary Industries and Regional Development, and Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.
Ben said “It was a great privilege to host the workshop - Drs Ramsey, Anderson, and Scroggie each have decades of experience in this space, a passion for applied ecology, and a gift for explaining complex ideas. The workshop showed the great value that statistical ecology can bring to decision making around our efforts to control and eradicate pest species. The participants brought their own data sets and were immediately able to apply these techniques to pest species of significance to Western Australia.”
