Andrew Bengsen 🐗🦌

Feral animals and exotic animal disease modelling. This is a great opportunity to work closely with a leading expert on an important real-world problem.

Ever want to know what happens when you Taser a deer? I've got to admit that I'm struggling to get past my initial WTF, but I'll press on out of morbid curiosity. Sounds like a study conceived shortly after 4:20 publish.csiro.au/wr/Fulltext/WR…

Just a reminder for Aussies out in nature: if you find a dead bird with no obvious sign of injury then please call the emerging animal disease hotline 1800 675 888 Experts are right now trying to monitor for signs of avian influenza across the country. michellewille.com/avian-influenz…

Ever wonder what wild deer are eating, how they compete with sheep and cattle, and how deer population control might relieve some of that competition? We did. @CSIROPublishing publish.csiro.au/WR/pdf/WR22106

Are data availability statements meaningless? There IS a better way. "Among 1792 manuscripts in which the DAS indicated that authors are willing to share their data, 1669 (93%) authors either did not respond or declined to share their data with us." doi.org/10.1016/j.jcli…

@PLTaggart @MTWildlifeDoc Nope, never seen anything like it. We've had a couple of fallow bucks bolt 12-14 km within a few days of heli capture, but they set up camp and lived well for > a year.

@MTWildlifeDoc @RowdyBengsen might have some insights

Ok #ScienceTwitter Female deer with strong site fidelity before traveling ~3.5 miles in ~ 28 min in the middle of the night to the NW where it ended up dying. This occurred <2 weeks post-capture via helicopter. What’s you best story as to what happened to this deer?!? 🧵

@MTWildlifeDoc @drwebbswildlife That's a really neat visualisation! Interesting to see higher than expected mvt immediately post capture. Not what we found in a small sample of fallow deer. I'll have to look at our broader dataset doi.org/10.1071/WR21007

GPS data first 30 days after helicopter & net-gun capture for adult female deer. Top left animation is the raw GPS data. Top right is the kernels created around the data. Bottom animation is the cumulative distance moved per day. I found seeing all 3 together super interesting.

@comte_seb Sorry, it's a very small delivery radius from our kitchen. But next time you're up this way...

WFH perks: unsolicited desk delivery

A lot of TS recovery plans seem to be box-ticking exercises. I really hope this one brings some change: abc.net.au/news/2023-06-2…

Mammals of Australia 4th edn has finally landed! This classic text has been a part of my life for a long time, long before I was in the business. Pretty neat to have contributed to it now.

@dr_cairns @DingoNOTWildDog Here's an easy place to start looking at drivers of population growth. Corbett is worth a look. Shameless self-ref synthesising empirical growth rate estimates and removal rates: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

@RowdyBengsen @DingoNOTWildDog Can you share a link to the papers/data, I would like to read about this.

Could this be related to the massive increase in dingo aerial baiting carried out in NSW during 2019-2023? Removing or suppressing the ONLY large predator in the ecosystem obviously has an impact. brisbanetimes.com.au/national/nsw/w…

@DingoNOTWildDog @dr_cairns Yes, dingoes eat pigs, but not nearly enough to counter their very high birth rate. No amount of dingoes can keep a lid on a pig population growing anywhere near its max growth rate. 2/2

@DingoNOTWildDog @dr_cairns The 'base line' is the fact that pig population dynamics are largely driven by food availability, which is largely driven by rain in much of Aust. We've had a run of great years for pigs. Everyone knew this was coming three years ago when we entered the wet cycle. 1/2.

@deborah_bower Thanks. That's a sad discovery.

@RowdyBengsen @april_reside Sadly no.. not since December 2021.

Dr Tony Grice would have been tickled pink to finally see his last primary author paper published. An important observation of #blackthroatedfinch records outside their stronghold. Thanks @april_reside Eric Vanderduys, and Lea Ezzy for the team effort. Good spotting Grice!

Aerial shooting of introduced sambar deer is a key activity taken to reduce this invasive species on public land in the North East and East Gippsland regions of Victoria, however little has been published on its efficacy of reducing sambar deer populations. #WildlifeResearch 1/4

@CKMonty @festa_bianchet @JordanOHampton Yeah, wind farms kill birds. And death by wind turbine is more acutely lethal than lead poisoning. I'm not 100% on this, but I suspect the high wind farm count is partly because wind farm operators have to do routine bird kill surveys, so they find a lot of birds.

@RowdyBengsen @festa_bianchet @JordanOHampton It might be more concerning that 69% of dead Eagles came from wind farms.

Nearly 1 in 5 #WedgeTailedEagles sampled had high lead levels in their bones. From @JordanOHampton etal sciencedirect.com/science/articl…