A journey of diversity in Australia

By Gracey Kettler ’28

It’s 5:30 a.m. I’m in the middle of the remote Australian bush standing in the rain listening as hard as I can to determine if that last bird call was a Noisy Miner or if I had finally lost it. This was a normal day for me that fall.  

In 2025, I had the opportunity to travel to Far North Queensland, Australia, with the School for Field Studies at the start of my junior year. I got to witness firsthand the beauty and diversity of a small portion of Australia’s unique rainforest. I spent three months fully immersed in environmental learning, improving my education in areas such as biodiversity, tropical biome ecology, and wildlife conservation. My final month there focused on a research project examining biodiversity levels in a small part of the savannah lands that had gained native title. 

What is Native Title?  

In Australia, the Native Title Act was passed in 1993 and grants traditional ownership of land and water to Aboriginal peoples. These communities gain access to their land, but the government retains certain rights to it. This means that if a desirable resource is found, the government can revoke Native Title and reclaim the land. Groups can apply if they can prove a historical connection and that their people were once on the land. The group we were working with was the Mbabaram peoples. They had found traditional artwork on the rocks in this area and were able to apply and receive Native Title. They received only a small section of what was once ancestral land. Aboriginal peoples refer to traditional homeland as Country. With Native Title, Aboriginal peoples are allowed to care for Country using their traditional practices.  

What was I studying?  

My research focused on measuring the biodiversity levels on the main cultural site. The Mbabaram peoples started a company called Rainforest to Bush and offered cultural tours that taught people about their history and lifestyle at the Watsonville Cultural Park. Around the park, the Mbabaram peoples would do prescribed burns and daily maintenance of native vegetation. We camped out for four days and performed different tests to acquire a wide range of data. My group and I had six main tests to determine biodiversity levels.  

The Tests 

Trail cameras  

 At the beginning of the month, we set up trail cameras around the park to capture photos of wildlife at all times. After three weeks, we collected them and went through the footage. After hours of combing through thousands of photos, we realized a piece of grass had triggered two of the cameras. This meant that those cameras were unable to record any animals and all their storage had been taken. However, our other cameras were able to photograph wallabies, a few birds, and wild cats and dogs.  

Spotlighting  

At night we would go out as a group with flashlights and thermal binoculars in search of nocturnal animals. One night, all of our head lamps and flashlights died and we had to navigate through the bush with our iPhone lights. Over the three nights we found sugar gliders, ring-tailed possums, owls, and all kinds of creepy insects. 

Sweep netting  

During the day we would walk around the 57-acre park and catch butterflies. We would take them back to the main camp, identify them, and release any species that had already been documented. New species were brought back to our campus and pinned and added to our collections. We would spend two hours running around swiping at small butterflies and often missing. We found a large number of swallowtails, orange ringlets, dingy bush browns, and other species. 

Lightsheeting  

At night we would set up a big white sheet and point two LED lights at it to attract nighttime insects. Over the course of the night, the sheet would become covered in moths, beetles, crickets, and dozens of other insects, making it difficult to keep up with how many there were. 

Bird Calls 

Every morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. and went out to previously established transects and listened for bird activity. We would walk through the dark, hilly, rocky savannah trying to remember where our transect points were. A few times my group got lost and we had to spend extra time trying to figure out where we were. One of my partners and I both slipped down an embankment right after each other. We spent two hours recording what we heard and saw. Ultimately, 35 different bird species were found and recorded, including some that were rare for this area.  

Dung Beetles 

Our last test was to collect dung beetles using traps we placed at the beginning of our four-day stay. These traps were dug into the ground and filled with an ethanol mixture that killed the beetles. We made our bait out of wallaby poop, bandicoot intestine, and rotted mushrooms. We had to hand collect the wallaby poop to guarantee it was fresh enough to attract beetles. The bandicoot, one of Australia’s cutest marsupials, had been found after being hit by a car and was used to create bait. The traps collected a total of 25 different species. Some were unique to the dry and wet seasons. One was even an introduced species usually found only in agricultural areas of Australia. 

After 

After collecting this data, we compiled it into Excel and compared species diversity at our site to surrounding areas. It turned out that this area was highly diverse. The use of traditional ecological knowledge had allowed it to thrive and begin restoring itself to its historical condition.  

Getting to work hands-on with a project that gauged how ecosystems are affected by management tactics was a unique and wonderful experience. It showed me a side of research that I want to pursue after undergraduate. 

While the research itself was rewarding, I learned so much during my time abroad. I learned about the loss of rainforest in Australia for agricultural use, the possums and bats becoming endangered due to rising temperatures and having nowhere to go, and the invasive species that have taken over much of the continent. While Australia may be known for the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef, its Mabi rainforest and savannah lands hold some of its most unique wildlife. Seeing the biodiversity present on Mbabaram-managed land showed me how much these ecosystems can benefit from careful stewardship. I hope people realize how vital these ecosystems are before it is too late.