Tyron is a Natural Areas Conservation Officer with a strength in developing novel management techniques for wildlife conservation and conflict issues. Tyron is highly experienced in flying-fox management and conservation and is a member of the SEQ flying-fox managers group and the LGAQ/DES flying-fox special working group. He also presented at Annual flying-fox forum 2019 on novel Heat-stress Autonomous Response Unit, for which he was a Finalist for Sunshine Coast Council CEO Awards 2019 Innovation Category (Project lead). Tyron was also involved in the Queensland-first trial of subsidised services program for flying-fox management.

Lindsay is the Director of Northern Wildlife Operations, where he is responsible for: public and stakeholder engagement, delivery of cassowary, crocodile and flying-fox management programs, development of wildlife management policies such as flying-fox codes of practice and roost management guidelines, and investigations and compliance under Queensland’s Nature Conservation laws. His previous roles include Director of Environmental Impact Assessment (DEH), Director of Regional Service Delivery (DERM), Director of Sustainable Industries (Environmental Protection Agency), and Regional Director for the far northern region of Queensland (QPWS).

Jason Van Weenen is an ecologist with the South Australian Department for Environment and Water and has been working with threatened species conservation projects and native species management for 26 years. He now sits within the ecology team of the Green Adelaide Landscapes Region and has been involved with flying foxes since their arrival in South Australia in 2010. In his personal time, Jason is committed to the restoration of bushland areas in his care, volunteering in wildlife conservation projects and leading biodiversity conservation activities on one of SA’s offshore islands.

Veronica is a plant ecologist currently working in the Biodiversity Policy team in the Office of Nature Conservation in the ACT Government. Veronica has done extensive research on the capacity of Australian and Chilean plants to deal with extreme temperatures and she is particularly interested on how alpine species will cope with warmer temperatures. In the ACT Government, Veronica works on Threatened species policy, participating in listing assessments, liaising with the ACT Scientific Committee, and writing action plans to support the recovery of threatened species. She recently wrote the Native Species Conservation Plan for the Grey-headed Flying-fox for the ACT (Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) Native Species Conservation Plan (act.gov.au)) and discovered the beauty and ecological relevance of this species. Veronica is currently working on the implementation of this plan in close collaboration with ACT Wildlife.”

Shana works at Wildlife Health Australia in the Wildlife Disease Surveillance team. She has worked in South Australia and New South Wales in a variety of fields including eco-tourism, bush regeneration and environmental education. Prior to WHA she spent three years working in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. Shana has long had an interest in bats and greatly enjoys her current work assisting in the coordination of WHA’s Bat Health Focus Group. This has inspired her continued passion for bats in Australia.

Kerryn returned from a holiday in Britain, where she had been working with the Wildfowl Trust on several research projects involving Barnacle Geese and Whooper Swans and announced to her supervisor, Dr Mike Augee, that she wanted to do a PhD on breeding Whoopers in Iceland. He was not impressed. We are all mammal people here at UNSW he said. If you like things that fly, why don’t you work on flying-foxes. No-one knows anything about them! Which was true. Kerryn certainly hadn’t seen one before and when she searched the scientific literature, very little work had been done on them. This was back in 1985 before they were protected. Mike was also responsible for contacts with wildlife rehabilitators because when she whinged about the lack of information available, he told her to talk to a rehabilitator as “they know more about flying-foxes than anyone else!”. And that was true too. Anyway, she got her PhD (“The movements of the Grey-headed Flying-fox in NSW”) and has been working on flying-foxes ever since, including for UNSW and the University of Sydney, given interviews and been involved in TV and radio, run a consulting firm (Flying-fox Ecology Pty Ltd), been head of the Flying-fox Section of a rehabilitation group, written scientific papers on their movements and their diet (among other things!) and supervised students from all over the World. All which show, just what can happen if you get fascinated by these amazing flying mammals.

Jess is the Team Leader – Environment at the City of Moreton Bay. In this role she leads a team of Council Officer to deliver Council’s wildlife management and conservation projects and programs. She is a fauna ecologist with over 15 years’ experience and has a passion for urban wildlife management and conservation. Over the last 10 years she has been heavily involved with many aspects of flying fox management including policy, operational works, education, community engagement and research.

Emmett has worked at Shellharbour City Council for six years, starting out as a Bush Regeneration Officer before moving into the Environment Team as Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment Officer. As part of his role, he monitors and manages threatened species within the LGA, including the Grey-headed Flying-fox at their permanent maternal camp in Blackbutt Forest Reserve. No matter how many times he is asked, he still cannot pick a favourite bird or favourite tree.

Claudia is a Forest Engineer with a master’s degree in Forest Resources. Her professional journey spans Brazil and Australia, involving community groundwork, not-for-profit organisations, and collaborations with public government. In Brazil, her background as a botanist led her to become deeply involved in social movements and eventually to work with Greenpeace in the Amazon region, dealing with environmental and social conflicts in remote communities at the forefront of rainforest protection. In Australia, her experience broadened as she worked with WasteAid, concentrating on waste strategies and community gardens in NSW remote Indigenous communities. This led her to roles encompassing landscape management at Conservation Volunteers Australia and back to her expertise in addressing biodiversity conflicts at Byron Shire Council. Claudia is the author of 2 new plant species and co-authored 7 more, and published a restoration guide for the Brazilian savannah, “Tree Restoration Guide for the Western of Bahia State”, in collaboration with 3 other authors.