Michelle is the Open Space Manager for the National Capital Authority (NCA), managing the green assets, open spaces, and memorials of Canberra which make the National Capital. Significant assets in this portfolio include the Parliamentary Zone, Anzac Parade, Commonwealth Park, Kings Park, the National Rose Gardens, the Old Parliament House Rose Gardens, Lindsay Pryor National Arboretum, national memorial sites and commemorative spaces, conservation areas, diplomatic sites, outdoor art, fountains, ponds, and event spaces.

Matthew is a Senior Project Officer working for Saving our Species, the NSW Government’s flagship program for threatened species. His current role involves convening the NSW Flying-fox Consultative Committee and the NSW Flying-fox Land Managers’ Network, as well as representation on a number of working groups. Matthew has led key flying-fox projects including policy work on flying-fox camp management, recent rounds of the Flying-fox Grants Program, support initiatives for wildlife carers and the phasing out of flying-fox shooting in NSW. He’s currently leading a flying-fox stream for the Australian Government’s bushfire recovery funding. He enjoys collaboration and has recently worked with local councils to develop flying-fox camp management case studies, and collaborated with wildlife carers, land managers and scientists to estimate flying-fox mortalities during the 2019-20 extreme heat and pup abandonment events. His work has been published in Australian Zoologist, Pacific Conservation Biology, Australian Mammalogy and Human Dimensions of Wildlife.

Hugh Pitty is the Community Coordinator for the Friends of Glebe Wetlands, a local conservation group in Bega on the Far South Coast of NSW. Hugh leads the Friends of Glebe Wetlands as a group of volunteers who conduct monthly flying fox counts of the seasonal Grey-headed flying- foxes that form a breeding camp at the Glebe Park Lagoon each year from around October/November through to April/May. Through this valuable citizen science initiative, Hugh has built a dataset spanning the last eight years (2012 to 2020), which has made a valuable contribution to the National Flying Fox Monitoring Program and also underpinned education about flying foxes in the local community.

Keren Cox-Witton is the Senior Project Officer at Wildlife Health Australia. She is a veterinarian with an interest in wildlife health and epidemiology and has worked at WHA since 2010. Keren coordinates the WHA Bat Health Focus Group, which has a broad membership and considers bat health issues in the context of biosecurity, public health, domestic animal health and environmental impacts in Australia. Keren’s role at WHA also includes co-ordination of wildlife disease surveillance programs involving zoo- based hospitals and sentinel veterinary clinics, administering a national database of wildlife health information, and maintaining a national dataset for Australian bat lyssavirus.

Anita works as a veterinary pathologist at the Qld Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Biosecurity Sciences Laboratory. She has been the Queensland State Co-ordinator for Wildlife Health Australia since 2006.

Maree has a Masters of Wildlife Management and is currently undertaking a higher degree examining societal values for flying foxes by assessing impact of education/interpretation programs, including tourism potential, in changing attitudes toward flying-foxes. She is a joint convenor of the Australasian Bat Society’s (ABS) Flying-fox Expert Group and created and coordinates the annual ABS Australasian Bat Night program, including coordinating the Cairns Bat Festival since 2015. Maree has presented to national conferences of Wildlife Tourism Australia, Australasian Wildlife Management Society, Australasian Bat Society, and Interpretation Australia on the subjects of bat tourism, interpretation and flying-fox management.

Sera holds a degree in Biology and Psychology with an Ethology focus and is currently working on her masters in Zoology and Ecology including research on crocodiles and blossom-bats. Sera has been in the zoo industry for 12 years working in both Australia and the United States as a zookeeper, animal trainer and wildlife presenter. Her main focus is birds and reptiles, but bats have been an interest of hers since she was a child. Sera is promoting bats and tourism using a model developed by Bat Conservation International in her home state of Texas.

Adam McKeown is an ecologist working for CSIRO on a range of ecological and transport related projects. He has worked on flying-fox population and movement ecology questions on all Australian species for 20 years.