Tag: Data

Kangaroo Island wildlife sanctuary rebounds from bushfires to create citizen science ocean tours

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 11, 2022
No Comments on Kangaroo Island wildlife sanctuary rebounds from bushfires to create citizen science ocean tours

Is adventure tourism, with a science bent, the new way to attract travellers?

From tracking echidna poo, trapping mosquitoes, or counting face masks on beaches, citizen science is helping boost scientific records and data.

But it is not just for locals. A new style of tourism encourages people to involve themselves in landscapes and wildlife while visiting locations, rather than just taking in the sights.

In South Australia, Kangaroo Island is known for its unique and abundant wildlife.

But 25,000 koalas and 50,000 farm animals perished in the fatal Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020.

Two people also lost their lives.

Roanna Horbelt has been rescuing native orphaned animals at her Wildlife Land Trust Sanctuary for the past decade. She said the fires tested her mettle of her.

Woman smiling holding a kangaroo in a blanket, standing in a meadow. — Roanna Horbelt and rescued kangaroo Choco on Kangaroo Island, SA.(ABC Movin’ To The Country: Tony Hill)

“We were out in the fire grounds the whole time and you see horrible things, but we didn’t focus on that at all,” she said.

“I don’t have one picture. We focused on the positive things.

“We focused on the live animals, and we had about …150 to 200 kangaroos in the sanctuary at that stage, where it really was a sanctuary.”

Tourism that helps wildlife

Ms Horbelt and her partner, Phil Smith, saw an opportunity to give back to the animals not just through rehabilitation but through research and conservation.

They started an ocean tourism operation taking small group boat trips to the remote north-western coastline of Kangaroo Island to introduce people to the astounding diversity of animals, landscape, and geology.

Man with arm around woman, both smiling wearing matching t-shirts. — Roanna Horbelt and Phil Smith are partners in business and in life.(ABC Movin’ To The Country: Tony Hill)

The tourists, along with active citizen scientists, contribute to data monitoring and collection programs by taking photos, noting locations and animals, and making new discoveries.

Kangaroo Island Dolphin Watch coordinator Tony Bartram said, surprisingly, not much was known about dolphins.

“People think we know a lot, because dolphins are on T-shirts, in movies, on TV, all the rest, but they’re actually listed as data deficient,” he said.

“Getting baseline data about all species of dolphins is incredibly important.”

Mr Bartram said this area of Kangaroo Island was the perfect place to conduct these tours.

Two women standing outdoors in a rural setting, leaning on a fence and smiling. — Halina Baczkowski meets Roanna Horbelt on Movin’ To The Country.(ABC Movin’ To The Country: Tony Hill)

“It’s not like being in Queensland. In South Australia, the marine environment is largely unexplored,” he said.

Mr Bartram had high hopes for the project.

“It’s important to us because it gives us a greater data flow, but also it means that we’re getting to places we haven’t been able to get to before,” he said.

“The limits on the research we’ve done so far are the limits on us and how far we travel, not on the dolphins.”

It’s not just dolphins tourists get to see. They have also spotted whales and ospreys previously not thought to inhabit the area.

Whale tale on display out of the ocean. — One of many stunning whale flukes captured off the coast of Kangaroo Island on Roanna’s tours.(ABC Movin’ To The Country: John Natoli)

Seeing a whale’s tail, known as a fluke, is the money shot. The unique markings help to identify the whale.

The more cameras the better, according to Ms Horbelt.

“The data they collect is vital. It’s not easy to get a fluke of a whale or a fin because the animals move very quickly,” she said.

‘Bloody hard work’ pays off

Another citizen scientist, Sue Holman, has documented ocean life around the island for eight years and was amazed at the data coming back from the tours.

“There are only seven recorded [osprey] nests around the island and they didn’t believe there were any up that end of the north coast at all, no nests,” she said.

“This is new data. This is cutting-edge stuff that we really want to show… there are nests up there that no-one knows about.”

Ms Horbelt acknowledged the tours were doing groundbreaking work.

“All this data goes on to different citizen science [web-based] platforms,” she said.

“They got so excited when they saw my fluke shots because no fluke shots of humpback whales had ever been registered here in Kangaroo Island waters.”

Her partner, Mr Smith, was not surprised no-one else had started up a citizen tourist operation in the area.

“It’s too much bloody hard work,” he laughed.

“It’s not going to be an easy business to run but it’s going to be a fun business to run. We’re going to discover so much out there with that scientific background and we can’t wait.”

Ms Horbelt wasn’t shying away from that hard work either.

“The tourism part of things is financing the research, to be honest, but it’s also giving people a reason to get excited about seeing something new — and discovering new things is exciting for anyone,” she said.

To learn more about their work and other innovative stories, watch Movin’ to the Country on ABC TV, Fridays at 7:30pm or any time on ABC iview.

Tags bush fire, citizen science, Data, dolphin, kangaroo island, moving to the country, photography, research, tourism, whales, wildlife

Australia

Victoria University study suggests children experience high rates of violence in community sport

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 10, 2022
No Comments on Victoria University study suggests children experience high rates of violence in community sport

Eighty-two per cent of people sampled in a study conducted by Victoria University have reported experiencing at least one form of interpersonal violence when participating in community sport as a child.

The survey, which is the most comprehensive of its kind in Australia, asked 886 adults whether they had experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence, as well as neglect, from either coaches, peers or parents during childhood.

Seventy-six per cent said they had experienced psychological violence or neglect, 66 per cent reported physical violence and 38 per cent reported sexual violence.

One in three respondents, meanwhile, said they had experienced all four forms of violence.

The respondents had participated in a large variety of sports, with nearly 70 represented.

A graph showing key statistics including that 82% of respondents experienced at least one type of violence — Seventy per cent of respondents experienced physical and psychological violence from a peer. (Designed by The Infologist for Victoria University)

While such large numbers may come as a surprise to some, study co-author Mary Woessner said she was not shocked.

“From the literature, and knowing what’s happening internationally, I would say that’s right about what we were expecting,” Dr Woessner told the ABC.

“One of the first things you need to create change, positive change, is generate understanding that there’s a problem.

“We just want people to know it exists, so we can make evidence-based decisions to change it.”

Dr Woessner’s co-author, Aurélie Pankowiak, explained that the survey asked participants about explicit examples of violence they may have experienced in a sporting context.

Dr Aurélie Pankowiak poses for a photo on one of the basketball courts at Victoria University — Aurélie Pankowiak co-authored the study with Mary Woessner.(ABC News: Andie Noonan)

For neglect, for example, participants were asked if they had experienced being refused time off for medical injuries.

For psychological, participants were asked whether they had been insulted, threatened or humiliated (for example by being bullied, given an unwanted nickname violence or otherwise ostracised).

“We had very concrete examples of different types of violence, so we did not leave it up to the person’s interpretation of whether or not what they experienced was violent,” Dr Pankowiak said.

One reason for this, the authors say, is that it can take victims a long time to recognize that what they experienced constituted violence.

“The average reporting time for sexual abuse can be 20 years or longer,” Dr Woessner said.

“At the moment we have a system that relies on children telling us what happened while knowing that the vast majority of literature says they won’t [come forward] for years to come.

“That’s why in this study, the easiest and safest way of collecting this data was to do it retrospectively. [by asking adults].”

Most children experience violence from peers

In a first, the study sought to break down children’s experiences of violence by who perpetrated it, including peers and parents as well as coaches.

This breakdown showed that 73 per cent of respondents experienced violence from their peers, followed by coaches (60 per cent) and parents (35 per cent).

Most respondents had experienced violence from a peer. A coach was the next most common.(Designed by The Infologist for Victoria University)

Dr Woessner said distinguishing who was perpetrating violence was important because most academic literature, as well as media coverage, has focused on violence perpetrated by coaches, usually at the elite level.

This includes high-profile cases like that of Larry Nassar, the former US Olympic gymnastics team doctor who is serving an effective life sentence for sexually abusing at least 40 girls and women.

Australian swimmer Maddie Groves also recently came forward with the allegation that she was sexually abused by a former coach who is still working in the sport.

“You can distance yourself from an Olympic athlete experiencing abuse and start to think that it only happens at the elite level,” Dr Woessner said.

“There’s a mentality, ‘well that’s not my child, it’s not happening in my sport, or at my club’ … but I think with this data we can show that it might be.”

Data collected by Dr Pankowiak and Dr Woessner also showed significant gendered differences in the types of violence being experienced by men, women and gender-diverse people in childhood.

Women were more likely to experience sexual violence compared to men, while they were also more likely to experience psychological violence and neglect.

Men, on the other hand, were more likely to experience physical violence from a peer.

“When you talk about a gendered experience, we sometimes focus only on women,” Dr Woessner said.

“But it’s not that men aren’t experiencing violence, they’re just experiencing different types.”

Women experienced higher rates of sexual and psychological violence, as well as neglect.

The authors also analyzed a third category, gender-diverse people, encompassing those who identified as non-binary, gender questioning or selected “don’t know” for their gender identity.

While the sample size was small, at 17 people total, the authors found gender-diverse people experienced higher rates of many types of violence compared to cisgender men and women.

“We know from the literature broadly that marginalized communities experience institutionalized violence,” Dr Pankowiak said.

What was less clear, Dr Pankowiak said, was how the experience of systemic marginalization translated into interpersonal violence in a sporting context.

“We need an understanding of what’s driving those rates,” Dr Woessner said.

“We are talking about gender diversity here, but we know that the LGBTQI+ community broadly, people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, they all have higher risks. We just don’t fully understand why and how that’s happening.”

A wake-up call with ‘no quick fix’

While this particular study did not look at the impacts of the childhood experience of violence, the authors said there was clear evidence that it could have lifelong detrimental effects.

“We do know that there are long-term impacts,” Dr Woessner said.

“Often they [victim survivors] leave sport. They might only leave the team they’re on, but there are some people who leave sport entirely.

Co-author Mary Woessner hopes the study will be a call to action for Australian sport.(ABC News: Andie Noonan)

“Beyond the individual, you see families torn apart, you see communities torn apart.

“Community sport is led by volunteers, and when something like this happens, it impacts not just the individual but their friends, their family, and by default the community.”

Moving forward, the authors argued it was essential to intervene early so that children and adults could continue to enjoy the many benefits sport provides.

“What we’re seeing in the data is that we have a cultural normalization of violence in sport,” Dr Woessner said.

“It’s systemic, there’s not one type of violence or only one type of perpetrator and it’s happening across all sports.”

Dr Woessner added that while there was no “quick fix”, there were clear steps sports could take to safeguard children.

“When we’re thinking about changing culture, we need to go a step further than just education and policies,” Dr Woessner said.

“We need to go from the ground up and work with clubs on initiatives that are long-lasting and can create behavioral change.

“I would hope that this data starts to change public perception on the prevalence of these experiences in community sport and that it calls sports to action.”

If you believe you have experienced violence during your childhood participation in sport, you can lodge a complaint through Sport Integrity Australia’s online portal.

Tags abuse, CALD, child, child sexual abuse, children, coach, Data, Fitness, gender, gender diverse, gymnastics, impacts, Larry Nassar, LGBT, LGBTQI, Maddie Groves, Men, neglect, non-binary, Pankowiak, parent, peer, prevail, psychological, reporting, research, Sport, standards, statistics, study, Survey, swimming, victoria college, Violence, Woessner, women

Australia

As floodwaters hurtled towards Lismore, several rain and river gauges stopped working

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 9, 2022
No Comments on As floodwaters hurtled towards Lismore, several rain and river gauges stopped working

Residents living upstream from Lismore say faults in the rain and river gauge network deprived them of potentially life-saving data as a catastrophic flood hit the New South Wales Northern Rivers in February.

There are 27 rainfall and 19 stream level gauges in the Wilsons River catchment that provide data to the Bureau of Meteorology to help predict flood heights and develop forecasts.

Residents also monitor the data directly via the bureau’s website.

When the February flood hit, one rain gauge was already broken and a further two rain gauges and six stream gauges stopped transmitting data during the event.

ABC’s 7.30 can reveal that crucial equipment failed because it was poorly located, while key rainfall data was missed or distorted due to a lack of maintenance.

A green pole with an antenna attached. — When the February floods hit the Northern Rivers, one rain gauge was already broken and two more stopped transmitting data.(abcnews)

The revelations follow the release of a NSW parliamentary report examining the flood response, which found information from the Bureau of Meteorology was “incorrect and out of date”, and called for the bureau to review its rain data infrastructure to ensure rain and flood gauges were appropriately placed, maintained and updated.

Local resident Annie Kia says the failures of the gauge network caused “much distress” among her upstream neighbours, who were among the first to witness the scale of the disaster firsthand.

“The upstream people knew that a catastrophe was hurtling toward Lismore in the night, and felt very frustrated that they could not get their message across,” she said.

‘People downstream really need to know’

A woman stands outside wearing a blue jacket. — The gauges near Nan Nicholson’s home stopped working as floodwaters rose.(ABC News: Ella Archibald-Binge)

Nan Nicholson’s property is nestled in the hinterland north of the town, flanked by two creeks that feed into the Wilsons River catchment.

“If it’s torrential rain up above, we know that Lismore is going to really cop it,” she said.

As a low pressure system moved south on the night of February 27, she was keeping a close eye on the local rain and stream gauge data, which she and her neighbors rely on for real-time information to decide when to evacuate.

The stream gauge said the nearby creek was “steady.”

However, that was in stark contrast to what was unfolding in her backyard: The creek was rapidly closing in on her home, and the hammering rain showed no signs of easing.

She could see the flood was shaping up to be far worse than initial predictions of a peak around the 2017 height of 11.59 meters.

Water flows over rocks. — Rocky Creek, one of the feeder creeks upstream from Lismore.(ABC News: Ella Archibald-Binge)

“You could watch it within the minute rising very, very rapidly, so I just didn’t believe [the data]and that really filled me with dread,” she said.

“I thought, ‘People downstream really, really need to know this, and they’re not getting that information’.”

Ms Nicholson and her husband made a narrow escape in the night.

By the time they left, the nearby river gauge was not transmitting any data at all.

The rain gauge failed a short time later.

“Because of our knowledge of the area, we felt prepared to some degree, but it would have helped a great deal to know that that river gauge … was telling the truth,” she said.

“It’s a basic government responsibility to deliver us the data that we need to make decisions about our survival.”

‘Whole network needs to be reassessed’

A man standing outside wearing a cap, a blue top and a black padded vest. — Duncan Dey says rainfall modeling “only works if you’ve got good data”.(ABC News: Ella Archibald-Binge)

Duncan Dey is a flood hydrologist and Byron Shire councilor who used to install and maintain rain and stream gauges.

I have identified key flaws in the gauging station near Ms Nicholson’s property.

He said a shed housing equipment that sends data to the weather bureau should have been located on higher ground.

“We know that the shed went underwater, and I’m stunned, actually, because it went underwater by three or four meters, which means that it was wrongly located in the first place,” he said.

“The whole network needs to be reassessed for whether the machinery shed is high enough above the flood levels.”

A man and woman stand next to a rain gauge which looks like a green shed. — Duncan Dey and Annie Kia inspect a rain gauge. Mr Dey was surprised to find a tree growing over the top.(abcnews)

Mr Dey said he was also “shocked” to see a tree overhanging the top of the rain gauge.

“So it’s not actually measuring the right amount of rain. It’s completely non-standard,” he said.

“We now have computer modeling that works really well on taking rainfall, putting it into a catchment and working out what happens downstream — the modeling is fantastic, but it only works if you’ve got good data.”

A BOM spokesperson said the outages did not impact the bureau’s forecasts and warnings during the February flood, and that redundancy has been built into the observation system.

However, the bureau is reviewing its infrastructure across the catchment.

Council requests more gauges

man in tweed jacket — Lismore City Council general manager John Walker says the gauges are maintained every three months, or more often if a fault occurs. (ABC North Coast: Bruce MacKenzie)

The state gauge network is jointly managed by local, state and federal governments, along with some private agencies.

Lismore City Council owns the gauges that malfunctioned in February.

General manager John Walker said all but two of the gauges have been fixed, with parts on order from overseas, while one was broken prior to the flood because a technician could not get access to the site due to ground conditions.

Mr Walker said all existing gauges were located above the 1974 flood levels and the equipment that had been repaired has been relocated to higher ground, above the 2022 flood height.

He said the gauges were maintained every three months, or more often if a fault occurs.

The council’s request for more gauges, he said, was being assessed by the NSW Planning and Environment Department, after it was initially rejected in February.

A spokesperson for the department said it was awaiting completion of the council’s flood plain management plan before it could review the funding application.

Resident Annie Kia is among many — including local councils and MPs — calling for a single agency to own and maintain the gauge network.

“It’s clear to me that the system is not fit for purpose,” she said.

“We need to have some government system that manages these creek and rain gauges, and it seems to me it would be better if it was one agency — as long as it’s one, competent agency.”

Watch this story on 7.30 on ABC TV and ABC iview.

Tags boom, Bureau of Meteorology lismore council, Data, evacuate, exhaust, flood, flood water, floods, lismore, rain gauge, river gauge

Sports

Izak Rankine trade news, rumours, whispers, Gold Coast Suns, Adelaide Crows, how a deal could work, analysis, latest

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 5, 2022
No Comments on Izak Rankine trade news, rumours, whispers, Gold Coast Suns, Adelaide Crows, how a deal could work, analysis, latest

It shapes as one of the biggest, most complex deals of the trade period. But unfortunately for the Gold Coast Suns, it involves another one of their budding stars departing.

Foxfooty.com.au confirmed a report from the Herald Sun that Suns young gun Izak Rankine has been offered a five-year, $4 million deal from the Adelaide Crows as he considers a move back to South Australia.

Originally thought to be close to re-signing with Gold Coast, who are reportedly offering around a $650,000-a-season deal and won’t match Adelaide’s offer, the report states the 22-year old is highly likely to be playing at West Lakes in 2023 given the size of the offer.

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However as Rankine isn’t a free agent, he’d need to be acquired via trade, setting the stage for one of the most fascinating negotiations between the Suns and Crows in some time.

Pick No. 3 in the 2018 draft, Rankine showed promising signs early in his career before really elevating his game in 2022 into the competition’s elite bracket.

Rankine has booted a career-best 27 goals from 16 games this season while averaging 13.6 disposals per game (both ranked above average as a general forward by Champion Data), and his 1.5 goal assists ranks fifth in the league (ranked elite).

What’s more, his 2.9 forward 50 ball gets rank first in the competition and his 10.6 AFL Player Rating ranks ninth (both elite). His 6.4 score involvements per game (elite) come in fifth in the league including three games in 2022 with 11 score involvements.

And from Rounds 8-15 Rankine was the No. 1 ranked overall forward in the competition during a stretch where he ranked second in score assists.

“They signed probably six of their top eight players over the last six months and you just expected Izak will sign … then this comes in as a bit of a wildcard, so incredibly tough for the Gold Coast,” Roos legend David King said on SEN.

“Rankine is going to be a top liner. The ball’s not even kicked to him and his ability to hit the scoreboard is second to none.

What would Rankine cost in a trade? (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

A potential future face of the Suns and just 46 games into his AFL career, Rankine’s upside is scary, and he’s clearly only going to keep getting better, thus complicating his trade value given he’s not yet the final product.

So what’s he worth in a deal right now and how might it look?

Adelaide currently holds Pick 4 in the draft — a pick that could yet get moved back also pending on where potential Pick 1 and father-son draftee Will Ashcroft lands.

You’d think Adelaide’s first pick would be the starting point to any trade, but surely the Suns would want more.

A second first-round pick from the Crows feels like overs, especially considering it’d likely again be a top five selection or thereabouts. Would the Suns accept a first and second rounder?

Looking at recent history, the Adam Cerra trade from last year is a fair comparison given he was also aged 22, an early draft pick (No. 5) and still coming into his prime but didn’t yet qualify for free agency.

The Dockers ultimately received Carlton’s Pick 6 as well as a future third rounder despite originally putting a bigger price on Cerra’s head — although Fremantle had other deals to get done including acquiring Jordan Clark.

Prior to that, Jaeger O’Meara moved from the Suns to Hawthorn at the end of 2016 when he was also aged 22 and rated as one of the best young talents in the game.

O’Meara while playing for the Suns (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)Source: FOX SPORTS

O’Meara, who joined Gold Coast with the No. 1 pick of a special ‘mini draft’ as part of its early concessions, only cost the Hawks Pick 10 and a future second rounder.

Then there was the original Adam Treloar (who was also 22) trade back in 2015 that saw the star midfielder along with Pick 28 move from GWS to Collingwood for Picks 7, 65 and a future first rounder.

Similar to O’Meara, Treloar was drafted by the Giants as an under-age selection.

But making Rankine’s situation slightly more unique is that he was a bona fide top three pick (and taken ahead of the likes of the King brothers, Connor Rozee and Bailey Smith in the highly-rated 2018 draft), and factoring in that the Suns have already lost so much young talent over the years to add a potential extra tax of sorts.

And losing too many young stars to rival clubs has seen Gold Coast already top up with a stack of early picks in recent years.

It held selections 5 (Mac Andrew) and 7 (Elijah Hollands) respectively over the last two drafts, 1 and 2 in the 2019 draft (Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson) and 2 and 3 the year prior (Jack Lukosius and Rankine).

So would the Suns really want or need more picks? Finals should be firmly on the agenda next year after the club has finally made inroads in 2022, currently sitting 11th on the ladder with nine wins and on track for its best ever season.

Port Adelaide legend Kane Cornes wasn’t yet convinced Rankine is going to be a “top liner,” but emphasized the Crows would have to give up something given he’s not a free agent — proposing a swap for Riley Thilthorpe or a package of Josh Rachele and Darcy Fogarty if draft picks don’t appease the Suns.

Is Buddy going back to Brisbane? | 00:33

“Adelaide would hope that (Pick 4) gets it done, but Rankine was a Pick 3 four years ago and is probably better than what you’re going to take a put on with Pick 4 in this year’s draft, which probably goes to ( Pick) 5 or 6, so that won’t get it done,” he said on SEN.

“They (the Suns) don’t want or need draft picks… is it Rachele and Fogarty or something like that for Rankine?

Of course, the Crows could dig their heels in if they can’t meet Gold Coast’s demands and try and walk Rankine to the pre-season draft (and hope other clubs don’t pounce on him).

This happened most recently in 2019 when Jack Martin joined Carlton via the pre-season draft after the Blues and Suns failed to reach a deal during the trade period.

King believes the Suns should take a stand and be willing to let Rankine walk for nothing if it comes to it.

“I just wonder if they would say, ‘you know what, we’re not going to do this deal, we’re going to take a stand. We’ve got enough first-round picks, future picks coming in, trade commodities to be able to shift if we want to go down that path. Let’s dig our heels in and say if you want to leave you can go to the draft’,” he said.

“Why not? Does it really rock their boat (losing him for nothing)? Do they say, ‘do we just draw a line in the sand?’ Because this is going to continue to happen if they allow it to happen.

“I think they’ll take a stance. I don’t think they’ll say, ‘oh yeah, no worries, what do you (Adelaide) want to discard? You don’t think Rachele is going to be a top-liner? OK, give us Rachele.’ That’s of no value to them.”

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