John F. McEvoy

Earlier this year I began working at the Conservation Ecology Centre within the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. A large part of my work relates to the ecology and conservation of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in the wild. Asian elephants are threatened by habitat loss and poaching throughout their geographical range. As human populations expand and forests are cleared for agriculture and plantations such as oil palm and rubber, this inevitably brings elephant

Exciting news! I have just made a big move to lovely Virginia, USA and started a new post-doc at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. As you can see the weather is a little cooler than what I have been used to in the deserts of Australia over the last few years. This is the first time I have been snowed on in nearly a decade and I am pretty happy about it. I'm sure the charm will wear off when I am trapped in my house for a few days by snow drifts. I am working at

I have recently started on another exciting collaboration with my good friends and colleagues Yaara Aaron-Rotman and Lei Cao at the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Science in China. The Poyang Lake is one of the largest wetlands in Asia and a critical wintering area for migratory waterbirds along the East Asian Australasian Flyway. Its unique hydrological system allows the production of large biomass of plants and animal food. The main d

I have recently joined a team at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) to help analyse data from their Cattle, Land and Fire (CaLF) project in the Kimberley. The project has been using GPS collars to track the movements of cattle on several cattle stations around the AWC's Mornington Sanctuary in the Kimberley. The aim is to assess how the cattle interact with the EcoFire program, a precise fire management program that uses small prescribed burns to maximise the area of

I've recently started collaborating on a fantastic project looking at the foraging behaviour and nesting success of endangered swift parrots (Lathamus discolor) in Tasmania. My good friends and colleagues Dejan Stojanovic and Matthew Webb at ANU have been studying these beautiful and vulnerable birds for years and have recently deployed GPS tags on a select few of them as well as painstakinly gathering data on flowering trees and nestling success. I'm pitching in to help out

I recently published a paper with Paul McDonald and Graham Hall at University of New England in Australia where we evaluated the potential of UAVs (drones) for large scale waterfowl surveys. Most large scale waterfowl surveys are currently done using fixed wing aircraft with one or two trained observers looking out a window and counting/identifying birds as they go. We thought we could harness some of the power of UAVs to provide detailed photographic surveys of targeted wetl

Another great collaboration that I'm lucky to be involved with is with Nurzhafarina Othman and Benoit Goosens at Cardiff University's Danau Girang research station in Borneo. Nurzhafarina has been working on her PhD for the last few years studying the movement behaviour and habitat use of Bornean pygmy elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis). I've been part of a great team of people helping out with the analysis of complex movement data and remotely sensed habitat data to dete

I recently did a segment on an ABC radio show called "Creepy But Curious" where scientists from University of New England Talk about all the glorious and gross things nature has to offer. Click here to listen to me talking about ants, butterflies deception and death. #Wildlife #Ecology #GPS #Conservation #Science #MovementEcology #Australia

A big part of my PhD work involved looking into potential cues for long distance movement in nomadic desert waterfowl. The arid landscapes of Australia are dominated by 'boom and bust' dynamics where long periods of drought are punctuated by periods of intense and continental-scale flooding. All life in the arid zone has to be able to respond to these rapid changes in resource distributions and many birds adopt nomadic movement behaviours. I used a combination of GPS tracking

Biodiversity East is a conservation NGO that brings together scientists working across the Mediterranean and Middle East regions. I am proud to be an associate member and you should check out their great work by clicking here. #Wildlife #Ecology #AnimalMovement #Conservation #Science #MovementEcology #EndangeredSpecies

My colleague Raoul and I have a tradition of buying Kinder eggs while on the road. Given that our field trips have sometimes lasted two months at a time that leads to a lot of cool toys on the dashboard. One of particular note was a scientist Papa Smurf, complete with test tube and thoughtful expression. Papa Smurf travelled all over Australia with us even into the Simspon Desert. At one point we wanted to get a photo of him at the famous Birdsville Hotel (in the middle of th