Mammal Spotlighting

Less stress for animals: Spotlight surveys don’t involve catching and handling mammals. Animals are often stressed if they are caught and handled by people.

Quick and flexible: Spotlighting surveys don’t require much effort and can be done without much equipment or complicated planning.

What can mammal spotlighting surveys monitor?

Mammal spotlighting surveys can monitor the mammals that are active at night on Country. They are commonly used to monitor nocturnal species like:

• Possums
• Bettongs
• Wallabies
• Kangaroos
• Gliders
• Koalas

Have a look at the How We Check On Things page to find out how you can use spotlighting to monitor other animals like frogs, some reptile (geckoes, pythons) and some bird (owls).

What can you learn?

• Biodiversity – what species live on Country
• Species Richness – how many different species live on Country
• Presence/absence – if and where species live on Country
• Activity  - how many of each species were seen during the survey. This can be used as an indicator of how large the population might be.
• Population size – how many of individuals live on Country. Only certain types of spotlighting surveys (e.g. line transects) can be used to estimate population size.

What can’t you learn?

• Animal health – because you are not trapping or handling the animal, you can’t tell much about it’s health
• Spotlighting can’t always tell you which species aren’t living on Country. This is because you might not see all the species on the night you do your survey, or they might change their behaviour because you are in their habitat.

Using mammal spotlighting the Right-way

Timing of surveys

• Nocturnal mammals need time to wake up and become active, so spotlighting surveys should always start at least 60 minutes after dusk.
• Avoid doing spotlighting survey when it is windy or rainy, or if the vegetation is very thick because it can be hard to see the animals in these conditions.
• Temperature can affect how active the animals are – if it is unusually hot or cold for your area, it probably isn’t a good time to do the survey.

Using spotlights

• Spotlighting surveys are best done with a bright headtorch. It is recommended that headtorches for spotlighting have:
  • minimum of 300 lumens
  • focusing lens/adjustable beam
  • ability to swap out rechargeable batteries in case it runs out of power during the survey
• If you plan to do spotlight surveys from a vehicle, and you want to use handheld spotlights:
  • 50-75 watt light bulbs (100 watt lightbulbs are too bright and will temporarily blind animals)
  • Adaptor cable to charge from the car’s cigarette lighter port
• Avoid shining the bright headtorch or spotlight at an animal for a long time so that it isn’t blinded. Once the animal has been spotted and identified, move the light away from the animal. Red lights and dimmer switches can be used for extended observation but shouldn’t be used when searching as you will have reduced visibility.