citizen science – Cattai Hills Environment Network

A 2021 Citizen Science Project sampling for Platypus within the Cattai Catchment

Last year Cattai Hills Environment Network (CHEN) volunteers sampled for platypus DNA using a new innovation technology called environmental DNA (eDNA) across the Cattai and Little Cattai Creek catchments. We got back 9 positive results out of the 18 sites that were tested! A very exciting result.

This year, in June 2021, CHEN got the opportunity to work with Sydney Water and Western Sydney University (WSU), to sample double the amount of sites across the catchments, 36 sites…
With the help of a group of community volunteers, and Dr. Michelle Ryan from WSU, we sampled our waterways for platypus DNA.

These results will give us a great idea of how platypus are using the waterways across these catchments. This is very exciting stuff and when we do get back these results CHEN has a Platypus Landcare group that is waiting to help restore and look after these platypus key sites.

If you live in the Hills Shire and would like to get involved with CHEN or Platypus Landcare, please email danielle@chen.org.au for more information.

We were also featured on ABC, so check out our video HERE

Streamwatch at Fred Caterson

CHEN Streamwatch August 18, 2020August 20, 2020bushcare, citizen science, community, creek, ecofriendly, environment, landcare, streamwatch, volunteer, watertesting 0 Comment

At CHEN, we have collaborated with Streamwatch, ‘a citizen science water monitoring program that enables community groups to monitor the quality and health of local waterways’.

As part of the Fred Caterson Landcare group we incorporate citizen science opportunities such as water quality testing, to help educate our community about their local environment and to provide valuable data to help reduce pollution events while also providing a valuable record of waterway health.

Undertaking citizen science will be attractive to people that have an interest in the environment and want to volunteer their time to help in a variety of ways, to young students that want to explore their career options and attain skills that will help them get a job after study and to those that have some time on their hands and want to spend it being outdoors, trying new things whilst helping their community.

If you would like to be a part of this program, please contact us and we can get you started. We would love to have you!

Please email danielle@chen.org.au