Claire Mackay

Claire recently completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) with a major in Ecology and Conservation Biology at Monash University. For her honours, Claire assessed the efficacy of drones to monitor populations of tree-nesting seabirds compared to traditional ground-based methods. Her fieldwork was based on a remote and uninhabited tropical island of the Cocos (Keeling) Island group in the Indian Ocean.

Growing up in Melbourne, Claire has enjoyed volunteering at Healesville Sanctuary and spending time with animals. During her undergraduate, she completed a research project testing a variety of infrared cameras against spotlighting methods to detect small endotherms, including the Critically Endangered Plains Wanderer in northern Victoria. She has also worked with Superb Fairywrens at Lysterfield Park (VIC), Australian skink species at Kosciusko National Park (NSW), Eastern Reef Egrets on Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef), and understorey rainforest plants in Borneo, Malaysia. Claire previously completed an internship with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) preparing draft conservation assessments for 200 Proteaceae plants for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

While interning at the CEC, Claire would like to learn more about invasive animal control, gain more experience in mammal research and trapping, and develop her plant and animal identification skills.