Clare Crane

Research Officer for the Conservation and Landscape Ecology Group, Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University

Clare is from a UK farming family and completed her honours degree in zoology at University College London in 1993 and MSc in Conservation Management at the University of Surrey in 2001; both research theses investigated mammalian species. She has worked in the public, voluntary and private sector in natural resource management, ecological field studies and consulting for over 17 years in the UK and Australia. Over this time she has conducted numerous wildlife sampling techniques to survey and monitor fauna by direct and indirect methods.

Clare first came to Australia in late 2005 where she volunteered with Parks Victoria’s conservation and research management team for 12 months. During this time she worked on various monitoring projects across the Parks Victoria estate targeting feral animals, threatened species and weed species with Parks staff, researchers and project partners. This included the Southern Ark Project which monitors the recovery of critical weight mammals following fox control and the reintroduction of the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby in the Grampians National Park (NP). During this time, she was also actively involved in volunteer projects and research run by members of the Australasian Bat Society (ABS) and the Australian Platypus Conservancy. In 2008 Clare returned to work in Australia as a consultant zoologist and since then has surveyed predominantly vertebrate fauna, both threatened and pest species, in Victoria and parts of NSW, central Queensland and South Australia.

Clare recently joined the team as a research officer to assist with their field monitoring of bird, reptile, mammal species and vegetation assessments for long-term research projects across south-eastern Australia. Clare is also an active member of the ABS and has assisted researchers with field work involving banding and micro-chipping the threatened Eastern Bentwing Bat in Kinglake NP, Victoria, and Southern Bentwing Bat at Naracoorte Caves NP, South Australia.