The largest wildlife rescue organisation in the country, WIRES (Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service Ltd) has been caring for native Australian animals for 40 years. In the aftermath of Australia’s devastating bushfires and drought, WIRES received unprecedented global support from individuals and organisations.
With a shared vision of restoring and regenerating habitat impacted by the effects of climate change and extreme natural disasters, WIRES partnered with Landcare Australia in 2020 to launch the WIRES Landcare Wildlife Relief and Recovery Grants.
This ground-breaking alliance between two not-for-profits who have been part of local communities for decades, provided local Landcare environment networks and community groups with access to $1.185 million in funding, supporting them to lead and coordinate 64 high-priority short and medium-term wildlife support and habitat restoration projects.
In 2022, WIRES renewed their partnership with Landcare Australia, and along with Queensland University of Technology (QUT) launched the WildSeek Project: Community Wildlife Intelligence Hubs, taking the first step toward building a national conservation AI network. Along with the Queensland University of Technology, the Wildseek Project has established and is supporting an initial network of five Community Hubs for the conservation and rescue response of native species. Partners provided $1,500,000 in funding over three years to support the project, with a significant contribution by WIRES. QUT is the National Conservation AI Analytics hub where drone footage collected around the country is analysed using a QUT created algorithm to identify wildlife populations.
From 2022-2025, the WildSeek Project has surveyed over 3,000 hectares of land and has observed 193 koalas across 4 regions. Benefits have included baseline population survey in fragment landscapes. Identification of populations in previous bushfire areas and verification of new koala populations.