Listening to Save Wildlife: Lessons Learnt from Use of Acoustic Technology by a Species Recovery Team

An increasing variety of technologies are being developed to support conservation of endangered wildlife; however, comparatively little attention has been devoted to their design. We undertook three years of ethnographic fieldwork and design research with the recovery team of an endangered Australian bird (the Eastern bristlebird) to explore the team's culture and practices, as well as their perspectives on including collection and analysis of environmental acoustic recordings into their conservation praxis. Through thematic analysis, we identified the team's collective goals, culture, conservation activities, and technology use. We found that acoustic technologies have promise for supporting conservation of furtive and vocal Eastern bristlebirds. Trialing acoustic technologies also revealed that the team had strong interest in their use. We identified knowledge gaps, time constraints, and technology aversion as barriers to be overcome with future interaction design research. We offer an initial set of practical guidelines for designing technologies to support conservation.