Towards A Feral Free Future

1. Scraping websites and online marketplaces to stop our next environmental catastrophe

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Episode notes

In this episode you will meet Adam Toomes, Katie Hill and Jacob Maher, three PhD candidates from the University of Adelaide who, along with a team of researchers, are developing automated monitoring systems with the aim of identifying the next pest threats which could cross our Australian borders.

With a growing wildlife trade (both legal and illegal) and more Australians then ever wanting to purchase and keep exotic pets and plants it is timely that we put automated digital systems in place which can ‘scrape’ e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon, but also the areas of the deep, dark web, which are less likely to be seen.

Find out more about how researchers are designing ‘web scraping technology’ and CSI-like detection techniques to stop our next environmental catastrophe from entering Australia.