Wildlife Conservation Lab Retreat 2026

By Felicity Charles

In mid-July the Wildlife Conservation lab enjoyed our lab retreat on scenic Minjerribah at UQ’s Moreton Bay Research Station. A nice escape from the office and a great opportunity to get to know other lab members better on a non-academic level. As always on our writing retreats, we got right into Pomodoro writing sessions to make some headway on writing or other tasks we were needing to complete. In a room full of others dedicatedly working away, it’s a good push to stay focused and really smash through some work.

Beautiful views of stormy Minjerribah on our Wildlife Conservation Lab retreat 2026. Photo: April Reside

As a way to get to know the range of work being completed by other lab members, each of us presented a 3-minute thesis style project summary. From fire and plant-animal interactions, bats and agricultural pests, improving conservation outcomes through social conservation science, to reptile research on viper venom, fungal infections, and threatened reptile distributions, the Wildlife Conservation Lab encompasses a wide range of research. In between writing sessions, we also discussed strategies each of us use to avoid procrastination, manage our workload, wrangle our supervisors and schedule receiving feedback on drafts, and write an introduction. With a range of viewpoints in these discussions from post-PhD to soon-to-commence Honours research, each of us came away with new strategies and solutions.

Wildlife Conservation Lab on retreat. Photos: April Reside

While the main goal for the lab retreat is of course to do some writing, as ecologists we couldn’t resist a good walk along the headland Gorge walk at Point Lookout, the Brown Lake trail, or the short boardwalk for spotlighting after dinner at Myora Springs. At Point Lookout, we’d hoped to enjoy some whale watching at the viewing platform as it was the norther whale migration season, but the seas were just too rough. Despite the extremely strong winds along the Gorge walk, the Eastern Grey Kangaroos didn’t seem too bothered, enjoying browsing on the grass and soaking up the sunshine. That is apart from one adorable joey who wasn’t sure whether they wanted to be out of mum’s pouch or not.

Eastern grey kangaroo mother and joey on Minjerribah. Photo: Felicity Charles

We had a great - and productive - time despite the woolly weather and already looking forward to the next lab retreat!

Left to right: view from accommodation (Felicity Charles), early morning bush walk (Eleanor Knox), Carpet python hanging on despite the wind (Eleanor Knox).

Beautiful sunset from the ferry on our way back to the mainland. Photo: April Reside