Category Archives: native birds

Magpies, kookaburras and willie wagtails among common Australian birds ‘starting to disappear’,

Magpies, laughing kookaburras and willie wagtails are on the decline in some regions, a report tracking the health of Australia’s bird populations has found.  Birdlife Australia, analysed data collected in more than 400,000 surveys across the country, the majority done by bird-loving volunteers.  The State of Australia’s Birds Report states that while predators including cats, habitat loss and even changes in climate might be to blame, more research was needed before certain species became endangered.  Habitat loss and changes are polite euphemisms for human destruction, such as land clearing and degradation for mining, logging, industries and urbanization!
kookaburra

(image: “Poser (543749091)” by aussiegall from Sydney, Australia – PoserUploaded by russavia. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Sightings of kookaburras have decreased at a rate of 40 per cent across south-eastern Australia. Magpies have declined significantly on the east coast, a new report shows. The Eastern curlew, a migratory shorebird that has recently been declared critically endangered.

Editor of Australian Birdlife Sean Dooley said the decline of common birds in parts of Australia was a surprise to researchers.

Numbats, malas, bandicoots and bettongs are among the mammals the Federal Government’s identified in its new Threatened Species Strategy. The birds include the mallee emu-wren and Norfolk Island boobook owl.

The Environment Minister Greg Hunt says feral cats are a serious threat to native species and that he wants the feral animals eradicated from five islands and 10 mainland enclosures within five years. Hunt has also set a target of 10 new cat-free enclosures on mainland Australia by 2020.

Dr Euan Ritchie is with Deakin University. He wants native predators like dingoes and Tasmanian devils reintroduced, as a natural way of culling foxes and cats. This is an enlightened approach to the status of Dingoes that have been vilified and trapped over decades as a threat to livestock! He also wants Tasmanian devils back to the mainland.

Ms Jane Nathan says in The Age 16 July 2015 that Melbourne is headed for eight million by 2050, and goes on to describe what it will be like in the most wildly optimistic tones imaginable. She says “our social harmony, kaleidoscopic culture, clean food, innovative education systems and greatly reduced crime rates are the envy of the world. Our neighbourhoods are artistic, green and pristine”.

According to MP Kelvin Thomson, in the Federal seat of Wills, it “Sounds like paradise. The problem is, there is no evidence to support it…And as for green and pristine, just this week it was reported that even common Australian birds, like the Willy Wagtail and the Kookaburra, were being sighted much less frequently. The reason for this is that the streets of mature gardens that used to give our birds food and shelter have been replaced by multi-unit developments and high rise. The vegetation has been destroyed, and the birds have died out”.

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Meat-eating rainbow lorikeets?

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A Brisbane professor conducting the world’s first study into meat-eating rainbow lorikeets says he is shocked to discover more species of herbivorous birds are also changing their diets.

rainbow-lorikeet

ABC revealed a population of rainbow lorikeets were eating meat from a backyard feeding station on a property at Elimbah, north of Brisbane. Griffith University’s Professor Darryl Jones is shocked. He said lorikeets usually eat nectar and pollen which they obtain from native plants and shrubs.

Lorikeets typically feed on nectar and pollen and only require a small amount of protein from an occasional insect.

At this stage, no ill-effects have been documented. Along with rainbow lorikeets, eastern and crimson galahs and cockatoos have also been spotted eating meat.

“I have researched what birds feed on all around the world,” Professor Jones said. “I’m up to date with all the kinds of crazy things that birds are eating all over Australia. To see a lorikeet eating meat astonishes me completely. I have never heard of such a thing before.”

“The move for a bird that normally eats pollen and nectar to eating primarily meat is absolutely extraordinary,” he said. “It is of international significance, this is a truly large and major project that we’ve got on here.”

Bill, who owns the Elimbah property, has put out pets mince for magpies, currawongs and kookaburras. He also puts out seed for vegetarian birds like galahs, king parrots and the lorikeets. The birds are spoilt for choice when it comes to food! “At first they went for the seed but then they started chasing the other birds away from the meat, which surprised me,” he said.

“It makes no sense at all” said Professor Jones. “The Lorikeets are chasing magpies and kookaburras away from the meat”. He said the lorikeet population had increased dramatically in south-east Queensland in the past decade. Lorikeets are also being fed by thousands of Queenslanders in backyard feeders. So, they are not adapting to deprivation, or survival!

Professor Darryl Jones would like to hear from anyone who has observed lorikeets eating meat. “We also really want to find out whether it’s a harmful practice because it’s (backyard feeding) very widespread”.

“If it’s harmful for the birds, then everyone needs to know that.”

He can be reached at d.jones@griffith.edu.au

(featured image: OzAnimals.com )

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Orange-Bellied parrots – disease threat

The Federal Government is attempting to speed up action over a fatal disease in Australia’s most critically endangered wild bird, the orange-bellied parrot. The Beak and Feather Disease virus is known to be present in common species, ­including sulphur-crested cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets.

Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews said he wanted to boost the parrot’s captive population as part of an urgent response to an outbreak of beak and feather disease. “This bird is right on the edge of an extinction precipice in the wild,” Mr Andrews said. With such few numbers struggling against “developments” and environmental destruction, any disease could destroy their stronghold on existence.

The threatened species breeds in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park and the birds migrate to Victoria and South Australia every winter. A captive breeding program for the orange-bellied parrot has been in place since 1986. It’s a real Aussie battler!

Around 64 wild parrots flew out of their single Tasmanian breeding colony this autumn for Victorian coastal wintering grounds. 27 were captive bred and released to the wild. The young are listless and shedding feathers. With such small numbers, fewer than 70 in the wild, there’s no room for disease, neglect or complacency. Such small number don’t encourage genetic diversity, or robustness in the species.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has urged the government to reconsider plans to allow logging and mining in the 1.5 million hectare area. Tasmania has some of the tallest forests in the world … big jagged mountains, tall eucalyptus forests, some very unique species like the orange bellied parrot,” Bob Brown Foundation spokeswoman Jenny Weber said.

The food plants that they rely on—plants that—provide seed on an annual basis rely on high salt tolerance. Their odd adaptations have contributed to their current predicament because their large geographical range and specific habitat needs make them harder to legislate for. Coastal salt marsh generally has been looked upon as a wasteland, prime for development for things like petro-chemical plants, even housing, marinas, that sort of thing. The sort of habitat that they live in is so close to the coast that it is highly desirable for development. So, the greatest threat to Orange-bellied parrots is human encroachment and destruction of the specific habitats, what we call “developments”!

Dr Stojanovic from the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society said he felt for the many scientists who had invested so much of their time and emotion into saving the species. He says that there’s a tendency to say ‘it’s too hard, let’s put our resources where there is more bang for buck’, but I don’t think we can put our hands on our hearts and say we have put serious money into this. We haven’t done everything we can.

Carpenter Rocks saving Orange Bellied parrot
(Sign at Carpenter Rocks, South Australia 2015)
There is a call for a boost in breeding parrots in captivity as a response to the outbreak responsible for their decline.

Although we acknowledge that some extinctions are inevitable and part of the evolutionary process, we believe every creature has the right to a chance to survive, and not be eliminated by hostile economic activities and human encroachments.

Australia, famous for mammal extinctions, is also ramping up our world record to include native bird extinctions.

Petition: Provide more funding for the endangered Orange-bellied Parrots.

Facebook; Save the OBP

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Parrot feared extinct for 100 years is found in Australia

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The elusive night parrot, a species thought to be extinct for about a century, has finally been captured and tagged in what has been hailed as a ‘holy grail’ moment.

The world’s most mysterious bird was found by researchers on a remote and arid 56,000-hectare stretch of land in Queensland, Australia. Scientists say the bird was “very common” in the 1800s until the introduction of feral animals almost wiped it out.

The Night Parrot is a medium-sized parrot measuring 22 to 25 cm in length, with a wingspan of 44 to 46 cm. The adults are predominantly bright green in colour, but with black and yellow bars, spots and streaks over much of the body, bright yellow colouring on the belly and vent, and black colouring on the upper surfaces of the periphery of the wings and tail. In flight, a prominent bar, off-white to pale-yellow in colour, becomes visible on the underside of each wing (Higgins 1999).

For around 100 years it was presumed extinct. Incredibly, we now have a second chance to save it! It has defied it’s poor odds.

After combing the bush for 18 months, conservation group Bush Heritage Australia captured and tagged a bird in April.

They are now establishing a 56,000 hectare reserve at a secret location in Queensland’s west to keep the precious bird safe from feral cats and poachers.

Amazing, for a nation famous for threatening species and extinctions, that this parrot has survived!

Dr Steve Murphy, the world’s foremost expert on the night parrot, who played a key role in verifying the discovery of this population, has since their sighting in 2013 by naturalist and photographer John Young, been researching the species and how best to protect them.

“‘I’ve been fascinated with Night Parrots ever since I was a small kid,” said Dr Murphy. “It’s their story that grabbed me, and what it represented about what’s happened to Australia since the arrival of Europeans.

“We’ve lost more native animals than anywhere else on Earth, and for a lot of years we thought we’d lost this one as well.”

To give the bird a second chance, Bush Heriage are negotiating to purchase a 56,000 ha section of a pastoral property in western Queensland where the bird was found. The population size is estimated at between 30 and 100 individuals.

Read more: Night Parrot- Bush Heritage Australia

Facebook: Night Parrot stories

(featured image: Night owl, SA Museum)

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Perth’s lethal urban sprawl killing off Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos

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Flocks of Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos winging their way to their evening roost sites has been a familiar sight around Perth for decades. Their days are numbered!
Updated research from BirdLife Australia shows that flocks are getting smaller as the population of these large, white-tailed, black-cockatoos declines each year.

600 people took part in Birdlife Australia’s Great Cocky Count, earlier this year, but the minimum number of Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos recorded in the Greater Perth–Peel Region was 5518 birds, continuing the drop in numbers from previous years’ counts. Records have shown a significant, ongoing decline in their population, a reduction in flock size as well as fewer occupied roost sites around Perth.

CBC-headshot
(image: Birdlife Australia- http://birdlife.org.au/projects/southwest-black-cockatoo-recovery)

This is not an evolutionary trend, due to climate change or other environmental trends, but deliberate habitat destruction! “Perth suburbs continue to expand into the bushland that traditionally supported black-cockatoos. So the black-cockatoos moved into the pine plantations for food and shelter, but now these plantations are being cleared and not replaced.” Thanks mainly to ridiculously high immigration levels, the human population continue to swell, and the deadly threat of urban sprawl spreads like the metastasis of cancer!

Perth’s deadly urban sprawl is heating up the metropolitan area and driving out native animal species, according to an Environmental Protection Authority report. The EPA said species that were present at the time of settlement had disappeared from the region, including 12 mammals such as the numbat, while 46 bird species were in decline and many plants were threatened with extinction. Between 2001 and 2009, some 6,812 hectares of natural bush were cleared within the Perth metropolitan region alone.

Perth’s human population grew by 2.5 per cent in the 12 months to June 2014 – an extra 48,400 people – with 2.02 million people now calling Greater Perth home. New plans mapping out locations to develop 800,000 new homes in Perth and Peel to accommodate for a future population of 3.5 million have been released by the WA Government. The cost of “progress” ignores the environmental costs, and the loss to native species!

Perth’s urban sprawl could be stopped if some of the city’s open space including parks and gardens – is sacrificed for housing! There’s never the option of slowing down our population growth! The pressure is to make the city “more compact”.

The Carnaby’s black cockatoo is one of only two species of white-tailed black cockatoo in the world. The other is the Baudin’s black cockatoo. Both are unique to Southwest Australia.

Half of Perth’s bird species have suffered declines since European settlement. Department of Parks and Wildlife senior wildlife officer Rick Dawson said at the time that 85 Carnaby’s Cockatoos had been killed on the road in eight weeks – a major blow for a species that’s declined from a wild population of 150,000 to between 20,000 and 60,0000 in 30 years.

Black Cockatoos are just another victim of ongoing human greed for economic growth, capitalistic growth, a Colonial frontier mentality, over-population destroying Nature and adding more species to our threatened/extinct list!

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Petition for a Great Forest National Park for Victoria

To: Premier Daniel Andrews
Petition for a Great Forest National Park for Victoria

Dear Premier and Ministers of Victoria

Victoria urgently needs a comprehensive, representative national park and conservation system. Major threats to nature such as habitat loss land degradation, invasive species, logging, harmful fire regimes, over-grazing, modified water flows still persist. 1

Precious habitat remnants are being bulldozed for urban expansion or roads. Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia, populations of native birds and animals are in free-fall, and less than 25% of our rivers and creeks are in good condition. 2

The Great Forest National Park proposes that Victorians create and add a new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

The tallest flowering trees on Earth grow north-east of Melbourne. In their high canopies dwell owls, gliders and the tiny Leadbeater’s (or Fairy) Possum. Victoria’s precious and endangered faunal emblem lives only in these ash forests of the Central Highlands. 3

We demand that the State government act on the overwhelming support for the creation of a Victorian Great Forest National Park.

1 VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION, September 2014, NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW: Overview and context

2
http://environmentvictoria.org.au/blog/posts/needles-haystack#.VTndPM2hSPo

3
http://www.greatforestnationalpark.com.au/

Why is this important?

Victoria is the most cleared State, and there are major threats to our native species and vegetation. There are ongoing issues such as habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, harmful fire regimes, over-grazing, logging of old growth forests, and modified water flows. Our faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s Possum, is critically endangered, and lives in the Central Highlands of Victoria. A new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria is urgently needed.

by Vivienne Ortega on behalf of AWPC

Sign the Petition

 

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