The state government has pledged nearly $1 million to help conserve the regent honeyeater which can be found around Cessnock.
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The critically endangered bird came to notoriety during the development of the Hunter Economic Zone near Kurri Kurri and the $963,000 grant will help the bird’s conservation in general.
BirdLife Australia confirmed it would use a share of the money to place coloured bands on the birds and track their movements in the Lower Hunter and statewide.
“One of the areas we will target is Cessnock, where we have ongoing records of the regent honeyeater being in that area,” BirdLife Australia woodland birds for biodiversity project co-ordinator Mick Roderick said.
Taronga Zoo will spend some of the grant to continue its breed-and-release program with only an estimated 400 birds left in the wild.
NSW Nature Conservation Trust will also receive a share.
It hopes to establish agreements with landowners, or covenants, to conserve 250 hectares of known habitat for the migratory species statewide.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter and Central Coast Scot MacDonald welcomed the grant.
“These conservation covenants will protect habitat that’s critical to regent honeyeaters,” he said.
“The grants program will help the Office of Environment and Heritage’s Saving Our Species Program achieve its objective of maximising the number of threatened species that can be secured in the wild in NSW for 100 years.”
Environment Minister Mark Speakman said the project’s long-term goal was to secure the future of the regent honeyeater in the wild, to a point where captive breeding programs were no long needed.
“Nevertheless, Taronga Zoo remains committed to continuing its captive breeding and release program, in case it is necessary to secure the species’ future,” Mr Speakman said.
The grant is part of the Saving Our Species Partnership Grants program, which is funded by the NSW Environmental Trust.
For more information visit: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/ savingourspecies/about.htm
Common no more
by BRIDIE SMITH
Sightings of some of Australia’s most common birds, including those that have inspired folk songs and become mascots of football teams, are decreasing in parts of Australia, according to a major report on the health of the country’s bird population.
Among the species for which fewer sightings have been recorded are the laughing kookaburra, magpie and willie wagtail.
Released by Environment Minister Greg Hunt on the eve of Thursday’s Threatened Species Summit at Melbourne Zoo, the State of Australia’s Birds 2015 report’s surprise finding was that it was the country’s common birds that weren’t faring so well.
Produced by BirdLife Australia, the report found that since 1999, the odds of seeing a laughing kookaburra have almost halved, to 10 per cent, in south-east mainland states.
“We’re seeing declines in a bunch of species that are considered common,” BirdLife Australia head of research James O’Connor said.
“And the south-east region is the dramatic zone for the laughing kookaburra, which includes the major cities on the east coast.”
Magpie sightings also dropped to 22.5 per cent on Australia’s east coast, although they increased in arid parts of the country and in Tasmania.
“Picking up declines in species like magpies in some regions has been a bit of an eye-opener,” Mr O’Connor said.
Meanwhile, in the arid parts of the country, a significant overall decline in sightings of 12 out of 20 carnivorous birds was recorded. Sightings of only one species, the whistling kite, recorded an increase between 1999 and 2013.
The chance of seeing a brown goshawk in arid parts of the country halved to 4 per cent during the same period, while tawny frogmouth sightings more than halved, sliding from 3 per cent to about 1 per cent in arid zones.
Mr O’Connor said the report contained worrying trends, because when the top-order predator numbers declined, it often reflected poorly on the health of the ecosystem. However, he said the causes of the changes had not been explored in the report.
“It could be something to do with what is happening with the prey items; it could be rain or possibly pesticide use,” he speculated.
“The report raises a lot of questions and the next step is to set about answering them.”
BirdLife Australia conservation manager Samantha Vine said the results were a wake-up call that had to be headed before things got worse.
“Where things aren’t going well, we should be investigating so we can still turn that around,” she said.
Mr Hunt referred media inquiries to threatened species commissioner Gregory Andrews.
Mr Andrews said the Threatened Species Strategy, to be launched at Thursday’s summit, would include an emphasis on birds and habitat protection and restoration.
He said this would benefit both common birds and those listed as threatened.