Hope for resurrecting a functionally extinct parrot or squandered social capital? Landholder attitudes towards the Orange-bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) in Victoria, Australia

In early 2010, after 27 years of recovery effort, the orange-bellied parrot (OBP; Neophema chrysogaster) was expected to be extinct in the wild within a few years. Shortly before the imminent wild extinction became evident, we surveyed landholders (114 responses of 783 surveys delivered) in part of the main non-breeding area, according to three classes of modelled habitat suitability (\u27high\u27, \u27medium\u27, and \u27low\u27). Predictions of the habitat models appear to correlate with landholder perceptions of the presence of OBP habitat on private land, thus the models appear a tractable way to identify key stakeholders worthy of priority consultation in relation to habitat works. Landholders were sympathetic to wetlands and birds, including OBPs (89.4% were aware of OBPs). Most indicated that they would be upset if the OBP went extinct and agreed that critical habitat should be protected; 80.7% were prepared to consider changes to the way they managed their land to benefit the species, and sought more information on how they could do so (64.0%). This study suggests that the habitat model usefully identified key stakeholders and the OBP enjoyed high awareness, concern, and engagement among many stakeholders, shortly before the species was considered functionally extinct. The maintenance of landholder support is likely to be critical if future attempts are made to reintroduce the species to the wild

The exposure of Australian birds to climate change

[Extract] Exposure of species to climate change may be defined as 'the extent of climate change likely to be experienced by a species' (Dawson et al. 2011). In descriptive terms this is relatively straightforward: in the places that a species occurs and for a given time frame, the climate is projected to change in a prescribed manner (for example mean temperature rising by 2°C and mean annual rainfall decreasing 10% over a period of 50 years). However, this may have quite different consequences for different species (Foden et al. 2008). For example, whilst reptiles (being ectothermic) may respond relatively directly to temperature (Kearney et al. 2008), birds (being endothermic) generally do not - the most notable exception being to extreme heat waves (McKechnie and Wolf 2010). However, temperature change may influence the persistence of bird species indirectly via several pathways (below). The Australian avifauna is ecologically diverse, ranging from small largely sedentary passerines to highly nomadic waterbirds and large wide ranging pelagic seabirds, and the experience of climate change will clearly differ between them

Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Australian Birds

In the first continental analysis of the effects of climate change on a faunal group, we identified that the climate space of 101 Australian terrestrial and inland water bird taxa is likely to be entirely gone by 2085, 16 marine taxa have breeding sites that are predicted to be at least 10% less productive than today, and 55 terrestrial taxa are likely to be exposed to more frequent or intense fires. \ud \ud Birds confined to Cape York Peninsula, the Wet Tropics, the Top End of the Northern Territory (particularly the Tiwi Islands), the arid zone, King Island and southern South Australia (particularly Kangaroo Island) are most likely to lose climate space. There was some variation in the predictions of the 18 climate models deployed, but all predicted that the rainforest avifauna of Cape York Peninsula is likely to face the strongest challenge from climate change, particularly taxa currently confined to the Iron and McIlwraith Ranges. For marine birds, those nesting on Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, the Great Barrier Reef and the Houtman Abrolhos are likely to face the greatest declines in local marine productivity. Changes in local marine productivity may also affect the endemic terrestrial birds of these islands, for which no climate modelling was possible. A small group of beach-nesting and saltmarsh birds may be affected by sea level rise. \ud \ud Many taxa, and particularly seabirds, are potentially highly sensitive to climate change based on a set of ecological and morphological metrics. Small island taxa were most likely to be both exposed and sensitive to climate change, followed by marine and shoreline taxa. While threatened birds were more likely than non-threatened taxa to be exposed or sensitive to climate change, or both, a substantial proportion was neither.\ud \ud A key action that needs to be undertaken immediately is fine scale modelling of regions identified as having numerous highly exposed bird taxa, in order to identify climatic refugia within the landscape. Such refugia can then be secured and managed appropriately for the future. The most urgent ongoing action is monitoring, with support for the Atlas of Australian Birds seen as a particularly cost-effective investment. In the future, the most expensive actions will be management of refugia, and captive breeding should all other approaches to conservation in the wild fail. However, most of those for which captive breeding is recommended as a last resort are subspecies of species that are widespread, either in Australia or in New Guinea. \ud \ud For in situ management, the most important actions will be those that are already important – fire management, weed and feral animal control and, for marine taxa, controls on fishing. A small number of species-specific actions are suggested, and there appears to be no urgent requirement for corridors for the maintenance of taxa likely to be threatened with extinction – those few taxa not already living in areas where there are likely to be refugia will require assistance to colonise new climate space.\ud \ud The cost of management over the next 50 years for persistence in the face of climate change of the 396 bird taxa that are very highly exposed, sensitive or both is estimated at $18.8 million per year –$47,700 per year for each taxon. The biggest ongoing costs are monitoring and direct species management but refugia management and captive breeding may eventually be needed, and will be much more expensive

Organisational perspectives on threatened species monitoring

Greater understanding of the issues, constraints and effective components of threatened species monitoring can be realised by sharing and consolidating the knowledge of managers and scientists engaged in such monitoring. This chapter collates the perspectives on monitoring of practitioners from government agencies, non-government organisations and universities involved with diverse monitoring programs of threatened species. Within and across organisational affiliations, it synthesises views on purpose, processes underpinning decisions and outcomes, and the strengths and constraints particular to threatened species monitoring programs. A commonly held view among all practitioners was that those directly involved with monitoring recognise its purpose, benefits and constraints, but others frequently do not understand or endorse these reasons. A synthesis of perspectives revealed that: (1) processes and decisions such as the selection of species to monitor are often influenced by external factors (e.g. funding, political priorities) as well as internal priorities; (2) a similar set of key components for good monitoring are recognised by all practitioners, but there are obstacles that prevent these components from being put into place; and (3) the strengths and constraints of monitoring programs specified by different practitioners are related to their organisational perspective. Overall, the essential ingredients for effective monitoring were identified as good design and methods, adequate resources,capable data management systems, integration with management, organisational support, effective communication and engagement with people. These components aligned with principles identified in Chapters 2 and 35. Understanding the issues, strengths and constraints faced by monitoring practitioners provides context for improving threatened species monitoring programs

Australian Bird Data Version 1 csv data file

<p>A csv file of attributes of all Australian bird species and subspecies.</p

Australian Bird Data Version 1 Excel file of data, metadata and references

<p>An Excel database of attributes of all Australian bird species and subspecies, with associated metadata and references.</p

Australian Bird Data Version 1 References

<p>A csv file of references supporting our data of attributes of all Australian bird species and subspecies.</p

Australian Bird Data Version 1 Metadata

<p>A csv file of metadata supporting our data of attributes of all Australian bird species and subspecies.</p