Sub-Antarctic-dwelling king penguin spotted unusually far north at Port Davey, Tasmania

ABC Radio Hobart By Georgie Burgess

Posted 19 Feb 2020, 6:23am

A second king penguin has been spotted on mainland Tasmania, with one wildlife officer calling the sighting especially rare "unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica".

Key points:

A king penguin was spotted by kayakers on a beach at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west

The species is usually seen 1,500km further south in Sub-Antarctic regions such as Macquarie Island

It is the second such unusual sighting this year, but a wildlife officer says it is no cause for concern

The penguin was spotted by kayakers at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west.

Wildlife officer Julie McInnes said it was a different penguin to the bird spotted at Seven Mile Beach near Hobart last month.

Dr McInnes said it was unusual to have two king penguins sighted in one year.

"This is a really rare thing for people to see, unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica," Dr McInnes told ABC Radio Hobart.

The birds usually call Macquarie Island, about 1,500 kilometres from Tasmania, home.

"Given the remote location of the second bird, there may be a number of birds that come ashore over the years which are not seen or reported," Dr McInnes said.

She said "vagrant" juvenile penguins were known to come ashore away from their colonies from time to time.

"They can disperse quite a way," she said.

Continued

Sub-Antarctic-dwelling king penguin spotted unusually far north at Port Davey, Tasmania

ABC Radio Hobart By Georgie Burgess

A second king penguin has been spotted on mainland Tasmania, with one wildlife officer calling the sighting especially rare "unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica".

Key points:

A king penguin was spotted by kayakers on a beach at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west

The species is usually seen 1,500km further south in Sub-Antarctic regions such as Macquarie Island

It is the second such unusual sighting this year, but a wildlife officer says it is no cause for concern

The penguin was spotted by kayakers at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west.

Wildlife officer Julie McInnes said it was a different penguin to the bird spotted at Seven Mile Beach near Hobart last month.

Dr McInnes said it was unusual to have two king penguins sighted in one year.

"This is a really rare thing for people to see, unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica," Dr McInnes told ABC Radio Hobart.

The birds usually call Macquarie Island, about 1,500 kilometres from Tasmania, home.

"Given the remote location of the second bird, there may be a number of birds that come ashore over the years which are not seen or reported," Dr McInnes said.

She said "vagrant" juvenile penguins were known to come ashore away from their colonies from time to time.

Continued

Emus once roamed Tasmania, so what happened to them?

ABC Radio Hobart 

By Georgie Burgess

Posted Sat at 9:33pm

It's hard to imagine free-ranging emus foraging across Tasmanian plains in 2019.

But, there is a reason why Burnie used to be called Emu Bay. The large flightless birds once called the island state home.

The University of Tasmania's Tristan Derham said the birds were throughout Tasmania's midlands and the north-east and north-west of the state.

"It's not really clear why the emu went extinct in Tasmania," he said.

The emus were said to be a smaller sub-species of the mainland emus but there are few detailed descriptions of the bird.

Mr Derham said he had researched eyewitness accounts of emus through reports by divisive colonial leader George Augustus Robinson, explorer Matthew Flinders and the diaries of clergyman Robert Knopwood.

"I haven't found a lot of evidence they were much different from mainland emus," he told ABC Radio Hobart.

European settlers recorded feasting on emus and kangaroos upon arrival in Van Diemen's Land.

"The early colonists were crazy for hunting emus and kangaroos," Mr Derham said.

The species survived in the wild until 1865, and the last captive bird died in 1873.

Read more

Albino magpie in Tasmanian wildlife sanctuary 'one in a million', keepers say

By Charley Rico

Updated 24 May 2019, 5:09am

A "one-in-a-million" albino magpie has been found living in Tasmania's north.

Key points:

Keepers say the magpie would not survive in the wild because its white coat would make it a target for predators

The bird is "an absolute character" and "prefers to be handfed despite being able to feed himself"

Experts say there are no accurate statistics that show how common albinism is in birds, but that social media has helped draw our attention to uncommon plumages

Instead of making its home in a suburban backyard, the unnamed bird lives alongside a yellow-tailed black cockatoo in the Trowunna Wildlife Park.

The young male was handed in as a fledgling bird late last year, and has been unable to be released into the wild.

"It was found at the base of a tree with no possibility of getting back to the nest," operations manager Darren Rumble said.

"As soon as we had the bird brought in, we knew we'd be taking care of him for his whole life — if we let him go, he won't last more than a day."

Due to the albino magpie's white pigmentation, Mr Rumble said it was susceptible to a high rate of predation.

"He'd be a prime target for crows or any other bird of prey," he said.

"He is a genuine albino and the statistics around a genuine albino magpie are around one in a million.

"You do see other forms of colour dysmorphia called leucism but that's a dilution of the dark pigment which can go into a creamy colour of the feathers, but the bird will still have normal coloured legs, beak and eyes.

"He's got the total absence of the pigment."

Read on

Orange-bellied parrots spotted well off migratory course a concern for bird experts

ABC Radio Hobart 

By Georgie Burgess

Updated 30 Apr 2019, 4:37am

Wildlife experts in Tasmania will attempt to trap two critically endangered parrots that have been spotted in a backyard well off their migratory course in the state's far south.

It is the end of the breeding season for orange-bellied parrots, and by this point the birds should be somewhere between Melaleuca and mainland Australia.

But a captive-bred male and wild-born female — both are fitted with leg bands for identification — were sighted in Cockle Creek, happily grazing on a backyard lawn.

Ornithologist Mark Holdsworth told ABC Radio Hobart it was concerning because the birds were more than 60 kilometres off course.

"While this is an interesting sighting, their chances of survival are very low and it will be almost impossible to track them when they leave this site," he said.

Read on

Threatened orange-bellied parrots to hitch ride on plane in effort to save species

ABC Ballarat 

By Dominic Cansdale

Posted Fri at 9:36pm

One of Australia's most threatened bird species will be boarding a plane from Victoria to Tasmania's south-west wilderness next month in a desperate effort to save the animal from extinction.

There are only 30 to 50 orange-bellied parrots left in the wild, 10 of which have undergone final health checks at Werribee Open Range Zoo in Victoria ahead of their flight over the Bass Strait in October.

The zoo has been conducting health checks on the parrots throughout winter, with another six captive-bred birds to be released at the same time.

"They're quite critically endangered and at serious risk of extinction in the wild," zoo veterinarian Paul Eden said.

"Habitat loss is a major driver, particularly for their wintering grounds, so on the mainland a lot of habitat is being lost to development and agricultural land."

Introduced predators such as cats and foxes, along with disease, are also threatening the species' survival.

In the wild, the birds spend summer breeding in Tasmania, then spend winter in coastal Victoria and South Australia.

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Scientists want to train this puppy to save endangered owls

By Sherryn Groch

7 September 2018 — 1:03pm

Masked owls are endangered in Tasmania but very hard to monitor in forests.

One of the largest owls in the world, details of their lives are unknown.

But they do leave behind pellets of regurgitated food like hairballs

Zorro the puppy will be trained to sniff out these pellets to help researchers.

Deforestation is the major threat facing masked owls and other Tasmanian species.

To save one of Australia's most elusive birds, scientists need a hero.

Enter Zorro. He's young, charismatic and, like his namesake, never resists the call to adventure. He also happens to be a four-month-old puppy.

But in a last-ditch conservation effort, a crack team of Canberra researchers plan to harness Zorro's superior canine nose to help find and monitor Tasmania's masked owl.

While the endangered bird plays a vital role as the state's largest nocturnal predator, very little is known about its life.

The problem, according to the Australian National University's aptly-named Difficult Bird Research Group, is that masked owls are notoriously hard to monitor in the wild.

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Not only is the terrain rugged, but researchers must venture out after dark, scaling ancient trees or straying far off road in some of the most remote corners of Tasmania.

"It's a logistical nightmare, it's just not safe," says Dr Dejan Stojanovic.

"We know almost nothing about these birds, we don't know their population here, we don't know their diet, their habitat."

Continued  

Record seabird numbers in Aussie island state baffle animal watchers

Source: Xinhua   2018-07-21 13:45:37

SYDNEY, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Seagulls have hit record numbers in Australia's Tasmania island state, baffling ornithologists and animal watchers who also highlighted the birds' changing food supply and nesting areas, latest conservation group figures showed.

All major gull species in the southern state's southeast area have increased significantly, with a nearly 200 percent rise in Pacific gulls from last year's numbers to surpass 1,000 birds, according to bird conservation group Birdlife Tasmania's annual winter gull count reported late this week.

Silver gulls recorded the second-highest population in more than three decades, at about 16,000 birds, the group's Eric Woehler told local media.

The exact cause of the record number of seabirds, some of which can live for 30 years, was not known, said Woehler.

"Every year the gulls surprise us ... The different species respond differently to the environment," the ABC radio channel in state capital Hobart quoted him as saying.

The seabirds were also shifting away from dwindling food sources scavenged from rubbish dumps to feed in other spots including fish farms in water channels, said Woehler.

Seagull nesting areas were similarly changing amid their rising numbers.

Continued 

Island emus’ size related to size of island homes

Date:  April 4, 2018

Source:  The University of Adelaide

Emus that lived isolated on Australia's offshore islands until the 19th century, including Kangaroo Island, King Island and Tasmania, were smaller versions of their larger mainland relatives -- and their overall body size correlated to the size of the islands they inhabited.

Published today in the journal Biology Letters, this was the surprise finding of a University of Adelaide study that analysed the DNA and bone measurements of the now extinct small emus, using both ancient and modern museum specimens. The study revealed that the small stature of the island emus evolved relatively quickly.

Australia's iconic emu is the only living representative of its genus but fossil evidence and reports from early European explorers suggest that three island forms became extinct during the 19th Century. While the King Island emu had already been shown to be of the same species as the Australian mainland emu, little was known about the evolutionary relationships of the others.

"Our results have shown that all the island emus are genetically closely related to the much larger mainland emu," says lead author Dr Vicki Thomson, an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow at the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Sciences.

Continued

Swift parrots bred on predator-free islands at risk of extinction

January 5, 2018, Australian National University

Critically endangered swift parrots. Credit: Australian National University

New research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found genetic evidence that critically endangered swift parrots, which breed all over Tasmania and on predator-free islands, form a single nomadic population at high risk of extinction.

Nomadic swift parrots breed across Tasmania wherever their food is most abundant.

Dr. Dejan Stojanovic from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society said DNA collected from nestling swift parrots showed those birds from predator-free Bruny Island and Maria Island were not genetically isolated from populations on mainland Tasmania.

He said the findings supported the need to manage the swift parrot population as a single unit, and that even local threats like deforestation and predatory sugar gliders may impact large proportions of the mobile parrot population.

"We already recognise the importance of predator-free islands as havens for swift parrots, but our findings demonstrate that protecting islands is only part of the solution to saving the parrots," he said.

"This new genetic evidence shows that islands don't support a genetically distinct subpopulation of swift parrots. Birds that nest on islands in one year may move to the Tasmanian mainland the next year, putting them at risk of being eaten by sugar gliders."

Read more at:

Oldest known orange-bellied parrot makes welcome return to Tasmanian breeding ground

By Rhiannon Shine

Updated Tue at 6:40am

Blue/black F, believed to be the oldest orange-bellied parrot in the wild, has defied the odds to make it back to Tasmania to breed.

The nine-year-old bird was hatched and raised in southern Tasmania, and has crossed Bass Strait about 20 times.

Each summer, the species migrates from the Victorian and South Australian coast to Melaleuca in south-west Tasmania to breed.

Last year's migration was the most dismal on record, with only 17 wild birds — 13 males and just four females — returning.

In some rare good news for the species, Blue/black F was recently spotted back at Melaleuca.

Consultant ornithologist Mark Holdsworth said he was surprised the bird had survived.

"He is in his 10th year, and that is getting right to the end of the oldest birds known to have lived in the wild," he said.

"It is really quite exciting that he has made it through for another year. Quite frankly, I was not expecting it."

Mr Holdsworth said the bird's average life expectancy was about three years.

Given the high casualty rate, researchers have taken to assigning birds non-affectionate names — such as Blue/black F — to avoid getting too attached.

Read on  

Freedom for Miss Simpson, the penguin found 2,000km from home

A Snares penguin from islands south of New Zealand is found wounded on a Tasmanian beach. Nine months’ nursing later, she tastes the open sea again

by Grace Heathcote

Sunday 3 September 2017 19.00 BSTLast modified on Sunday 3 September 2017 23.48 BST

Just before dawn on a still morning in autumn a crowd of people gathers on a beach in southern Tasmania. They watch in tense silence as a small animal shuffles across the sand. This animal, a penguin, has been the focus of nine months of care, liaison and cooperation to get to this moment – she is being released and sent back out into her world. I am privileged to be included in the farewell crew, and share the jubilation and anxiety of the people around me, all of us hoping that she will remember her path home.

So far from home

In July 2014, bushwalkers at Cockle Creek, in the far south of Tasmania, witnessed a penguin being attacked by a dog. A parks and wildlife ranger investigated and found the penguin wandering the shoreline, carrying serious wounds on its back, chest and foot. With bright yellow “eyebrows”, this was not one of the little penguins common to the state but a Snares penguin, usually found on a group of islands 200km south of New Zealand – and more than 2,000km away from Tasmania.

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Scientists scale trees in desperate attempt to save orange-bellied parrot

Critically endangered bird – down to just 14 in the wild – not helped by being ‘morons’ with poor survival instincts

Calla Wahlquist

Wednesday 23 November 2016 04.07 GMT

Scientists are scaling trees in Tasmania in an attempt to save the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot after the wild population dropped to the “stupidly low numbers” of just 14 individuals.

Three of those wild-born birds are females that have begun the process of selecting nest boxes in Melaleuca, a blustery outpost in the wilderness world heritage area near the southwest tip of Tasmania.

In a crowdfunded last-ditch conservation effort, members of the Difficult Bird Research Group, so called because the birds they focus on are difficult to keep alive, will make the 100km flight from Hobart once a week during the nesting season to try to boost the survival rate.

The plan includes smuggling eggs laid in captivity into wild nests, tracking the impact of predators such as sugar gliders which eat the young, and, if necessary, hand-feeding the nestlings of negligent parents.

“There’s one wild female that, poor bugger, just hasn’t had any success,” Australian National University researcher Dr Dejan Stojanovic told Guardian Australia.

“If she stops feeding the kids for any reason, we are likely going to be climbing the trees every three hours and feeding the kids for her to get them to the stage where they can fly and actually chase her for food.”

It is a desperate final attempt to save a species that has been critically endangered for decades.

Despite regularly producing birds for release, longstanding captive breeding programs have not been able to boost dwindling numbers.

Continued

Tropical birds blown off course to sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island after east coast storms

By Emilie Gramenz

Two tropical birds have been found on Tasmania's sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, despite rarely being seen south of New South Wales.

It is believed the sooty terns were blown far off course during large storms that battered Australia's east coast in early June.

Staff at the Macquarie Island research station first noticed two terns flying over the station on June 6, but misty conditions made it impossible to identify the species.

Shortly after, staff found the first bird on a road near weather observation buildings.

Wildlife ranger Marcus Salton was called in to identify the species and give it shelter.

It appeared exhausted but healthy, however it died the next day.

Continued ...

Australian swift parrot listed as critically endangered

Tasmanian swift parrot has been listed as critically endangered, lifting its status from endangered

Date: May 6, 2016

Source: Australian National University

The Australian Government has listed the iconic Tasmanian swift parrot as critically endangered, lifting its status from endangered, following research by The Australian National University (ANU).

Dr Dejan Stojanovic from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society is part of a team that published the 2015 research which found the swift parrot could be extinct in as little as 16 years.

He welcomed the reclassification, which he said should provide greater protection for Tasmanian bird.

"The reclassification is a major milestone for swift parrots and highlights the importance of finding a solution to the extreme effects of sugar glider predation, and of protecting their habitat," Dr Stojanovic said.

"It confirms that the severe predation on swift parrots by sugar gliders is critical to whether their population survives.

"The next goal for our research group is to figure out what needs to happen to turn the swift parrot trajectory around, because they are only one step from extinction."

In 2015, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature raised the threat level of swift parrots in response to the new evidence provided by ANU researchers.

ANU research predicted the population of the birds will halve every four years, with a possible decline of 94.7 per cent over 16 years.

Professor Rob Heinsohn, also from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, said groups such as foresters, environmentalists and members of the public would be severely affected if the birds became extinct.

"Swift parrots are major pollinators of blue and black gum trees which are crucial to the Tasmanian environment and economy including forestry and tourism," Professor Heinsohn said.

"We congratulate the Commonwealth for listening to the scientific evidence, and giving swift parrots a fighting chance."

Source…

No kids given bird kill licence, says department

March 1, 2016 9:52pm

JESSICA HOWARDMercury

NO recreational shearwater harvesting licences were issued to young children as was widely reported last year, says the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.

The Tasmanian Conservation Trust last year revealed that the department’s records showed in 2013 and 2014, licences were issued to four people who recorded their birth dates as 2011 or later, which prompted a pledge from DPIPWE for a review.

A DPIPWE spokesman said yesterday that an investigation discovered that no such permits were issued — the report was based on an incorrect data entry.

“Regardless, there are arrangements in place to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring,” he said.

“It is important to note that harvesting of shearwaters is a significant cultural activity for sections of Tasmania’s Aboriginal community, which the government recognises. Often these activities involve all family members, including children.”

Applications for children listed as nine years or younger are referred to the department’s wildlife management branch for assessment of competence.

Source …

Critically Endangered parrots killed by rats at breeding facility

Captive breeding efforts to save the Critically Endangered Orange-bellied Parrot Neophema chrysogaster - Australia’s rarest bird with perhaps as few as 50 individuals in the wild - have suffered a major setback.

Fourteen Orange-bellied Parrots were killed by rats during late 2015 at the Taroona (Hobart) captive-breeding facility, which is run by Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.

The affected birds were being held separately in quarantine from the main breeding stock, as they were suffering from Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD). Following the killing of two parrots during October and November, in early December a more serious incident led to the death of the remaining birds. (In May 2013 two Orange-bellied Parrots in the same facility were killed by a cat that breached the perimeter fence.)

The Australian Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, labelled the latest incident as "deeply disturbing", prompting Matthew Groom, Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage for Tasmania to defend his government department: "The deaths of birds within the captive population has been taken seriously by the Tasmanian Government.” He stated that he has been assured that since the incident security standards at Taroona have been significantly enhanced.

Paul Sullivan, Chief Executive of BirdLife Australia commented: "These incidents clearly show the danger of allowing wild bird populations to decline until they rely on captive insurance programs. It’s tragic to lose any Orange-bellied Parrots; we need to learn from the incident and pull together to keep this bird from going extinct."

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Getting to know the shy albatross: A scientist's 13-year crusade to save a native Tasmanian sea bird

 By Sam Ikin

Updated yesterday at 10:23pm

Spreading awareness of Tasmania's vulnerable species of sea bird, the shy albatross, is the key to keeping the species alive, a prominent scientist says.

From climate change, plastic ingestion, habitat loss or feral animals it is not difficult to understand why the shy albatross is somewhat withdrawn.

The native Tasmanian sea bird is currently listed as vulnerable under the Threatened Species Protection Act which why a prominent scientist wants Tasmanians to get to know the shy albatross better.

Species need to have their champions.

Wildlife officer with the Tasmanian parks department, Rachael Alderman, has been studying the giant birds since 2003 and said the data she had collected was not encouraging.

"There's been a general decline in breeding success, for every pair that lay an egg it's getting increasingly less likely that they'll have a surviving chick at the end of the year," she said.

"We're also finding that if they are successful ... fewer and fewer chicks are surviving that first period at sea and making it back."

Continued …

Nest cavity competition may threaten an endangered Tasmanian songbird

Date:  November 5, 2015

Source:  Central Ornithology Publication Office

The Forty-spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus quadragintus), an endangered Tasmanian songbird, has been experiencing unexplained declines in its remaining habitat, and a new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applications describes how competition with a related species for nest cavities may be putting extra pressure on these vulnerable birds. Amanda Edworthy of Australian National University spent two years monitoring nests of Forty-spotted Pardalotes and Striated Pardalotes at three sites around Tasmania, documenting that about 10% of Forty-spotted Pardalote nests were ultimately taken over by their bigger, more aggressive cousins.

During the breeding seasons of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, Edworthy searched for nests of both pardalote species in Tasmania's dry coastal forests, monitoring them every four days and using climbing gear to observe nests high in trees. She also used freeze-dried pardalote specimens as dummies to test how the birds responded to intruders, placing them in lifelike positions outside nests and recording the birds' reactions. While she didn't see a single instance of Forty-spotted Pardalotes taking over a Striated Pardalote nest site, Striated Pardalotes usurped about 10% of the Forty-spotted Pardalotes nesting attempts she monitored, with these takeovers occurring most frequently at sites with greater Striated Pardalote population density. Forty-spotted Pardalotes responded less aggressively to Striated Pardalote dummies than to dummies of their own species, likely due to caution in the face of a threatening competitor, while Striated-spotted Pardalotes displayed similar amounts of aggression to dummies of both species.

Accessing pardalote nests required determination and comfort with heights. "I learned to climb trees just for this project," says Edworthy. "Tasmania's gum trees are some of the tallest flowering plants in the world, and I had nests ranging from eye level to 30 meters above the ground, with most of them well above ladder height. My field assistants and I would either hike or bike all the gear out to each nest every four days or so, and haul ourselves up into the canopy. We got some great views of Tasmanian coastline and forest canopies from the tops of trees, though when the wind came up, it was a bit frightening to see the trunk of the tree moving below me and to feel how elastic trees are in the wind. Climbing let us consistently access nests of Forty-spotted Pardalotes for the first time--previous studies were done from the ground or with ladders."

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'Urgent' crowdfunding campaign hopes to help save three native birds facing extinction in Tasmania

By Johanna Nicholson

Updated about 11 hours ago

An international campaign has begun to help save three native bird species at risk of extinction.

The swift parrot, forty-spotted pardalote and orange-bellied parrot are all Australian native birds under threat from predatory sugar gliders.

The swift parrot breeds in Tasmania during spring and summer, nesting in old trees with hollows.

They migrate to south-eastern Australia during the cooler months, but many are not surviving long enough to make the journey.

Logging in Tasmania has meant the tiny birds share their breeding habitat with sugar gliders.

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) said the presence of the sugar gliders had been catastrophic for the species survival.

"They are able to get into the nest hollows of the swift parrots and the other hollow nesting birds," said Robert Heinsohn, a conservation biologist at the ANU.

"They get in there and they just wreak havoc and destruction," he said.

There are fears based on current figures the colourful swift parrot could be extinct within 16 years.

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