Bulletin

Issue: May 2005

Research in Action

Love and life for lonesome bachelor birds

La Trobe University ornithologists have confirmed the success of an ambitious project to rescue a population of nationally endangered Black-eared Miners.

The project not only saved the birds from local extinction. In doing so it provided ‘wives’ for some lonely bachelor birds who had no hope of finding mates without the scientists’ help.

Dr Rohan Clarke discovered three breeding groups of the birds near Ouyen to confirm a major accomplishment by a National Recovery Team, working for the birds’ conservation for 12 years.

According to the leader of La Trobe’s team, Dr Mike Clarke (no relation to Dr Rohan Clarke), the Black-eared Miner is one of Australia’s most endangered birds.

‘It requires large areas of mature mallee vegetation not burnt for at least 40 years, now a rare and precious commodity.’

‘In the early 1990s it appeared to be suffering a catastrophic decline in the Victorian parts of its range to broad-scale clearing of habitat, loss of long-unburnt mallee due to fires and the threat of genetic swamping by its more common relative, the Yellow-throated Miner,’ Dr Clarke said.

The Recovery Team was particularly concerned about the viability of one colony that had been declining steadily in 12,000 hectares of long-unburnt mallee near Ouyen.

Dr Clarke’s team suspected that this was due to a critical shortage of breeding females. Their research had shown that young females do not breed in the colony in which they are raised but disperse to neighbouring colonies.

Their fear was that in the Ouyen habitat there were bachelor birds waiting around for the arrival of immigrant females that were never going to arrive, due to the absence of neighbouring colonies within the reserve and its isolation from other patches of old mallee.

In 2003, with funding from the National Heritage Trust, the Mallee Catchment Management Authority and Zoos Victoria, an ambitious and long-term solution was attempted. This involved a major collaborative effort by staff from La Trobe University, Healesville Sanctuary and Parks Victoria.

The team’s plan was to establish two or three new colonies within the reserve using captive-reared Black-eared Miners from Healesville and Monarto sanctuaries and Cleland Wildlife Park in South Australia in the hope they would act as a source of females.

In the spring of 2003 staff from Healesville Sanctuary led by Gary Slater and Lindell Andrews, with the help of staff from Melbourne Zoo, Parks Vic and La Trobe University, supervised the construction of two huge temporary release aviaries within the reserve and the release of 45 miners into the reserve, several of which were radio tagged.

Recently, Dr Clarke discovered the released birds had established two new breeding groups nesting near the wild colony. To top it off, a captive-released female had joined the wild colony and was sitting on eggs!

‘This population and species is not out of the woods yet and still faces the threat of fire and genetic swamping,’ says Dr Clarke.

‘However, our efforts highlight what can be done when a group of dedicated and determined people work together for a common purpose.’

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