Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

Research in Action

Bass Strait seabird research

La Trobe University has taken over research on muttonbirds, or Shorttailed Shearwaters, in Bass Strait, nearly 60 years after it began.

The work is being led by the Marine Ornithology Group in the Department of Environmental Management and Ecology at the Albury-Wodonga campus.

Formerly a joint project with the Tasmanian Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, it is the world's longest, continuous study of a wild vertebrate. It was started by famous Australian ornithologist, the late Dr Dominic Serventy of the CSIRO, in 1947.

Conservation biologist and head of La Trobe's Marine Ornithology Group, Dr Catherine Meathrel, has been working on seabirds in Bass Strait since 1988. In addition to her muttonbird research, Dr Meathrel and her team of Honours and PhD students and local Aboriginal assistants have been working on the rare Pacific Gull over the last seven years, in the Furneaux Group of islands.

An attempt in 1993 to have Pacific Gulls - Australia's only large native gulls - listed as 'ethreatened' failed as a consequence of the lack of information about this species.

Dr Meathrel is anxious to compile enough information about the Pacific Gull to have it placed on the endangered species list. It is one of 48 species of seagull worldwide, about one third of which are endangered.

Her group is studying various aspects of the birds' breeding biology and ecology and Dr Meathrel hopes soon to initiate research on Pacific Gulls and other seabirds that breed on Goose Island, including Little (Fairy) Penguins and Sooty Oystercatchers.

Goose Island is one of the more remote islands in the Furneaux Group of islands, near Flinders Island, in Bass Strait. It is an elongated granite island of about 109 hectares. The northern end has spectacular large boulders, the shoreline is indented with deep gullies and occasional beaches while the south-western coastline has spectacular bays and headlands.

A lighthouse, rock walls, foundations of buildings, and graves of deceased lighthouse keepers are at the southern end.

Dr Meathrel spends five months a year, from November to March, on Great Dog Island in the Furneaux Group. Last October, PhD student Dr Bruce Robertson began detailed research of Pacific Gulls nesting on Goose Island, in a Tasmanian Conservation area, while Dr Meathrel conducted her mutton bird research 40 nautical miles away.

Dr Robertson, above, spent three and a half months on Goose Island studying the gulls over the breeding season, banding more than 500 chicks. A retired Warragul veterinary surgeon, Dr Robertson is now researching the gulls for his PhD, after having spent nearly 30 years studying them as an amateur.

Drs Meathrel and Robertson have also supervised the construction of a hut on Goose Island to accommodate up to four researchers. Life there will be more comfortable than in the small, 100 year old mutton 'birders' hut Dr Meathrel uses on Great Dog Island. In February 2005, 100 kph winds blew off part of the roof and one of the walls.

Dr Meathrel says little is known about the Pacific Gull and only two academic papers - one of them by Dr Robertson - have been written on this species. She says there may be five distinct populations in Australia, one of which is centred around the Bass Strait Islands.

She says Dr Robertson's research has revealed that there remain only about 8,800 Pacific Gulls and the fact that they are in distinct populations may make their plight even worse.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature stipulates any bird species which has less than 10,000 individuals is in danger of extinction within 10 generations.

To demonstrate they are endangered, Dr Meathrel says you have to prove two things: that they are decreasing in numbers, and that their range is declining.

'Because of the lack of research in the past, we are unable to show they are declining. So we have much work to do. We are sure our work will make a major contribution to the knowledge-base about seabirds.'