Australia's Unique Birds Slipping Away

Environment Minister Peter Garrett launched the report at Parliament House today, saying, "The State of Australia's Birds 2008 spells out clearly what is going on with our birdlife."

Red-necked avocets in eastern Australian wetlands have declined by 80 percent in the last 25 years. (Photo by Dean Ingwersen courtesy Birds Australia

"Knowledge is the foundation of good conservation and the knowledge contained in this report is immensely important as we strive to protect, conserve, and where possible, improve our environment," Garrett said.

Dr. Graeme Hamilton, Birds Australia chief executive, said, "Although the report deals with birds, the findings have much broader implications for nature and society. Birds are indicators of national quality of life. This loss of bird biodiversity is serious as it will also reflect the loss in other groups such as mammals, reptiles, and plants."

Hamilton says Birds Australia, the country's oldest and most respected national bird conservation organization, wants to work with state and commonwealth governments to reverse the trend in losses in bird biodiversity.

This is the sixth state of Australia's birds' report, and presents an up-to-date overview of the health of bird populations in Australia and the main challenges to their sustainability.

This 2008 report focuses on trends in bird populations revealed by some 50 long-term monitoring programs that have been running for up to 40 years.

Painted finches may be on the move in response to climate change. (Photo by Dean Ingwersen courtesy Birds Australia)

The report shows that trends in bird populations are mixed, but more species are in decline than were reported in 2003. Common birds are far less common than they once were. For example, populations of the familiar Australian magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, have slumped.

Water birds are in steep decline, particularly in the parched Murray-Darling basin due to drought and poor water management practices, the report shows.

"Numbers of migratory and resident shorebirds have fallen dramatically in recent years," Hamilton said. "Birds in the bush are faring little better."

"Woodland birds, such as robins, thornbills, fantails and treecreepers, which feed on insects on or near the ground, have all declined in south-eastern Australia due to habitat clearance and other modification," he said.

The report also shows some success where a number of threatened species have increased in population. Birds such as Gould's petrel, glossy black-cockatoo and superb parrot are all faring better than they have in the past.

Found only in Australia, the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, Aquila audax fleayi, is federally listed as Critically Endangered. (Photo courtesy Wildlife Tasmania)

"What's heartening is the proof that where species have been actively managed with recovery plans we are seeing a great result," Garrett said.

But in May 2008 the Australian Federal Court ruled that the logging will drive Tasmania's giant wedge-tailed eagle and swift parrot towards extinction - then on appeal said the logging could go ahead.

Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown, who has battled logging in Tasmania on the ground, in court and in Parliament, observed that the Birds Australia report calls old-growth logging in Tasmania "a national disgrace" because endangered bird species lived there.

From Cambridge, England, Alison Stattersfield, BirdLife International's head of science, said, "Birds Australia have done an impressive job of analyzing the latest information on trends in bird populations. Their findings are extremely concerning and mirror those presented in BirdLife International's 'State of the world's birds' report published last year."

"Globally, there is increasing evidence from long-term monitoring studies of major changes in bird communities and their habitats, with many species declining and few increasing," Stattersfield said. "Our conservation efforts need to be geared up tremendously to halt this loss of biodiversity."

Click here to view "The State of Australia's Birds 2008."

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