Sarah Legge has found that inappropriate fire regimes are a key factor in the decline of Gouldian Finches in the wild http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/12/09/4145484.htm .
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2 responses to “A burning issue”
Thanks Laurie that is another good link. There are quite few similarities in that article to what we found for the Carpentarian Grasswren. The aborigines used to be much better at conserving these species than we have been. Cheers & Happy birding Mike Tarburton On 10/12/2014, at 6:49 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:
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When I was researching Gouldian Finch habitat for Billiton back in the late 1980s some scientists were blaming mining and cattle. I doubt it was quite that simple. For example numbers of Gouldian Finches appeared to fluctuate depending on rainfall. In dry years greater numbers descended on more permanent water. Too frequent burning such as that which has held sway in Kakadu for decades, is a threat, especially, I imagine, when combined with feral cats. Also such fires appear to have encouraged the spread of annual speargrass at the expense of a diversity of grasses, and the seeds of that species aren’t available during the early Wet, a hard time for granivores. Destructive fires fuelled by Gamba and Mission Grass also constitute a threat to Gouldian Finch habitat, and those grasses are out of control right down to Katherine. Now there may be another threat – Rats-tail Grass, Sporobolus jaquemontii. This aggressive and hardy species takes over native grassland, rapidly decreasing diversity, and because it resembles other native grasses it’s hard to detect until it’s actually seeding. Rats-tail, like Mission Grass, was apparently introduced as a contaminant in imported cattle pasture. By the way Paul Newman spotted Gouldian Finches not far from our Darwin River property not long ago, and since then I’ve seen two, possibly attracted by the diversity of native grasses that still exists in this area. Denise Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow PO Box 71 Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841 PhD candidate, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW. Founding Member: Ecotourism Australia Founding Member: Australian Federation of Graduate Women Northern Territory 043 8650 835 On 10 Dec 2014, at 5:19 pm, Laurie Knight <l.knight@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
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