The wide, dry grasslands of north-west Victoria are home to one of Australia’s rarest birds. Graziers who have lived alongside the elusive animal for generations have joined forces with conservationists to keep the species alive.
Bill McGillivray’s family has owned property on the Patho Plains in north-central Victoria for more than 70 years.
“My father and partner bought the property in the late 40s just after the second world war and they had about 12,000 acres,” the 80-year-old says. “They sold it off, but I’ve still got the original block they started with.”
Of the 1,400 hectares (about 3,500 acres) that McGillivray owns, he says there are parts that have been grazed by sheep and cattle but have not otherwise been touched. That has left the native mix intact, which makes it an ideal habitat for the critically endangered plains-wanderer.
In 2016, McGillivray and his wife, Sandra, permanently protected 137 hectares of their grasslands through the conservation organisation Trust for Nature after the birds were recorded on the property through the use of song meters. Now, the couple plans on adding 236 hectares more to the covenant.
The north-west area manager of Trust for Nature, David Dore, says an estimated 500 to 1,000 hectares of Murray Valley grasslands continue to be lost every year due to cropping and pasture improvement, so securing the remaining patches is critical to the long-term integrity of the endangered ecosystem.
“We are very excited about it,” he says. “This is known prime habitat for the plains-wanderer, validated through song meter recordings over many years and regular nocturnal surveys.”
Conservation covenants result in a permanent, legally binding agreement to prevent activities that might damage native habitat such as intensive cropping or development. The covenant is registered on the property title and protects the plains-wanderer habitat even when the land changes ownership.
The plains-wanderer, Pedionomus torquatus, is a ground-dwelling bird that depends on native grasslands. They’re notoriously difficult to spot and have to be startled by spotlights at night to make their presence known.
Standing at about 12cm tall, the bird’s fawn-coloured feathers blend in with Australia’s arid plains. Their main populations are now in the New South Wales Riverina and northern Victoria with some recorded in outback South Australia and south-west Queensland.
The population in Victoria has declined by 95%, according to a 2015 threatened species assessment by the federal environment department, which recommended the bird’s conservation assessment be upgraded from vulnerable to critically endangered. Numbers also declined by 84% decline in the NSW Riverina region.
The total estimated number of mature plains-wanderers in 2015 was less than 1,000. In 2020, that number was revised down to an estimated 250 mature birds left in the wild.
The biggest threat to the bird’s survival is the loss of remnant grassland. Overgrazing, use of pesticides and predation by cats and foxes were also listed as concerns.
BirdLife Australia’s national public affairs manager, Sean Dooley, says the loss of native grassland has left the birds with very few options.
Dooley says the 2020 population estimate, contained in the Action Plan for Australian Birds, was concerning.
“The numbers can fluctuate according to the season, and there may be other small populations of this hard-to-detect species, but even if the population is double or triple that, it is still extremely precarious, teetering on the edge of extinction,” he says.
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“In the last decade we have made some real strides in protecting plains-wanderers with several conservation reserves established to protect habitat, and the management of those remnants has gotten so much better to keep conditions favourable.
“Much of the best remaining habitat is on private property and this is why covenanting schemes like Trust for Nature are so vital.”
Another such privately owned grassland belongs to George Cullinan. The 98-year-old farmer, from Jil Jil in Victoria’s north-west, has placed 91 hectares of his property into a conservation covenant with Trust for Nature to protect the “little birds”.
“When we took the deed to the covenant out to [Cullinan], he said, ‘well as long as the little birds are OK’,” Dore says. “He’s very simple but heartfelt and takes a great deal of pleasure knowing they are thriving on his property.”
There are other hopeful developments. A breeding program carried out by Zoos Victoria at the Werribee open range zoo has successfully produced 48 plains-wanderer chicks since their threatened species program launched in 2017. The organisation has partnerships with Trust for Nature, Parks Victoria, and private landholders to select sites to release the captive-born chicks and protect their remaining habitat.
Zoos Victoria’s general manager of threatened species and wildlife conservation science, Garry Peterson, says landholders such as the McGillivrays and Cullinan are integral to conservation efforts and critical to the success of the breeding program.
A number of plains-wanderers have already been released as part of a three-year trial in partnership with Taronga Western Plains Zoo and Monarto Safari Park, which is intended to allow researchers to collect data on dispersal, breeding and survivorship, and refine monitoring technology.
Dore says the partnership between private landholders and Trust for Nature works for both parties and for the environment.
“An enormous amount of really threatened habitat is on private land so this is a way of exercising some influence on the conservation values of that land but still not removing someone’s property rights,” he says.
“Part of our job is not to be critical of other farming systems, but to remind people there are other ways of doing it that are a bit more in harmony with Australia’s ecosystem.”