Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L00858:body:0:p6
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L00858
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 14939–17878

eggs measure 28 mm x 23 mm.

Adult female Black-breasted Button-quail © Copyright, Patrick Webster

Species distribution in Australia

Black-breasted Button-quails are now thought to be confined to south-eastern Queensland from near Byfield (central Queensland) in the north to the Border Ranges in the south and as far west as Palmgrove National Park and Barakula State Forest (Figure 1). The species also occurs in the Brigalow Belt and in part of the Central Queensland Coast bioregion at Byfield-Yeppoon (R Jaensch pers. comm. May 2022). While they may now be locally extinct from New South Wales (DPIE 2021; Webster et al. 2021), their range may extend further north (e.g., within similar coastal-dune vine scrub habitat in Shoalwater Bay) as historical records from Queensland's Wet Tropics (Le Souef 1897; Bravery 1970) are not necessarily implausible given that Spotted Quail-thrushes (Cinclosoma punctatum) remained undetected in the region until recently (Webster et al. 2021).

Many occupied patches of suitable habitat are widely separated, either naturally by open forest, on islands or artificially by cleared agricultural land. Given the extent of loss of vine thicket vegetation and other Black-breasted Button-quail habitat (up to 90%, as suggested in Hamley et al. 1997), the species' distribution was thought to be fragmented (TSSC 2015). However, Webster et al. (2021) state that there are sufficient records of vagrants (e.g. Smyth et al. 2001), including on small coastal islands, to suggest that mobility is unconstrained and that there is a single dispersed population. Their apparent absence from a 40-hectare site at Redwood Park in south-east Queensland for several months in some years, suggests some movements may be regular in years of similar rainfall (RP Jaensch unpublished, cited in Webster et al. 2021). However, seasonal movements have not been documented in other populations (P Webster pers. comm. 2022). Further studies are needed to determine if such seasonal movements are common in other Black-breasted Button-quail populations.

Recent targeted camera trapping surveys in the Great Sandy Region collectively - K'gari (Fraser Island), Cooloola and Inskip Peninsula – demonstrated the species' presence in littoral forest along the eastern coast of K'gari (Fraser Island) and Cooloola (Webster et al. 2021a). This suggests Black-breasted Button-quail could be widely distributed along the east coast of the Great Sandy Region and in a few isolated inland sites (Webster et al. 2021a).

The species is also known to occur in coastal vine scrub north of Yeppoon (R Jaensch pers. comm. May 2022). In New South Wales, suitable habitat remains in the western Border Ranges, Richmond Range, Koreelah and Tooloom Ranges and in the Mt Warning caldera area and associated ranges, but the species has not been reliably recorded since 1995 (Milledge 2000; DPIE 2021).

Figure 1:  Modelled distribution of