Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L01094:body:0:p18
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L01094
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 54024–57092

increased fragmentation, resulting in reduced dispersal opportunities.

Development in forty-spotted pardalote habitat impacts the species, either through direct impacts from activities such as housing and road developments and the associated infrastructure (for example, increased window strike), or indirectly through increased human disturbance (noise from traffic, increased human visitation from tourism), aggressive birds, and predation by domestic and feral animals (Webb et al. 2019). Habitat modification on edges of residential blocks for wildfire protection, and addition of non-native plant species can also degrade habitat.

The impact of large lot development and subdivision also likely threatens the species. Subdivisions can impact on significant areas of potential forty-spotted pardalote habitat if once subdivided, the land is not managed to maintain native birds under threat.

Illegal firewood collecting ('wood-hooking'), and clearance of individual paddock trees and small remnants also likely threaten the species' survival by reducing habitat quantity and quality.

3.2.3 Increased frequency or length of droughts
Since 1950, the number of record hot days (above 35°C) across Australia has more than doubled and the mean temperature has increased by about 1.4°C since 1910 (BOM & CSIRO 2020; IPCC 2021). Heatwaves are also lasting longer, reaching more extreme maximum temperatures, and occurring more frequently over many regions of Australia including Tasmania (Perkins-Kirkpatrick et al. 2016; Evans et al. 2017; Herold et al. 2018; BOM & CSIRO 2020).

It is likely that Australia will spend more time under drought conditions with more frequent, longer duration and more intense drought predicted to occur across southern Australia (Evans et al. 2017; Kirono et al. 2020). Heatwaves exacerbate drought, which in turn can increase wildfire risk and adversely impact resource availability (Climate Council of Australia 2018, 2019; BOM & CSIRO 2020). This may pose a risk to forty-spotted pardalotes, as birds are vulnerable to extreme heatwaves that overwhelm their physiological limits (McKechnie et al. 2012).

Extended dry periods have been implicated in the loss of forty-spotted pardalote habitat, leading to increased fragmentation and reduced patch size (Garnett et al. 2011). For example, on Bruny Island, extended periods of low rainfall have killed many white gum seedlings planted to assist the species, although several stands are now providing food (S Bryant unpublished cited in Bryant et al. 2021).

Droughts also negatively impact food resources such as insect and manna production, and white gums regularly show signs of dieback including 'Ginger tree syndrome' and parched receding canopies. This may result in decreases in forty-spotted pardalote abundance (Understory Network 2011).

3.2.4 Declining white gum health
Forty-spotted pardalotes are totally reliant on white gum; as such, any factor that impacts the trees also impacts the bird in the same way. White gums are known to be highly susceptible to stress due to