Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00775:reg:18:p15
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00775
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 18 (pt 15/152)
Character Range: 80617–83657

widespread use for wildlife studies, there are few scientifically justified guidelines that provide minimum distances at which wildlife can be approached to minimize visual and auditory disturbance. Determining these distances is essential to ensuring that behavioural and survey data have no observer bias, and once understood, should form the basis of requirements for animal ethics and scientific permit approvals.
Drone disturbance may be species-specific, and it is possible that different avian taxa exhibit different behavioural disturbance thresholds. For example, Bevan et al. (2018) observed a colony of Crested Terns resting on a sand-bank displayed disturbance behaviours (e.g. flight response) when a drone was flown below 60 m altitude. At Raine Island National Park (RINP), Queensland, preliminary data suggests that other avian species are even more sensitive to drone disturbance than Crested Terns (Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service 2017). Official guidance for drone use within RINP indicates that drone altitudes of 80 and 120 m, respectively, are required to avoid disturbing Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) and Common Noddy. These requirements suggest that drone disturbance may be species-specific, and that different avian taxa exhibit different behavioural disturbance threshold altitudes. Such thresholds for target species should be determined prior to initiating drone-based biological studies and monitoring.

30 Wildlife Conservation Plan for Seabirds

Threats

Pollution
Marine debris
Marine debris can affect seabirds either through ingestion or entanglement. Most of the marine debris affecting seabirds is derived from consumer waste. Many species ingest considerable quantities of plastic and other marine debris, which has a wide range of lethal or sub-lethal effects. The debris can cause physical damage, or perforation, mechanical blockage or impairment of the digestive system, resulting in starvation. Chicks appear to be at greater risk than adults because of their high rates of ingestion and low frequency of regurgitated casting of indigestible material. When the plastics are regurgitated to chicks, the physical impaction and internal ulceration are likely to lower survival. In addition, the chick receives less food, lowering its nutrient intake and increasing its chances of starvation (Fry et al. 1987; Sileo et al. 1990). For example, as part of the ongoing marine debris surveys in Gulf St Vincent, South Australia, opportunistic necropsy was undertaken on 23 carcasses of Short-tailed Shearwaters that had died and washed up on Goolwa and Waitpinga beaches. These deaths were part of a large-scale mortality of hundreds of these birds across southern Australia, probably due to poor body condition after their seasonal migration from the northern hemisphere. In the study, 70 per cent of the birds had plastic fragments in their gut, which can be passed on to their young by the regurgitation of food (see Carey 2011).
Some seabirds are also killed after becoming entangled in