Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L01095:body:0:p10
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L01095
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 25796–28612

effect of fox and cat control from other environmental factors that might cause a change. Once resolved, the experiment can be modified to learn about the effectiveness of other actions as conservation strategies, such as fire or herbivore management (Southwell et al. 2018) or the complete exclusion of feral predators (e.g. Smith et al. 2020).

2.7 Monitoring

Monitoring in semi-arid areas:

Monitoring populations involves obtaining reliable and repeatable measures of Malleefowl numbers over time in order to measure changes in population size and distribution. Malleefowl are shy and elusive birds, making counting of the birds themselves very difficult. However, their mounds are conspicuous and monitoring breeding activity provides a reliable means of measuring the abundance of breeding birds in an area.

In order to establish the abundance of breeding birds in an area, a monitoring site is established by thoroughly searching a chosen area for all Malleefowl mounds, both active and inactive. Areas are either searched on ground, or from the air using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) or photogrammetry. The advantage of LiDAR is that it shows vegetation as green dots and has great potential in mapping habitat structure. Details are provided in the National Malleefowl Monitoring Manual. The location of every mound that is found in an area is accurately recorded, thereby enabling monitors to return to the mounds for annual monitoring.

The monitoring of Malleefowl sites is the agreed method for determining Malleefowl breeding trends on a national scale. Historically, Malleefowl sites have been set up in areas where mounds have been known to exist, and/or where opportune sightings of birds have been recorded. Sites are blocks of habitat, normally covering an area of 2 to 4 km², a size large enough to provide an estimate of breeding density, yet still small enough to be effectively monitored. Sites monitored by air (e.g. helicopter) are generally much bigger and may be in the order of 10 km² to 20 km². The size of a monitoring site can be influenced by a number of factors including the density of mounds, access, tenure and interest.

As Malleefowl tend to renovate old mounds rather than construct new mounds afresh each year (Frith 1959, Benshemesh 2007c), each old mound is a potential site for breeding, and annually checking the known mounds each spring/summer provides a good estimate of the trends in breeding numbers at each site. Nonetheless, new mounds are occasionally built by the birds and a thorough re-search of monitoring sites at least every 5 to 10 years is needed to capture these and ensure accurate estimation of breeding numbers.

The primary aim of the Malleefowl monitoring program is to track changes in the number of breeding birds inhabiting specific areas.