The best local news every workday at lunch time. However, population growth has waned in recent years, likely due to large areas of drooping sheoak (trees) being burnt during the 2019-20 fires. “That’s been achieved through ongoing management and protection of nests to keep those nestlings coming through. “There were 158 birds in 1995 and our last count was well over 400,” she said. He’s still out there and healthy and getting around with his flock.”īerris said the species’ local recovery over 25 years was “spectacular” but the bushfires had destroyed swathes of their only food source. We did spot a 25-year-old bird last year and that’s one of the oldest banded. They are still around and still breeding. “We’ve still got birds out there that were banded in the late 1990s when this banding program started. From that, we know where it’s come from and can decipher how far it moves, where it resides as an adult, and where it breeds as an adult,” she said. halmaturinus Mathews 1912 now occurs only on Kangaroo Island, having been extirpated on the South Australian mainland, but vagrants from the. “When the bird is flying we can use a very good camera to zoom in and see that little number. We’re also feeling really positive because we’ve had so much population growth on the eastern end in unburnt areas.”īerris said each bird found in specially designed nest boxes was banded with individual numbers for lifetime tracking. “There are quite large groups of birds persisting in these tiny patches of habitat in the west of the island. “Initially after the Black Summer bushfires we were really worried because so much habitat had been taken out, but I’m amazed how resilient they’ve been,” said project officer Karleah Berris. The Kangaroo Island Landscape Board said that the early cluster of nestlings banded by its glossy recovery team was promising for the species, which numbered only around 400. An endangered KI glossy black cockatoo nestling.
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