Trevor -
At 08:39 19/10/1997 +1000, you wrote:
>The trip to the mallee around Round Hill in western NSW brought to mind
>some of the problems which must be facing the Birds Australia team working
>on the new acquisition in northern South Australia.
Gluepot Station was purchased as our new Murray Mallee Reserve because it
scored very highly as being critically important for birds, including
threatened species, under recently developed criteria which allow us to rank
potential habitat purchases and give them a priority listing.
>So my questions are:
>1) Is mallee at its best with regular disturbance?
Some mallee may indeed be better for some birds with some degree of
disturbance. However, mallee habitats in general have suffered massive
clearing, degradation and disturbance. Birds which have benefited most are
those that are not mallee-dependant, and can make use of more open,
human-modified environments. It is mallee disturbance that allowed
Yellow-throated Miners to come into contact with the formerly separated
distribution of Black-eared Miners. There is no shortage of disturbed
mallee, but there is a critical shortage of extensive and unbroken expanses
of old-growth mallee that has been unburnt for several decades.
>2) There was a very good water hole at Whooey Tank nearby. This was man
>made. Should one install waterholes regularly in the mallee?
Increased access to water has been a major cause of mallee degradation.
Mallee-dependant fauna have evolved to live without the need for surface
water, and the provision of dams for stock has allowed increases in grazing
pressure not only from cattle and sheep, but also rabbits and goats. It has
also allowed foxes and feral cats to maintain populations (or population
densities) in places which they could not occupy otherwise. One approach to
managing mallee habitat for threatened mallee fauna (and the flora) is to
close off or fill in dams in order to maximise the area outside the reach of
those water-dependant animals.
>3) Should odd paddocks be maintained for quail or other seedeating species
>in the mallee?
Are there not plenty of paddocks outside the mallee suitable for such
species? I am not aware of any kind of bird that could be threatened by the
regrowth or rehabilitation of previously cleared or degraded mallee.
There are, admittedly, still many unknowns about how to protect and manage
mallee habitats. We hope to discover some answers through comparing the
short and long-term effects of various kinds of management in the Bookmark
Biosphere Reserve, of which Gluepot Station is a part. If this is going to
be a very dry summer and autumn as has been predicted, it is also an
opportunity to begin monitoring the effects on the birds of the mallee.
Regards, Hugo.
Hugo Phillipps,
Birds Australia Conservation & Liaison,
Australian Bird Research Centre,
415 Riversdale Road,
Hawthorn East, VIC 3123, Australia.
Tel: (03) 9882 2622. Fax: (03) 9882 2677.
o/s: +61 3 9882 2622. Fax: +61 3 9882 2677.
Email: <>
Web Homepage: http://www.vicnet.net.au/~birdsaus
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