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Hi Chris,
Waterview Heights and the Coldstream River are in
the Clarence Valley on the New South Wales North Coast. Magpie Geese
returned to the Clarence Valley in 1982 and apart from a few short periods of
absence have been here ever since. The most we have had was 480 but
numbers in recent years have been 30-60 rising recently to 92 (also reported as
120+).
Your birds are not likely to be from the Clarence
Valley but geese have been turning up at a number of locations throughout New
South Wales in recent years. I don't know whether your birds could be from
the population of captive bred birds released in Victoria. Birds were
also released at the Wetland Centre at Shortland, in the Hunter Valley, New
South Wales. Although these releases were well intentioned they have only
served to mask the recolonisation by wild bred birds which has been occurring
since 1982.
It may be of interest to Birding-aus subscribers to
know the current status of the Victorian captive bred birds and the Shortland
birds. If anyone can enlighten us I would appreciate it.
I think that with the Magpie Goose example and the
earlier Parma Wallaby story the release of captive-bred fauna should only
be undertaken as a last resort action when it is clearly known that there are no
wild birds (or insufficient wild birds to maintain a poulation) and no
chance of natural recolonisation.
Regards
Greg
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