John,
The following are some salient points (Lifted from Garnett and Crowley (2000)
Action plan for Australian birds (page ix)) concerning bird conservation in
Australia. Though all three points may not make it into a 'top five facts about
Australian birds' it provides a good summary of where we are at after 200+
years of European occupation.
"Over 82% of Australian bird taxa from mainland Australia and Tasmania have
been affected by land clearance at some stage, and for half it is a continuing
threat."
"The action plan lists 25 taxa as Extinct, 32 as Critically Endangered, 41 as
Endangered, 82 as Vulnerable and 81 as Near Threatened as at June 30 2000."
Note that this includes external Australian Territories (e.g. Norfolk Island).
"Since European settlement (1788) 1.9% of birds have become extinct and a
further 11.5 % are considered threatened." These percentages do not quite match
with the other numbers provided in the text. I'm guessing this is because they
have discounted vagrants, introduced species and possibly some species such as
Cattle Egret that appear to have established here naturally since European
settlement.
Cheers and good luck with the show,
Rohan
Dr Rohan Clarke
Threatened Mallee Bird Project
Zoology Department
La Trobe University
Bundoora 3086
Ph: 03 9479 1672 Mobile 0408 947001
-----Original Message-----
From:
Behalf Of John Leonard
Sent: Tuesday, 8 March 2005 11:08 AM
To: Birding-aus
Subject: 5 most significant facts
Dear All
Why I am writing is, I have to come up with 5 facts about Australian
birds to be placed on the ABC's website before the show is screened. I
can easily think of five random facts about Australian birds to put
up, but I wanted to throw it open to you all to comment on what you
think the five most significant facts about Australian birds are (ie
which stress the importance of conservation)
Eg Australia's rate of vegetation clearance is such that X% of species
will become endangered in the next Y years.
Over to you.
John L
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