Well Tom,
My old mentor Keith Hindwood in the first "The Birds of Sydney" (County of
Cumberland NSW) - K.A.Hindwood and A.R.McGill 1958 - had Brush-Turkey on their
Provisional List with this to say p. 108 after discussing the type locality as
"Sydney" or "Near Sydney":
".........However there is no evidence that the species was to be found closer
to Sydney than the Illawarra district. It appears to have been shot-out in
those parts by cedar-cutters and others about 100 years ago, for Gould remarks
(Handbook to the Birds of Australia vol.2, 1865, p.151) that it was "nearly
extirpated" at the time of his visit in 1840.
It is likely that its range included the south-eastern portion of the County,
near Bulli. Some thirty years ago the species was reported from unsettled
country adjacent to the Shoalhaven River well to the south of the County.
Recently birds were said to have been observed in gullies leading to the
Cataract Dam, west of Bulli. If such is the case they may have originated from
a pair that probably survived liberation at Mt Keira in October, 1948."
So it appears that in the years leading to the 40s and 50s and beyond that they
weren't in Sydney at all and as anyone who knew Keith and Arnold will attest,
there was not much chance they would have missed them!
So you may well be right about a return to a former range but they apparently
went missing for a very long time. I think it highly likely that you are spot
on with the recovery assistance being provided by fox baiting programs but is
that the only causal factor? Seems unlikely, but others on list may have better
research to hand.
As I said in the previous post, I was intrigued by a talk at the Bidlife
Congress on "Better Connections: Human - Bird Interactions in Urban
Environment" (D.N. Jones from Griffith Uni) who spoke with great humour of
research on the species in Urban Brisbane intending to discover the causal
factors behind the species decline (urban encroachment, cats etc etc) and
instead finding a significant expansion akin to what seems to be happening in
Sydney! (I hope I am not misrepresenting the findings here as I dont have the
paper available).
They clearly have little fear of the urban environment or man. Are they
exploiting us I wonder and the environment we now provide - despite cats, dogs
etc and chicks that have to fend for themselves?
Interesting species.
Good birding
Graeme
> From:
> To: ;
> CC:
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Australian Brush-turkey in western Sydney
> Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2012 20:52:09 +1100
>
> Are they becoming "surburbanised", or is it just them coming back to their
> former range now that more foxes are being taken out in suburban areas
> through baiting etc in National Parks?
> Tom Wilson
>
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