Hi Trevor,
I believe there is an increasing number of self-sustaining populations of
Helmeted Guineafowl in Australia - a good few sites for them up around the
Atherton Tablelands as Allan has suggested, however this has been a known
self-sustaining population for a long period of time and has grown a lot in
numbers, splitting into separate parties as Allan has stated.
I saw a party of about 15-20 birds walking along the side of the road
between Mareeba and Mount Molloy on the tablelands in October last year, but
they are a widely known feral population and are mentioned in many of the
field guides. Whether or not you could call the ones at Western Plains Zoo a
feral population, I am not sure. They may well be captive birds at the zoo
which just have free range of the place. Probably no real way of telling for
sure without asking the zoo if they ever had guineafowl as part of their
exhibits -even then, at which stage do you classify them as being a
self-sustainable population? When they breed and feed without any
intervention from the zoo, even if they maybe were once fed/bred with zoo
intervention? A lot of the Guineafowl across Australia probably originate
from aviary escapees, so probably no different than in a zoo setting if they
are breeding/feeding without intervention, regardless of where they
originated from.
Cheers,
Dale
Dale Mengel
Proserpine, QLD, Australia
www.dalemengelphotography.com <http://www.dalemengelphotography.com>
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