Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (National Recovery Plan for the Malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata)) Instrument 2024
Lyra, the Almanac, and Human EmotionsLyra, the Almanac, and Human Emotions
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The story of the Lyra constellation for the Boorong Indigenous people around Lake Tyrell in northwestern Victoria makes for an insightful connection between the location of stars in the night sky and the ability to predict and find a valued food source. One of the stars in the Boorong night sky was called Neilloan. It is named after the Lowan or Loan (Malleefowl). The star is part of a constellation that contemporary astronomers call “Lyra”. For the Boorong people, its collection of stars have the general shape of a bird with Malleefowl-like characteristics, including a star in a position that gives the appearance of a large foot or leg issuing from the body of the bird.
The almanac connections between the Malleefowl and the Lyra constellation: “Lyra appears in the southern hemisphere only between March and October, coinciding with the mound building period of the Malleefowl. The behaviours of the Malleefowl is also linked to an annual event in the Lyra constellation. The Lyrids is the name given to meteor showers in this constellation that can be seen in April, and “they remind us of the bits of sand, twigs and other matter flying through the air as the Malleefowl kicks material on or away from the mound”. The constellation not only looks like the bird, it behaves like one. Also, as Neilloan fades in the southern sky in October, the loan’s eggs will be ready to harvest.
The story of the Malleefowl in the night sky indicates an acute knowledge of the timing of events between cosmos and the bird. Human care and empathy intersect with the Malleefowl’s phenology and fecundity, which must be respected, or else it would be lost to the ecosystem. For this reason, some people in the Boorong clan would have had the Malleefowl as their totem. The special empathy with the bird meant not only that they could not eat it, but also that a major role in their life would be to look after its habitat. Telling the story of the Malleefowl in the sky in an account of how to live and how to relate to other beings. There is an emotional astronomy that, once understood, gives to people an intimate empathy with fellow creatures that in turn given them sustenance (Albrecht, 2019).
On Indigenous land in both SA and WA, Malleefowl typically occur at low densities, and the challenges to their conservation are very different from those in the more arable areas of the species range. The recovery effort will depend on Indigenous-led land management due to the Traditional Knowledge, skill and land management practices of Indigenous people in these areas, and their connection to and knowledge of Country on which Malleefowl occur.
In particular, the plan aims to promote the role of Indigenous communities by:
encouraging traditional land management, particularly in regard to fire;
encouraging the recording of sightings;
promoting Indigenous community leadership of science, survey and monitoring; and
providing access to technical information on Malleefowl ecology, lessons from previous management actions and information and connection to conservation planning and governance.
As major partners in Malleefowl conservation, Indigenous landholders and Traditional Owners will be encouraged to participate in the Recovery Team to inform planning and governance.
Nothing in the plan is intended to affect Native Title rights or interests. The relevant provisions of the Native Title Act 1993 should be considered before undertaking any Future Acts that might affect Native Title Rights. Procedures under the Native Title Act 1993 are additional to those required to comply with the Indigenous Heritage Act 1998.
2.3 Affected interests
Malleefowl have an extensive potential range and occur on a variety of land tenure types comprising Indigenous land, pastoral leases, private land and land managed by State and Federal Governments in the form of national parks, reserves and uncommitted/unallocated Crown Land.
All of these land managers will be involved in the implementation of this plan to some degree. Planned recovery actions include promoting the continuation of Traditional Knowledge and cultural/customary practices relating to Malleefowl and supporting Traditional Owner leadership, research, management and monitoring on Indigenous lands where Malleefowl may occur.
Numerous community groups have been formed throughout southern Australia to help conserve the Malleefowl. Total membership of these group’s numbers over 1000 people, of which well over 100 are active in the field. Their role in survey, monitoring, predator control, forming landscape linkages and educating the public has been instrumental in the conservation of Malleefowl. The important contribution of these community groups is encouraged in this plan.
Organisations likely to be affected by the actions proposed in this plan include Indigenous groups, Australian and State Government agencies, particularly those with environmental, agricultural and land planning concerns, the agricultural sector, researchers, conservation groups, national resource managers and the mining sector. This list, however, should not be considered exhaustive, as there may be other interest groups that would like to be included in the future or need to be considered when specialised tasks are required in the recovery process.
The Malleefowl’s contemporary distribution encompasses lands traditionally owned by many Indigenous Australian groups. These include, but are not necessarily limited to:
Recovery teams provide advice and assist in coordinating strategies described in recovery plans. They include representatives from organisations with a direct interest in the recovery of the species, including those involved in funding and those participating in actions that support the recovery of the species. The National Malleefowl Recovery Team has the responsibility of providing advice and coordinating the implementation of the recovery strategies outlined in this recovery plan. The membership of this Recovery Team (which may change over time) includes, but is not limited to individuals with relevant expertise from Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (WA), Department for Environment and Water (SA), Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (Vic), Department of Planning and Environment (NSW), Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Cth), Bush Heritage Australia, Greening Australia, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, National Malleefowl Recovery Group Inc., Western Australian Malleefowl Recovery Group (WA), Victorian Malleefowl Recovery Group (Vic), NSW Malleefowl Recovery Group (NSW) and a community representative (SA).
The National Malleefowl Recovery Team is committed to maintaining existing relationships and cooperation with Indigenous stakeholders and continuing to develop participation of Indigenous people and organisations in the national governance for Malleefowl, with the aim of maximising recognition of the role and knowledge of Indigenous people in the conservation of the species.
2.5 National Malleefowl Recovery Group (NMRG Inc.)
The role of the National Malleefowl Recovery Group Inc. (NMRG) is to manage the volunteer-based national monitoring program and collected data. This role is supported by volunteers and state based Malleefowl Recovery Groups in Vic, WA, NSW, and community volunteers in SA regions, and the Aṉangu-Pitjantjara-Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. The monitoring program provides critical data for the conservation of the species and is important for conservation planning and decision-making. Since the species is widespread across southern Australia, a nationally-coordinated approach to monitoring is critical. This allows species-wide population trends to be determined, and for regional data to be considered within this context.
To ensure robust and reliable population estimates, the NMRG designed and instigated a standardised monitoring program which is coordinated in conjunction with project partners across Australia. The work of the NMRG includes:
Developing and adapting scientifically rigorous monitoring methods
Maintaining monitoring protocols and manuals for use by volunteers and project partners
Delivering training events for monitoring and data management
Liaising and collaborating with volunteer groups
Providing ongoing technical support to monitors and volunteers
Maintaining the smartphone app used for monitoring
Error-checking and validating all monitoring data
Maintaining the National Malleefowl Monitoring Database
Establishing standardised protocols for adopted technologies (e.g. LiDAR, drones)
Working with university researchers, industry and regional, state and federal government to ensure data are suitable for management and decision-making
Creating educational materials
Collating management and environmental data in order to understand Malleefowl population trends
Trending and periodically undertaking analyses and reporting results
Analysing regional and national data to determine population trends
Reporting regional Malleefowl population trends to each partner NRM agency and to the state and federal governments each year
The data gathered at a regional level underpin the ability to supply local and national trends, for which reason the NMRG’s aim is to work collaboratively with all NRM agencies, national parks managers, Indigenous ranger groups and conservation organisations that manage land within Malleefowl distribution.
The Adaptive Management Predator Experiment (AMPE) draws on the data from a subset of sites monitored under the volunteer-based national monitoring program mentioned above, alongside supporting government and private organisations. The initial aim of the Malleefowl AMPE is to learn about the effect of fox and cat reduction on Malleefowl breeding activity by establishing a network of control and treatment sites (Hauser et al. 2019) to be monitored alongside existing long-term monitoring sites. Introduced predators are managed in and around treatment sites, while nearby control sites are left unmanaged. This arrangement will help tease apart the effect of fox and cat control from other environmental factors that might cause a change. Once resolved, the experiment can be modified to learn about the effectiveness of other actions as conservation strategies, such as fire or herbivore management (Southwell et al. 2018) or the complete exclusion of feral predators (e.g. Smith et al. 2020).
2.7 Monitoring
Monitoring in semi-arid areas:
Monitoring populations involves obtaining reliable and repeatable measures of Malleefowl numbers over time in order to measure changes in population size and distribution. Malleefowl are shy and elusive birds, making counting of the birds themselves very difficult. However, their mounds are conspicuous and monitoring breeding activity provides a reliable means of measuring the abundance of breeding birds in an area.
In order to establish the abundance of breeding birds in an area, a monitoring site is established by thoroughly searching a chosen area for all Malleefowl mounds, both active and inactive. Areas are either searched on ground, or from the air using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) or photogrammetry. The advantage of LiDAR is that it shows vegetation as green dots and has great potential in mapping habitat structure. Details are provided in the National Malleefowl Monitoring Manual. The location of every mound that is found in an area is accurately recorded, thereby enabling monitors to return to the mounds for annual monitoring.
The monitoring of Malleefowl sites is the agreed method for determining Malleefowl breeding trends on a national scale. Historically, Malleefowl sites have been set up in areas where mounds have been known to exist, and/or where opportune sightings of birds have been recorded. Sites are blocks of habitat, normally covering an area of 2 to 4 km², a size large enough to provide an estimate of breeding density, yet still small enough to be effectively monitored. Sites monitored by air (e.g. helicopter) are generally much bigger and may be in the order of 10 km² to 20 km². The size of a monitoring site can be influenced by a number of factors including the density of mounds, access, tenure and interest.
As Malleefowl tend to renovate old mounds rather than construct new mounds afresh each year (Frith 1959, Benshemesh 2007c), each old mound is a potential site for breeding, and annually checking the known mounds each spring/summer provides a good estimate of the trends in breeding numbers at each site. Nonetheless, new mounds are occasionally built by the birds and a thorough re-search of monitoring sites at least every 5 to 10 years is needed to capture these and ensure accurate estimation of breeding numbers.
The primary aim of the Malleefowl monitoring program is to track changes in the number of breeding birds inhabiting specific areas. Observers (mostly volunteers) examine and categorise all the known mounds at each site as either active, i.e. currently used as an incubator, or not active. To enable vetting of records and the detection of errors in judging the activity of the mound, the size, shape and appearance of mounds is also described each time a mound is visited. These descriptors have been defined and are included in the National Malleefowl Monitoring Manual. The resulting protocols have been used in both Vic and SA from the early 1990s, in WA since 2004 and NSW since 2014.
Monitoring in arid areas:
Monitoring Malleefowl in arid regions presents distinct challenges. These regions tend to be very remote, and the Malleefowl typically occur at very low densities making it onerous to thoroughly search areas large enough to encompass several active mounds. Consequently, mound-based forms of monitoring, as used in semi-arid regions, are not suitable in the arid zone. Rather than basing monitoring on the activity at mounds, a more efficient approach in the arid zone is to search areas for the distinctive footprints (or tracks) of Malleefowl. The sandy and open substrates typical of arid areas inhabited by Malleefowl provide excellent opportunities for tracking which are not available in semi-arid areas. Malleefowl footprints are distinctive and are a rich source of information on where Malleefowl have been (Benshemesh et al. 2014). Provided the weather is dry and not too windy, their tracks are likely to accumulate over several days. The abundance of prints in an area provides a useful and efficient indicator of the birds’ activity in that area. Where birds are resident, their prints are likely to consistently occur through their home range (1–4 km2). However, the prints of birds that have merely passed through an area are likely to be less prevalent in space and time.
Long Walk survey method:
A ‘Long Walk’ method is being utilised by Aṉangu, the Traditional Owners of the Maralinga Tjarutja Lands (MTL) in the eastern Great Victoria Desert, South Australia. Pairs of observers are dropped off by vehicle every 2 km along established tracks and roads. Each pair then walks the 2 km stretch to the next drop-off, searching for Malleefowl prints parallel to and about 50–150 m from the road. The number of pairs of observers varies with their availability, but the technique enables large distances to be covered quickly (e.g. five pairs of observers searched 10 km in one hour). Linear transect walks of 16–28 km length alongside existing tracks provide a useful means of broadscale survey (Benshemesh et al. 2014).
Slow Drive method:
Slow Drive method involves searching for Malleefowl prints from vehicles driving along disused vehicle tracks (e.g. 14 km stretch) by driving at about 10 km/hr while observers spot Malleefowl tracks from the windows (Benshemesh et al. 2014).
Whatever technique is considered, a critical component in its successful application will be how the technique is received by the local Indigenous communities.
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