14Wildlife Conservation Plan for Seabirds

14 Wildlife Conservation Plan for Seabirds

Chapter 4 Species covered under the wildlife conservation plan

The Plan includes 73 species of seabird that occur or regularly visit Australia and its EEZ. The Plan does not include Australian Antarctic Territory restricted species, vagrant seabirds, ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels or those species that are listed as threatened under the EPBC Act. Threatened species receive separate, approved conservation advice and, in some cases, a recovery plan which sets out what should be done to stop the decline and support the recovery of the species.

Based on expert opinion, three raptor species – White-bellied Sea-eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) and Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) have also been included in this Plan as they all rely on the marine environment to complete their lifecycle and would all benefit from a national framework to coordinate research and management actions.

If, during the life of this Plan, a seabird species listed in Table 1 becomes a listed threatened species under the EPBC Act, the plan will cease to apply to that species. In the situation where a threatened seabird species is delisted, it will be eligible to be included in this plan as long as the species is also listed as migratory, and/or marine under the EPBC Act. If any seabird species that is currently considered a vagrant were to be recorded on a regular basis, monitoring programmes for the species should be supported to determine whether inclusion under the EPBC Act is appropriate.

Additional information on each of these species can be found on the Department’s SPRAT profiles, including information on the listing status of the species under relevant state or territory legislation (see http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/sprat.pl).

Wildlife Conservation Plan for Seabirds 15

TABLE 1 Marine and Migratory Seabirds Listed under the EPBC Act. Threatened species are not eligible to be included in a wildlife conservation plan and therefore are not included (see page 52 for more information)

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