Land release deferral

Several letters notifying us of the land release deferral were received in addition to those below. These included a letter from the Premier, Brian Burke; the Minister for the Environment,Ron Davies;the Minister for Fisheries and Wildlife H. Evans and the Under-secretary for Lands, B. O'Halloran.

At last we were confident that the area would remain uncleared until after the first survey to assess the status of Ground Parrots in Western Australia had been completed.

Land release deferred

Below is the public notification of the deferral of the land release north of the Fitzgerald River National Park. The decision largely rested on the unknown status of the ground parrot.

Task Force

The Task Force on Land Resource Management in South Western Australia gathered all relevant data and presented a report with recommendations to the Premier and Cabinet. The findings were used to make the final decision about the fate of the land north of the existing Fitzgerald River National Park, which was, among other things, ground parrot habitat.

RAOU survey

Photo shows the RAOU campsite in the north Fitzgerald where the land-use was soon to be changed.. The goal was to survey for ground parrots  Listening took place on 30 September and 1 October 1983.

This event is described with additional detail in a previous posting dated 7 February 2014, entitled "Ground Parrot survey gets underway in the Fitzgerald". This current posting adds documents that were designed for the survey plus the photo and some results from surveying in that location.

Below is the information sheet prepared for the participants. The map shows the areas designated to be released for farming as well as sites where ground parrots had been recorded before. Only in 1983 had there been enough records to indicate that the birds were resident, and this was the area to be surveyed. Method of survey and how to distinguish a ground parrot are described.

The rope idea was tried but failed dismally due to the emergent mallees in the habitat here.

First data sheet. 

The site numbers are those shown on the data sheet above. We learnt how to survey using calls in 1983 thanks to Richard Jordan.

Explanations

We made an effort to explain the ground parrot situation to our local State Member of Parliament resulting in him communicating formally with the Minister for Fisheries and Wildlife.

Advice about census methods

Richard Jordan was our best source of information about ground parrot survey thanks to his experience at Barren Grounds in New South Wales.

The rope method of flushing was tried in the north Fitzgerald but proved impractical due to the emergent mallee. See an earlier posting (Friday 7 February, 2014, query 'rope'.)

A good summary

This well-written  article is a precis of the situation in which the currently known habitat of the western ground parrot was close to being released for farming, an incompatible land use.

Due to difficulty in scanning a large page, the text has three missing pairs of lines, marked in pink. The missing words are below.

1. .....campaigners living in the area, the State government is poised to.......

2. .....species from the relatively plentiful eastern species and that.......

3. ......parrots. There has been only one sighting of a ground parrot in....