Department of Parks and Wildlife Integrated Fauna Recovery Program (IFRP) Autumn Update 2014 Lucy Clausen, Saul Cowen, Louisa Bell, Jon Pridham, Jeff Pinder, Abby Berryman and Sarah Comer
Three Western Ground Parrot (WGP) monitoring trips were conducted in autumn at Poison Creek, Pasley Track in Cape Arid National Park and Drummond/Short Rd in the Fitzgerald River National Park. The numbers of calls heard in Cape Arid National Park were outstanding with over 100 calls heard by several listeners on several nights. Positive signs in Cape Arid The Poison Creek trip, conducted in early March, had perfect weather conditions of warm (but not hot), sunny days every day, followed by calm evenings. This provided excellent listening conditions with calling rates so high at times, that it was impossible to record every call - which although frustrating was a wonderful experience for those lucky enough to be in the prime positions! Hopefully the high numbers of calls are indicative of a successful breeding season but certainly this is a really positive sign of recovery after the 2010-2011 bushfire in the area and we hope to see a continuing positive trend in this critically important WGP population. Later in the month the Pasley survey had similar call rates around camp, providing an exciting experience for new and experienced volunteers alike. It was a very busy week of deploying Songmeters (autonomous recording units), processing many bush rats and a record number of individual Quendas during the Western Shield trapping.Parks and Wildlife staff were also tasked with resetting 80 cameras that were surveying cat activity in the area.
Bleak outlook in Fitzgerald Unfortunately the Fitzgerald River National Park survey wasn’t so fruitful with another survey period passing and still no WGPs being detected. Eighteen Songmeters were also deployed in some favourable looking locations that hadn’t been surveyed for a number of years. But unfortunately these too did not produce a single call. The Western Shield trapping at Drummond Track produced a nice suite of species although low in numbers. For the first time, two Quenda were trapped in this area. 61 Songmeters in total were setup across the three survey grids - across the two parks for the month of April. These have now been retrieved and the large task of analysing this data has just begun. Pasley produced a new outlier location to the east, extending the known distribution range! Another new location west of Pasley track was detected. However this is within an area that has had some survey luck previously. Feral cat research continues in Cape Arid and has begun at Two Peoples Bay- Mt Manypeaks Nature Reserves area. Camera surveys have been conducted with the processing of images and cat collar retrievals underway. Feral cat baiting was conducted in these areas as well as in ‘The Fitz’ over autumn. The Parks and Wildlife IFRP project team is Lucy Clausen, Abby Berryman, Louisa Bell, Saul Cowen, Jeff Pinder, Jon Pridham and Sarah Comer. This project is funded by Biodiversity Fund, State NRM, South Coast NRM and the team is grateful to be assisted by District Nature Conservation staff, Science staff from Woodvale, Albany and Esperance administration staff, the park rangers, and by the very willing and helpful volunteers who put up with our bad jokes and cooking on camping trips!
Above: Pasley team pointing to where they heard a Western Ground Parrot. Right: Part of Cape Arid National Park Photos: Lucy Clausen
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