Caring for country - Northern and Yorke Natural Resources ...

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Good breeding
The Mallee fowl mounds are one indication that living in Innes National Park is
appealing to wildlife. Lance Campbell reports.
For the shy, discreet but very Australian Mallee fowl,
there’s no place quite like Innes National Park. Foxes
and habitat clearance have pushed the gentle ground
dwelling bird to the edge of extinction in many parts of
the country, and in this State it is vulnerable.
But in Innes, at the bottom southwest tip of Yorke
Peninsula, a monitoring program shows that there are
3.8 Mallee fowls to each square kilometre – the highest
concentration in South Australia.
That’s the good news for the monitoring team led
by Environment and Natural Resources Department
threatened species officer Sharon Gillam. Breeding
activity in Innes is stronger than in other Mallee fowl
areas such as Murraylands, Sharon says, and will
contribute to research into how to conserve the bird’s
genetic diversity.
And while the Mallee fowl is the main wildlife success
story in Innes at the moment, other species are
finding their way back to the park. Baby penguins are
returning and there have been random sightings of
bush stone curlews. Innes acting ranger Aaron Smith
came across an echidna, the first confirmed sighting for
around 20 years.
These positive outcomes for native birds and animals
are largely the result of intense fortnightly fox baiting
programs in and around Innes since the reintroduction
of Tammar wallabies there six years ago. DENR baits
within Innes and nearby Warrenben Conservation
Park, while Northern and Yorke NRM Board operates
simultaneously on private property in the area.
Sharon reports no fox scats or tracks around the Mallee
fowl mounds – and no rabbits either, for that matter.
“You can almost say for certain that the fox baiting is
benefiting the Mallee fowl,” she says, while Ken Rudd,
NYNRM Board’s Yorke Peninsula animal and plant
control officer, is more certain.
“The Mallee fowl surveys are a key indicator that the
baiting programs are working,” Ken says. “And it’s not
only the Mallee fowl. It’s other birds, and lizards. The
two programs complement each other. We’re both
baiting for biodiversity spinoffs, and there has been an
increase in lamb numbers.
“We are keen to see the programs continue.”
The Mallee fowl, or incubator bird or bush chook, is
about the size of a small turkey and only flies when it
has to. It belongs to a family of 22 species known as
megapodes, or big feet birds, and eats seeds, flowers,
fruit, tubers, fungi and invertebrates.
Like the brush turkey, the Mallee fowl lays its eggs in
mounds, made of sand and mallee leaf litter, which can
be five metres around and a metre high.
Most of the year is spent building and maintaining the
mound. At Innes, breeding season is between October
and February, the eggs are incubated by the warm
sand decaying leaf matter at between 32C and 34C.
The male Mallee fowl tends the eggs and checks the
temperature by using his beak as a thermometer.
The male adjusts the temperature by adding and
removing soil cover, or opening and closing the mound.
He also digs a hole whenever the female is ready to lay
another egg, and starts all over again. This can happen
more than 30 times each breeding season.
Once hatched, the chick fights its way through the
debris and is immediately on its own, without parental
care. It can run within an hour, and fly in a day. Even
so, early mortality rates are high, but at Innes not as
high as they once were.
These Mallee fowl characteristics attract DENR
community liaison officer Deb Furbank to the 3.5
square kilometre survey grid of 47 mounds, out of
around 60 known mounds at Innes. Mallee fowl are
a “fascinating bird because of the way they incubate
their eggs by building a giant compost heap,”
Deb says.
“The eggs can be a metre down in the mound when
they hatch. In a harsh environment, with things going
against them, Mallee fowl still survive.”
Deb is one of a group of volunteers that works in Innes
under Sharon Gillam, who coordinates Mallee fowl
monitoring across the State. Most megapode birds
are found in the tropics or sub-tropics, and while the
Mallee fowl is adapted to the lower rainfall of southern
Australia, Sharon says Innes is in “a very good rainfall
position and has had good rain.”
This promotes breeding activity.
Each season about 10 of the mounds are active. In the
most recent survey, the monitoring team saw Mallee
fowl on or near five mounds, and another two in the
scrub. It also was taken to a mound about a kilometre
away from the grid, and saw another bird in the scrub
near Inneston.
An infra red camera was set up, and monitored
nocturnal Mallee fowl activity from November until
February. “We got some great data on Mallee fowl
behaviour from that camera,” Aaron says. “We saw
them opening the mound, and bringing material to
keep it warm.”
As well as trends in Mallee fowl breeding activity, the
team also keeps an eye out for other factors, such
as food availability, predators and human interference.
Sharon is pleased to report that the latter is not
an issue.
A Mallee fowl nest in Innes National Park is inspected by Ken Rudd
(right), NYNRM Board’s Yorke Peninsula authorised officer, and
Deb Furbank, DENR’s Yorke Peninsula community liaison officer.
Photo Hannah Short
The team saw an owlet nightjar and emu, and heard
butcher birds, grey currawongs and ravens. But there
were no foxes to kill the Mallee fowl, nor rabbits, deer
or goats to impinge on their food sources.
In SA, the Innes grid has had the highest breeding
activity per squared kilometre consistently over the past
four seasons, Sharon reported to NYNRM Board. For all
the kind conditions for Mallee fowl at the Bottom End,
she told Yakka, southern Yorke Peninsula was “a bit of
a bottleneck.”
She would like to see adjacent patches of mallee
connected, so the birds can disperse further.
Deb Furbank says being on the Mallee fowl team
has been “inspiring, working in an environment
where things are improving, instead of seeing them
downgraded. Nationwide the Mallee fowl figures are
dropping, but in Innes they are stable, even increasing.
“It’s nice to be involved in a positive outcome.”
Left: Australian Mallee fowl.
Photo: Graeme Chapman
Northern and Yorke Natural Resource Management Board 9