FEATURE
prove to be highly nomadic and as the nature of the terrain meant they could only be followed around on foot, this was arduous to the point of being impossible. Studying the whole life cycle of the Gouldian Finch meant that our scientists were out in the field for long periods at a time in all weathers and despite their dedication, living in tents became increasingly difficult. Getting back to a boiling hot tent after a day’s working in temperatures up to 40ºC is not fun. We therefore decided to commit some of our scarce financial resource to creating a permanent Field Research Centre by converting a building the Wyndham Shire Council had kindly leased to us on a peppercorn 21 year lease. At the same time, it was decided to create a Captive Bird Research Centre to house some 2,500 Gouldians. This now meant we could keep scientists out in the field for longer spells and in all weathers and the Captive Research Centre meant they could prove, in a proper scientific manner, whether what they had observed in the wild was significant or not. It also meant the scientists were able to conduct experiments that would have been impossible to achieve in the wild.
We therefore decided to commit some of our scarce financial resource to creating a permanent Field Research Centre by converting a building the Wyndham Shire Council had kindly leased to us on a peppercorn 21 year lease.
One of the first conclusions drawn from this original research was that a Breed and Release programme was highly unlikely to help in the recovery of the Gouldian for the following key reasons:
1. Domestic Gouldians would not recognise and be able to evade the myriad of predators which include 6 species of snake, at least 4 species of lizard, 8 bird species (as well as a few more opportunistic species like kites who would enjoy an easy target morsel) and at least 4 mammals.
2. Water is seasonal and ephemeral. We do not understand yet how on earth the wild birds are able to find it, but they do and we would be surprised if domesticated Gouldians have the skill.
3. Seed is the same also, particularly at the start of the wet when all the seed which had fallen on the ground gets covered in water and mud and quickly sprouts into inedible plants. The start of the wet is patchy with localised showers occurring over a wide geographic area. This means that the first shower produces seed which is available as another area becomes inundated. The wild Gouldians are able to source this disparate food source. Although this is not proven yet, the hypothesis is that near ripe and ripe seed have a high ultra violet emission value which roving Gouldians can identify from the air.
4. And last but not least, if the wild population was dying out, one had to assume that there was something or some things that were causing
BIRD SCENE 39
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