pressure on numbers. However, the most significant problem has been man’s interference with habitat. Gouldian Finch habitat is under threat from significant change created by cattle and land clearance for agriculture and mining, however the biggest threat of all are the annual wild fires which sweep through the landscape year after year. This is a relatively new phenomenon which has only occurred since European settlement and is dramatically changing the vegetative structure of the landscape.


In any change of habitat there are winners and losers. The vegetation which benefits from annual hot wild fires is proliferating whilst the plants which cannot stand this regime are declining. This in turn has an effect of the insects


and animals which rely on the plants for sustenance and of course therefore the knock on effect right up the food chain. In the case of the Gouldian this change to the habitat, together with the effects of preferential grazing by the cattle, is possibly creating a shortage of the grasses which seed during the wet and perhaps therefore is the factor having a downside effect on juvenile survival rates. However, the biggest known impact the fires are having is to dramatically reduce the number of natural hollows available for nesting. The scientists have discovered that it


In the case of the Gouldian this change to the habitat, together with the effects of preferential grazing by the cattle, is possibly creating a shortage of the grasses which seed during the wet and perhaps therefore is the factor having a downside effect on juvenile survival rates.


42 BIRD SCENE


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