facet of our work. The results of these experiments will be monitored and the process refined on an on-going basis. Over a period of time we will know exactly what effect habitat change has on the Gouldian Finch and to what extent the current remedial activities work. So what else for the future? I hope we have sufficiently demonstrated that breeding and releasing Gouldian Finches into a habitat which will not support them will not work. And that is without considering the problems associated with trying to teach them how to find water in the dry season or recognize predators etc, etc. The conservation programmes that have worked well are where wild caught species are trans located into a suitable habitat. These are often islands or fenced off pieces of land where feral predators are removed and the habitat allowed to recover. So for example the Rothschild’s Mynah programme failed to work on mainland Bali, however a small number were trans located to a suitable, predator free offshore island where the population has now increased to 130 birds.
The STGF does not have anywhere near enough funds to attempt anything like this, however, it would seem that
Over a period of time we will know exactly what effect habitat change has on the Gouldian Finch and to what extent the current remedial activities work. So what else for the future?
The conservation programmes that have worked well are where wild caught species are trans located into a suitable habitat. These are often islands or fenced off pieces of land where feral predators are removed and the habitat allowed to recover.
possibly the biggest thing holding back the recovery of the Gouldian Finch is the lack of nesting sites.
Certainly we have demonstrated that where artificial nest sites are introduced we create a local population explosion. So for the time being the first leg of our recovery programme will be extending the range of our current known populations by installing nest boxes in new, but adjacent suitable locations. We have known pockets of Gouldians spread across the northern savannahs, so if we can extend these isolated populations out toward each other, eventually we could potentially join them up. So this is another way you can help. We can put up new nest boxes as fast as we can finance them. Mmmmm $$$$$$$$ please! And also we need lots of volunteers to come and help us with the annual census of our populations around Wyndham. We do this in the first full week of September every year. Contact David Myers to book your spot. Not only will you help a worthy cause but you will also have plenty of fun, visit one of the most spectacular tree wildernesses left in the world and see loads of birds including 6 species of
44 BIRD SCENE
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