Saving King Island’s Threatened Birds

Habitat loss and other threats have driven the decline of many of King Island’s endemic birds, including the extinct King Island Emu. The King Island Brown Thornbill and King Island Scrubtit will likely go extinct by 2038 unless we intervene now.

Working Together to Save King Island’s Threatened Birds

BirdLife Australia, together with the King Island Birds Recovery Team, coordinates actions towards the following objectives:

• Protect and manage remaining habitat for threatened birds, such as Pegarah State Forest, by managing pest animals, weeds and fire.
• Support landholders to protect and create habitat for birds.
• Connect remaining habitat by planting native vegetation in strategic locations to create habitat corridors.
• Establish insurance populations to mitigate the threats of fire and disease.
• Monitor bird populations on King Island to measure the impacts of threats and conservation actions, e.g. surveys during the Wings on King events.

Supporting the recovery of King Island’s threatened birds

BirdLife Australia has supported the recovery of King Island’s threatened birds by:

• Coordinating the development of the King Island Threatened Birds Conservation Action Plan 2021, which identifies strategies to drive the recovery of the King Island Brown Thornbill and King Island Scrubtit. It will be revised to include actions for the King Island Black Currawong, King Island Green Rosella and King Island Yellow Wattlebird, which face an increasing risk of extinction.
• Supporting Wings on King, a twice-yearly event managed by Birds of King Island.
• Providing funding for the King Island Native Nursery to produce tube stock to create native habitat corridors between fragments of habitat for threatened birds.
• Lobbying governments and advocating for the protection of King Island’s threatened birds.

This project is jointly funded by the Australian Government’s Saving Native Species Program and BirdLife Australia.