Before this time, aborigines worked for food and lodgings, and imparted their traditional knowledge of burning practices to the landowners. The loss of traditional knowledge occurred when cattle stations no longer employed aborigines following legislation in 1966 that gave them the right to receive equal pay as white Australian station hands. The loss of traditional fire burning practices over the past forty years appears to be responsible for the destruction of essential understorey grasslands that provide wild populations with a reliable food resource. An estimated 2500 birds remain in the wild.Īltered fire regimes have had a serious effect on the seeding grasses and nest holes available to Gouldian finches and is believed to be the single most important reason why Gouldian finch numbers have not rebounded since trapping became illegal in 1988. This has not occurred and at the present time numbers in remaining populations are stable but remain low. Although trapping had a significant effect on Gouldian numbers and populations during this time, numbers should have rebounded over the ensuing twenty-year period because of their prolific breeding ability. Trapping was vigorous for almost three decades from 1960-1988 and provided many thousands of Gouldian finches for aviculture. Death from airsac mite infection is believed to be involved with declining numbers but the exact reasons for an increased susceptibility to this infection have not been investigated. Behavioural and genetic differences between the red and black-headed Gouldian finches are now being considered as an important cause of the decline. These include commercial trapping for aviculture, habitat destruction associated with land clearance by fire and destruction of some important perennial grasses by grazing cattle, feral pigs and wild buffalo. Researchers have presented several possible causes for the rapid decline of the wild populations. Twenty years of scientific research have now passed revealing significant findings but our understanding of the Gouldian finch remains limited. a preference of Gouldian finches to select similar head coloured mates). More recent research examined the foraging behaviour of Gouldians and the consequences of assortative breeding (i.e. This work revealed that the Gouldian finch relied upon a restricted seed diet and that the key wet season grasses were patchily distributed and fire, grazing and rainfall significantly affected seed production of these grasses. Research initially focused on breeding biology, population trends, disease factors, and the impact of fire on seed resources. The Gouldian finch was listed as an endangered species at this time. Scientific research of the Gouldian finch begun in 1989 after the Northern Territory Government recognised that the wild population had rapidly declined over the previous two decades. This article is adapted from a paper entitled "A Relationship between the Moult and Airsac Mite Infection in the Gouldian Finch", which the author presented to the 2009 Annual Conference of the Australian Chapter of Association of Avian Veterinarians. Their Impact on Wild and Captive Gouldian Finches By Dr Rob Marshall Relationships between the Moult, Social Aggression and Disease:
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