Noisy Scrub-bird

The noisy scrubbird is one of Australia's rarest birds. It was presumed extinct until a population was discovered at Two Peoples Bay, east of Albany in Western Australia in the 1960s. Since then a recovery plan has been put into action. Populations of the bird have been translocated to nearby Bald Island, in Waychinicup National Park, as well as the Porongorup Ranges, where a bushfire had destroyed much of the population.

The noisy scrubbird is listed on the IUCN Red List as a threatened species. The species was presumed extinct when Edwin Ashby searched unsuccessfully at Ellensbrook (Margaret River) in 1920, although he noted a report by a resident of its call and movements in deep karri forest and anticipated it would be rediscovered in similar habitat. The populations of the noisy scrubbird are declining despite 50 years of conservation and management. Major threats include forest fires, predation by introduced species such as foxes, feral cats and black rats, degradation of habitat, soil fungi, introduced mammals, climate change and lack of genetic variation. The management conducted has focuses heavily on predation control and gaining data by surveying and radio trackers. While there has been some great successes with the reintroduction and management of the scrubbirds, lightning induced fires have damaged many of the management progress. The fungi Phytophthora cinnamomi has become more abundant in the scrubbirds range and has the ability to kill and degrade mass amounts of forest, which can heavily effect the diversity of the forest, and could easily and rapidly displace many of the remaining scrubbirds. Forest dieback due to this fungi have been shown to increase the amount of predators in the area, but have not been proven to have any effect on the scrubbirds populations yet Translocations to native ranges have been attempted several times with little success due to the noisy scrubbird requiring a very specific habitat. These translocations even required the removal of all potential predators for the scrubbird, but still had little success. The best conservation method would be to reintroduce the scrubbird to its native ranges by carefully monitoring the populations and controlling forest fires. A fire event in the few major concentrations of its populations could be detrimental to all previous conservation efforts.