Plight or Flight
How Being Observant Can Help Save A Species
What I’ve chosen to address through this project is not so much a problem but a question that needs an answer.
The 2019-2020 bushfires caused incomprehensible damage to lives, properties and ecosystems.
By March 2020, over 17 million hectares had been burned across Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, ACT, Western Australia and South Australia.
The images of surviving wildlife were undoubtedly confronting but did little to help us comprehend the enormity of the damage exacted on Australian ecosystems.
Approximately three billion animals were killed or displaced and in its wake 471 plants, 213 invertebrate and 92 vertebrate are now in need of urgent intervention.
But these are the animals that have been identified as endangered. Since the fires, the status of many species has been thrown into ambiguity.
One such species is the superb Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae).
A once common species inhabiting South-East Queensland, through the Great Dividing Range, right down to the Dandenong Ranges, the population density is now uncertain after 45% of its habitat was burned.
Lyrebirds are resourceful, they’ve been known to duck into wombat holes or utilise creeks and dams to escape bushfires. The sheer intensity of the Blacksummer bushfires, however, may have rendered the birds too slow to find refuge and survivors would have likely returned to undernourished and inhospitable habitats.
What Makes the Superb Lyrebird so Special?
In David Attenbourough’s 1998 series Life of Birds, a tentative bird with dark beady eyes entered the stage, its modest brown body followed by an elegant bouquet of striped winding feathers.
It was introduced as the Superb Lyrebird of Southern Australia.
Finding a clearing, it stood at attention and unfurled its plume as it began a rather complex song to garner the attention of female passerbys.
What at first sounded completely foreign soon divulged into the all too familiar sounds of a kookaburra, a camera shutter, a car alarm and, finally, a spluttering chainsaw being turned on.
The segment was staggering. It caught the attention of international viewers and, for Australians, spruiked a bit of life and spirit in the bird freeze framed on our 10-cent coin.
But the Superb Lyrebird is not limited to its beauty and extraordinary penchant for singing.
In searching for invertebrates to indulge in, it will displace an average of 155 tonnes of soil and leaf litter in one year, a La Trobe University study found.
Lead researcher and PhD candidate Alex Maisey said, “we calculated that each lyrebird in Sherbrooke Forest moved a load equivalent to that carried by 11 standard dump trucks.”
This massive turnover of soil helps germination, gives life to organisms that may otherwise struggle to sprout and helps other animals find food.
It’s believed that the only other process influencing the ecosystem on this scale is wildfire.
Digging up more soil than any other land animal globally, they’ve truly earned themselves the reputation as an ecosystem engineer.
The health of their surrounding ecosystem is heavily reliant on the survival and population growth of this species.
What Threats Does the Superb Lyrebird Face?
With entire untouched ancient rainforests lost in 2019-2020, the loss of habitat and potential for starvation is a pressing issue for the Superb Lyrebird, but there are myriad issues to be addressed if one wants to completely understand the decline in population.
Namely, feral deer that were introduced to Australia as hunting game 150 years ago which are now overpopulated and wreaking havoc on Victorian ecosystems.
I spoke to former head ranger of Sherbrooke Forest John Lloyd a few months ago about this issue, one of his greatest concerns was the threat these deer posed for the Superb Lyrebirds, and he noted that this was a community wide worry.
Their cloven hooves trample vegetation as they consume vast amounts of healthy native plants and spread weeds.
The soil erosion caused by these unfamiliar animals also contributes to an imbalance in the ecosystem.
The Superb Lyrebird faces an ever-growing and unnatural competitor with whom it now shares a smaller habitat since the bushfires.
Foxes and feral cats have also caused a decline in the Lyrebird population.
Finding a Solution
So, therein lies the question: What is the status of the Superb Lyrebird?
To properly understand my solution (or answer) we might need to first dispel a prevailing stereotype about the scientific field, that science is restricted to those with PhD’s and expertise, because it’s not.
Citizen science, a term for public participation in scientific research, is far more common than you might think, and this kind of involvement has often granted professional scientist’s greater capacity and reach in understanding their field.
For example, in 2007, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, Chris Lintott, was tasked with classifying one million galaxies imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
After handing the task down to a graduate student who managed to catalogue 50 000 images, Chris realised this was too much for just two people (or one overworked graduate student).
So, he released the 950 000 remaining images to the public on a new website called Galaxy Zoo – now Zooniverse.
The images were sorted at a much faster rate than previously possible, as volunteers flocked to facilitate top-tier scientists’ research of how galaxies form and evolve.
This project sparked intrigue from Lintott’s colleagues, who began asking for help with their own data sets.
Zooniverse now offers a range of citizen science projects to get involved in.
But citizen science is not only limited to astronomy, it’s perhaps most well known in the natural fields of biology, ecology, zoology and, in particular, ornithology.
Charles Darwin, one of the most revered naturalists in history, worked with individuals across the globe to crowdsource evidence that would eventually substantiate his theory of evolution.
Not only is there a cultural basis for citizen science in understanding nature but there’s also a technological one.
There are a number of platforms set up by ornithological societies that facilitate the collection of data gathered by birdwatchers.
These channels of collective inquiry already exist, and this can be highly beneficial for the Lyrebird if people are willing to use them.
BirdLife Australia is the nation's largest bird conservation organisation.
Their app Birdata is their primary platform for collaborating with and collecting data from citizen scientists.
eBird is an app by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that tracks and gathers users checklists of sighted birds. They share this data for conservation, scientific and education purposes.
Data collected by eBird on the Superb Lyrebird population
The data collected by these platforms contributes to conservation decisions, peer-reviewed papers, student projects and research.
With an increasing user base, our understanding of populations and migrations of bird species will rise in clarity and accuracy.
With these organisations and websites already well-established, what’s needed is a prompt for people to notice and appreciate the birdlife around them and direction towards these channels so they can engage with nature in the most productive way possible.
Rolling it Out
Melbourne already has a rich tradition of public engagement with the natural world.
In the 19th century, Ferdinand Von Mueller, a German botanist who helped develop the Royal Botanical Gardens, created the first complete catalogue of Australian flora using specimens sent to him by Australian residents.
The litany of museums, green spaces and biodiversity that is relatively unique to Melbourne is a testament to its origins in an era of scientific discovery and interest.
I want to reinvigorate these sentiments, and to do this I plan on making eye-catching posters of the Lyrebird that will be placed all around the city.
The QR code on the bottom corner of these posters will take people to a multimedia page – like this one here – that explains what’s so special about this bird, the threats it faces and how an individual can easily assist in the gathering of data and conservation efforts just by walking in one of Victoria’s prettiest regions.
It will run through safe birdwatching practice and provide links to the apps and organisations that best fit their knowledge of birds.
For these posters to be truly effective though we have to take it one step further.
The Lyrebird in and of itself is not enough to draw people to these platforms.
It’s not immediately recognizable and some may consider it too far away for concern.
This is where the birds that are local to Melbourne suburbs come in to play.
By setting up zoological illustrations of those birds that surround us in our day to day lives, we might begin to take notice of those dawdling little beings as elements of the nature that make up our city.
With each QR code leading to a site on its respective bird species (where did it migrate from, what are its origins, is it threatened, what makes it unique) we can observe and appreciate them with greater fascination and intrigue.
This interest and practical knowledge given to Melburnians will draw a greater crowd to apps like eBird and Birdata, and their collective inputs will add tremendous amounts to the data gathered about all bird species of Victoria, not just the Superb Lyrebird.
Working Together
Realistically, to make approximately 100 posters for each bird species (let’s say for the moment, 3 species in total) and to place them throughout Melbourne CBD for a period of around 4 weeks, the cost would total at $3000.
I’d be looking to collaborate with and secure funding from at least two separate organisations who would be interested in attracting a greater audience to their webpage or facility.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Birdlife Australia would be my first choices. Their pages and programs are the most effective in data collection and conservation efforts and I will certainly be referencing them in this project whether they fund it or not.
I will approach Museums Victoria, their collection of zoological illustrations would be important aspects of the posters.
Australian Geographic would also be a potential partner. Their promotion of citizen science projects makes them a natural option.
Thank You
