Eyre Peninsula malleefowl chick discovery excites ecologists
Cameras captured this footage of a malleefowl chick at the Mallee Refuge, inside the Secret Rocks Nature Reserve, near Kimba. Courtesy John Read.
A malleefowl chick has been discovered for the first time in a wildlife refuge on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. The bird is classified as vulnerable.
Cameras recently captured a malleefowl chick scratching about in the dirt at the Mallee Refuge, inside the Secret Rocks Nature Reserve, near Kimba.
"Their numbers have really declined in the Kimba region and across the Eyre Peninsula, so it was pretty exciting to see a young one,” says ecologist Dr John Read, Associate Lecturer of the School of Biological Sciences.
"We used to have lots of malleefowl. Ten years ago, we'd find 18 or 20 active mounds every year of about 200 mounds in our area.
"But for the last three or four years there's been no active [mounds] or one active for the whole area.”