MERCURY Editorial, May 28
WHEN a million birds mysteriously vanish without trace in one almighty episode, it is time to sound the alarm bells.
That is why it is imperative that a full-scale investigation is mounted on the unexplained and alarming disappearance of a million shearwaters from Tasmania.
Forget the canary in the coal mine, this mass vanishing is an urgent warning about a potential disaster.
Whatever the cause — be it climate change, toxins, virus or bacteria, overfishing, an unusual natural phenomenon or a combination of factors — there is serious cause for concern.
Known by many as muttonbirds, the indefatigable Puffinus tenuirostris has been making its marathon journey from near the Arctic Circle to Tasmania and subantarctic islands for millennia.
This annual migration from one end of the world to the other is among the planet’s most awe-inspiring natural wonders.
The birds were recorded by members of Captain James Cook’s expedition in 1778 while sailing in the Arctic.
In 1798, Matthew Flinders said he saw more than 100 million birds in a single flock in Bass Strait — he claimed it took 1 1/2 hours for them to fly over his ship.
About 11.4 million shearwaters usually arrive in Tasmania in September and October to nest on cliffs and islands around the coast.
They pair up and nest before leaving to hunt for food in preparation for their extraordinary return journey.
For some unknown reason, about a million birds failed to return to their chicks on Babel Island in the Bass Strait this year.
Aboriginal muttonbirders raised the alarm when rookeries where they harvest chicks for oil, feathers and meat fell eerily silent after the adult birds failed to return to feed their chicks — about 95 per cent of the chicks, known as squabs, starved.
The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania this week called for the state and federal governments to investigate.
Humans affect shearwater numbers in many ways, from harvesting chicks to catching them in gillnets and disrupting the food chain.
Tasmania is the only state that allows muttonbirding. Other states have banned recreational gillnets.
There have been repeated reports in recent years of mass strandings of starving shearwaters on the southeastern Australian coast.
It is easy to overlook the plight of seemingly less-glamorous creatures such as shearwaters when there are icon species such as the Tasmanian devil and Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle facing extinction threats.
But this amazing long-distance traveller is a unique Tasmanian whose annual visits connect our island with distant lands.
The species has potential as a tourism and scientific drawcard, and as an ambassador for Tasmania.
The reports of the loss of a million birds warrant calling ornithologists and shearwater enthusiasts, from here and overseas, to investigate.
The canary has emerged rigid from the pit. We must find out why.
With luck, it may turn out to be nothing to worry about. But if not, the consequences could be disastrous.
