National recovery plan for the Black-eared Miner Manorina melanotis 2002 - 2006
Conservation of old-growth dependent mallee fauna
Prepared by David Baker-Gabb for the Black-eared Miner Recovery Team, February 2001
(Revised February 2003)
6. Broad Recovery Goals and Criteria
Broad directions for recovery for the duration of this Recovery Plan will be:
- Providing greater security for habitat from wildfire and other threats, particularly in South Australia.
- Controlling genetic introgression.
- Monitoring trends in numbers and colony quality.
- Supplementing isolated colonies at three sites in Victoria (eastern and western Murray-Sunset National Park, and Wyperfeld National Park) and New South Wales (Tarawi Nature Reserve) with birds translocated from South Australia.
The short-term goal of the 1997-2001 Recovery Plan was to stabilise the species within the Critically Endangered category (Backhouse et al 1997). More than this was achieved in four years with the Black-eared Miner's status improving to Endangered (Garnett and Crowley 2000). Achieving the short-term goal of this Recovery Plan will see a further improvement with the status of the Black-eared Miner still being Endangered but moving towards Vulnerable (IUCN 1996). Attaining the Recovery Plan's long-term goal should result in removal of the Black-eared Miner from an IUCN threat category included under the EPBC Act 1999, but it would still be Conservation Dependent and require ongoing management works.
Short-term Goal
In five years to expand the current range and numbers of the Black-eared Miner in at least three locations and to improve the quality of selected colonies.
Recovery criteria:
- no loss of habitat or colonies in large reserves
- increasing knowledge of colony numbers, quality and population density in SA
- increasing the number colonies and tripling the number of birds to 400 in Victoria
- increasing the number of colonies and tripling the number of birds to 150 in NSW
- implementing measures to increase the quality of colonies in three States
- using experience developed with captive birds to assist recovery in the wild
Long-term Goal
Within 20 years to achieve and maintain a population of high-quality Black-eared Miners with a total effective2 population size of at least 1000 mature individuals in viable populations at least five separate locations across its known former range.
Recovery criteria:
- maintaining at least the current range and numbers in South Australia
- further increasing the number of birds and colonies at three sites in Victoria
- further increasing the number of birds and colonies at one site in NSW
- increasing the quality of colonies as a result of threat control and manipulation
2 In the Bookmark Biosphere Reserve there are currently over 200 colonies containing more than 3,600 birds, of which about 1,400 birds are Black-eared Miners, the rest being hybrids. However, there are many non-breeding helpers in colonies and the effective breeding population is about 2,000 birds including 760 Black-eared Miners.