14-04-2025
Drivers warned after rare find on 'iconic' Aussie roundabout: 'Take care'
Much like many native species across Australia, bush stone-curlew populations have plummeted in recent decades due to major threats including habitat loss and predation by introduced species such as foxes and cats.
While their numbers remain strong in certain parts of Queensland, the birds have all but vanished from southeastern states like NSW and Victoria. But this week, a rare glimmer of hope emerged on NSW's Mid North Coast, with a mating pair, and their tiny chick, spotted at an "iconic roundabout" in Crescent Head.
A community social media page flagged the extraordinary sighting, urging drivers throughout the region to "take care on" the roads. "We have endangered species living here too," the post warned. Speaking to Yahoo News, Birdlife Australia's Sean Dooley asked the public to report sightings to help with critical conservation efforts.
Dooley told Yahoo News the species is "pretty scarce" in NSW nowadays.
"Especially along the coast once you get south of about Ballina," he told Yahoo. "There's still a tiny population on the Central Coast, and an occasional individual will turn up in places like Jervis Bay or the Far South Coast. It's a similar scenario across the divide.
"In the west of the state, they are still scattered in the north and along the Darling [River] but very thin on the ground elsewhere. They are gone from southern Victoria and southeastern SA.
"People could report any sightings to Birdlife NSW, or even better, lodge their sightings in Birdata so that these records can be included in long-term monitoring assessments by BirdLife Australia. EBird is another place people can lodge sightings that will also be picked up by researchers."
Dooley said tragically, the birds were "once across most of the country".
"It's always been thought that being ground-dwelling birds, they took a hammering from foxes and cats, but it seems to be much worse where there's been extensive land clearing," he said.
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"Many populations survived into the '50s, '60s and '70s, despite the foxes, so it is likely the accumulated impacts of historical land clearing and the continued land clearing today were the final death blow. The tendency to 'tidy up' the woody debris in woodland blocks makes it impossible for them to survive.
"Bizarrely though, they seem to be thriving around Brisbane, including in the CBD."
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