The regent honeyeater is a critically endangered species. Photo: Murray Chambers.
A critically endangered bird has new hope at survival – and it’s all down to researchers restoring its traditional song.
Regent honeyeaters used to be found across the ACT and most of southern and eastern NSW, but now there are fewer than 250 individuals left in the wild.
The young males usually learn their songs from experienced tutors, but finding singing teachers has proved difficult.
That means they’ve instead been mistakenly learning incorrect or simplified versions of the traditional tune.
It led the ANU College of Systems and Society’s Difficult Bird Research Group and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia to try to work out how to restore the original version.
“Everything we know about the function of birdsong suggests that having a cohesive dialect will be critical to … the survival of the species,” ANU scientist Dr Daniel Appleby said.
Like many birds, regent honeyeaters rely on their songs to attract mates, as well as for territory establishment and social cohesion.
Zoo-bred regent honeyeaters couldn’t be relied upon to provide the correct song either, as it was found they were singing tunes that differed from all known wild variants.
So the scientists used recordings and direct exposure from two wild-born male tutors to teach young zoo-bred males in Taronga’s conservation breeding program the correct songs.
ANU scientist Dr Ross Crates said the results were “striking”.
“After a year of negative results, we could not believe our ears when some small tweaks to our tutoring approach led to the juveniles singing like wild birds,” he said.
As a result, more than 50 per cent of the zoo-bred males are now singing songs that closely resemble the historic wild versions.
They’re also now the only remaining source of the regent honeyeater’s traditional song.
“Hearing the zoo-bred birds sing their wild song for the first time was incredibly moving, like a piece of their identity coming back to life,” Taronga Conservation Society Australia’s Dr Joy Tripovich said.
“Restoring this precious song gives real hope for the species’ future.”
Researchers hope that, upon their release into the wild, the “culturally restored” males will pass on the traditional song to wild birds, helping to stabilise and even rebuild the song culture of the natural population.
Ultimately, Dr Crates said this was a critical step toward preventing the regent honeyeater’s extinction.
“We are extremely grateful to the two wild males recruited to the zoo population. Without them, the traditional wild song would have been lost forever,” he said.
Beyond that, the study highlights the growing recognition that biodiversity conservation needs to consider behavioural science, and that protecting species means protecting not just their genes but their learned traditions and cultures.
“Our work teaching regent honeyeaters to sing wild-type songs has far-reaching implications for captive breeding and reintroductions,” Dr Appleby said.
The study is published in Nature Scientific Reports.
Original Article published by Claire Fenwicke on Region Canberra.
