Monitoring threats to Australian threatened birds: climate change was the biggest threat in 2020 with minimal progress on its management

Figures & data

Table 1. Metrics related to the impact of threats on Australian threatened birds, knowledge of how to manage those threats and the management being implemented.

Metrics for analysis	Calculation method	Characteristics
Threat impact in 2020	Weighted impact based on timing, scope and extent of threat to a taxon (IUCN 2012a; Garnett et al. 2018)	For individual threats: 0 (negligible threats causing negligible declines) to 63 (causing very rapid declines across whole range). Can be summed across threats or taxa to estimate total threat load.
Change in threat impact 2010–2020	The difference between the threat impact or threat load in 2010 and that in 2020	Can be negative or positive, unbounded
% of threat impact relieved by 2020	Threat impact/load at a particular time as a percentage of the potential threat impact	0–100%
Knowledge available in 2020	For individual threats: knowledge score (7 levels, scale 0–1; see Garnett et al. 2018) x threat impact score	0–63. Can be summed across threats or taxa. Can be summed across taxa or threats to calculate a knowledge score
Change in knowledge availability 2010–2020	The difference between the knowledge score in 2010 and that in 2020	Only positive, assumes knowledge cannot be lost but earlier knowledge scores can be reduced in later assessments
% of knowledge need met by 2020	Knowledge available at a particular time as a percentage of the ideal knowledge for that threat/taxon.	0–100%
Management undertaken in 2020	For individual threats: management score (7 levels, scale 0—1; see Garnett et al. 2018) x threat impact score	0–63. Can be summed across threats or taxa. Can be summed across taxa or threats to calculate a management score
Change in management 2010–2020	The difference between the management score in 2010 and that in 2020	Can be positive or negative (i.e. management quality can decline between assessments)
% of management need met by 2020	Management at a particular time as a percentage of the ideal management for that threat/taxon	0–100%

Figure 1. The total potential threat load to Australian threatened and Near Threatened birds inside and outside Australian territory and the realised threat load in 2010 and 2020 for 6 classes of threat (all scores normalised to 100 against total threat load across all taxa/populations; threat classes follow Kearney et al. (2023; see Table S3 for how fine-scale threats are condensed into these broader threat classes).

Figure 2. Trends in knowledge of how to manage threats to Australian threatened and Near Threatened birds: (a) % knowledge needs met in 2010 and 2020; comparison between the total estimated current need for knowledge of how to manage threats and that available in 2010 and 2020; (b) in Australia; (c) outside Australia; (d) relationship between % of knowledge need and % threat load relieved; (e) relationship between % knowledge need met and change in extinction risk (International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List category) in any decade since 1990.

Figure 3. Management trends for Australian threatened and Near Threatened birds: (a) % management needs met in 2010 and 2020; comparison between the total current estimated need for management and that being undertaken in 2010 and 2020; (b) in Australia; (c) outside Australia; (d) relationship between % of knowledge need and % threat load relieved; (e) relationship between % knowledge need met and change in extinction risk (Internation Union for Conservation of Nature Red List category) in any decade since 1990.

Figure 4. Trends in the management of the 10 most important fine-scale threats to threatened and Near Threatened Australian birds in 2020: (a) % of the total threat load for all Australian birds; (b) % total knowledge need met; (c) % total management need met. Of the 201 threats identified, the top 10 encompassed 51.3% of the total threat load.

Table 2. The 20 threatened or Near Threatened Australian bird taxa ranked highest in 2020 for estimated threat load, the need for knowledge of how to manage threats effectively and for the need to implement known threat mitigation approaches. Scores in brackets are normalised to 100.

Rank	Threat impact	Understanding	Management
1	Swift Parrot (100)^a	Swift Parrot (100)^a	Swift Parrot (100)^a
2	Mount Lofty Ranges Southern Emu-wren (60)	Regent Honeyeater (77)^a	Houtman Abrolhos Painted Button-quail (72)
3	Regent Honeyeater (60)^a	Eastern Pink Cockatoo (61)	Mukarrthippi Grasswren (58)
4	Helmeted Honeyeater (56)	Mallee Western Whipbird (55)	Regent Honeyeater (54)^a
5	Mukarrthippi Grasswren (54)	Heath Western Whipbird (55)	Helmeted Honeyeater (53)
6	Eastern Pink Cockatoo (51)	Helmeted Honeyeater (54)	Australian Fairy Tern (50)
7	Australian Fairy Tern (48)	Black-eared Miner (52)^a	Mount Lofty Ranges Southern Emu-wren (50)
8	Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo (46)^a	Northern Eastern Bristlebird (51)	Northern Eastern Bristlebird (47)
9	Plains-wanderer (46)^a	Mallee Emu-wren (48)	Orange-bellied Parrot (46)^a
10	Murray Mallee Striated Grasswren (46)	Mount Lofty Ranges Chestnut-rumped Heathwren (47)	Southern Barking Owl (45)
11	Mallee Western Whipbird (46)	Australian Fairy Tern (46)	Mallee Western Whipbird (44)
12	Red-lored Whistler (46)	Noisy Scrub-bird (45)	Eastern Pink Cockatoo (43)
13	Southern Barking Owl (45)	Tasmanian Masked Owl (45)	Heath Western Whipbird (43)
14	Mount Lofty Ranges Chestnut-rumped Heathwren (45)	Southern Barking Owl (45)	Black-eared Miner (43)^a
15	Northern Eastern Bristlebird (45)	Western Ground Parrot (45)^a	Western Purple-crowned Fairy-wren (43)
16	Black-eared Miner (44)^a	Kangaroo Island Glossy Black-Cockatoo (43)	Plains-wanderer (42)^a
17	Orange-bellied Parrot (43)^a	South-eastern Hooded Robin (42)	Tasmanian Masked Owl (41)
18	Yellabinna Rufous Grasswren (43)	Yellabinna Rufous Grasswren (41)	Southern Black-throated Finch (40)
19	Western Bassian Thrush (43)	Red-lored Whistler (40)	Noisy Scrub-bird (40)^a
20	Southern Black-throated Finch (41)	Bar-tailed Godwit (outside Australia) (40)	Mount Lofty Ranges Chestnut-rumped Heathwren (39)

^aListed as priority species in the National Threatened Species Action Plan (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [DCCEEW] 2022).

IUCN (2012a). ‘Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional and National Levels. Version 4.0.’ (IUCN Species Survival Commission, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): Gland, Switzerland.)

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Garnett, S. T., Woinarski, J., Lindenmayer, D., and Latch, P. (Eds.) (2018). ‘Recovering Australian Threatened Species: A Book of Hope.’ (CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne.)

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Kearney, S. G., Watson, J. E., Reside, A. E., Fisher, D. O., Maron, M., Doherty T. S., et al. (2023). Threat-abatement framework confirms habitat retention and invasive species management are critical to conserve Australia’s threatened species. Biological Conservation 277, 231–244. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109833

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Data availability statement

All data are available in the supplementary materials.