Ann Jones
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER CHICKS CAN GET SO FAT THEY CAN BARELY MOVE. © ABC RN / ANN JONES
On a rocky island off the coast of Wollongong, grasses and weeds are strangling bird colonies to death. The wedge-tailed shearwaters of Big Island are in deep trouble, but as Ann Jones discovers, there’s hope for them yet.
A fat muttonbird chick is pulled from a burrow. It looks like a downy-grey snowman that has, in place of an orange carrot nose, a miniaturised albatross beak.
Wedge-tailed shearwaters like this one are facing an extraordinary problem on Big Island, just off the coast of Wollongong in NSW.
Big Island is overtaken with weeds. The weeds grow so fast and thick that birds get tangled in them as they attempt to manoeuvre in their burrows and are unable to break free.
Then they die a slow death of dehydration, suspended and contorted beneath the ground. If their mate and chick are further down the burrow, all three will die, trapped together.
DEATH IS ALWAYS CLOSE IN A SEABIRD COLONY, AND THIS SEAGULL CHICK DID NOT MAKE IT. © ABC RN / ANN JONES
Though the situation is dire, all is not lost—not quite yet. A group of dedicated workers and volunteers have accepted the challenge of ridding the island of the invasive Kikuyu grass and coastal morning glory that cause the local birds such grief.
Read more at : http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/wedge-tailed-shearwaters-big-island-killer-weeds/7202962
