DHINPERP Trial Hare-Wallaby Translocation And
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Dirk Hartog Island National Park Ecological Restoration Project: Stage One – Trial hare-wallaby translocations and monitoring. Saul Cowen, Kelly Rayner, Colleen Sims and Keith Morris June 2018 Series name Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions Locked Bag 104 Bentley Delivery Centre WA 6983 Phone: (08) 9219 9000 Fax: (08) 9334 0498 www.dbca.wa.gov.au © Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions on behalf of the State of Western Australia 2018 June 2018 This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. This report was prepared by Saul Cowen, Kelly Rayner, Colleen Sims and Keith Morris Questions regarding the use of this material should be directed to: Research Scientist – DHINPERP Fauna Reconstruction Biodiversity and Conservation Science Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions Locked Bag 104 Bentley Delivery Centre WA 6983 Phone: 08 9405 5119 Email: [email protected] The recommended reference for this publication is: Cowen S, Rayner K, Sims C, Morris K (2018), Dirk Hartog Island National Park Ecological Restoration Project: Stage One – Trial hare-wallaby translocations and monitoring, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Perth. Cover photo: Kieran Wardle and Kelly Rayner releasing a rufous hare-wallaby on Dirk Hartog Island. (K. Morris / DBCA) ii Title Contents Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... vi Summary ................................................................................................................... vii 1 Background ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Site description .............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Species descriptions ..................................................................................... 4 1.2.1 Banded hare-wallaby .............................................................................. 4 1.2.2 Rufous hare-wallaby ............................................................................... 5 1.3 Timeline ........................................................................................................ 6 1.4 Climate and weather ..................................................................................... 7 2 Methods ................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Translocation Proposals ................................................................................ 9 2.2 Translocation site selection ........................................................................... 9 2.3 Capture, transport and release.................................................................... 13 2.3.1 Capture of hare-wallabies on Bernier and Dorre Islands ...................... 13 2.3.2 Transfer and holding procedure ............................................................ 14 2.3.3 Release procedure ............................................................................... 14 2.4 Post-release monitoring .............................................................................. 15 2.4.1 Ground radio-tracking ........................................................................... 15 2.4.2 Aerial radio-tracking .............................................................................. 16 2.4.3 Remote cameras .................................................................................. 17 2.4.4 Tracks and scats .................................................................................. 18 2.4.5 Recapture for radio-collar checking and/or removal ............................. 18 2.4.6 Post-mortem of deceased hare-wallabies............................................. 20 3 Results ................................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Capture and translocation of hare-wallabies ............................................... 21 3.2 Survivorship, health and recruitment ........................................................... 21 3.2.1 Survivorship .......................................................................................... 21 3.2.2 Health ................................................................................................... 23 3.2.3 Recruitment .......................................................................................... 26 3.3 Monitoring ................................................................................................... 27 3.3.1 Radio-tracking ...................................................................................... 27 3.3.2 Remote cameras .................................................................................. 31 ` iii Series name 3.3.3 Tracks and scats .................................................................................. 34 4 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 35 4.1 Translocation outcomes .............................................................................. 35 4.2 Monitoring outcomes ................................................................................... 36 4.3 Recommendations ...................................................................................... 37 Appendices .............................................................................................................. 40 References ............................................................................................................... 42 Appendices Appendix 1 Capture information of hare-wallabies translocated to Dirk Hartog Island August 2017 ......................................................................................................... 40 Appendix 2 List of species recorded on remote cameras (November 2017 to May 2018) .................................................................................................................... 41 Figures Figure 1. Map of Dirk Hartog Island, indicating important areas and 4WD and ATV track network. ......................................................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Gantt chart showing timeline of outcomes from translocation between August 2017 and May 2018. .................................................................................. 7 Figure 3. Total monthly rainfall (bar graph) and mean monthly temperatures (line graphs) for Dirk Hartog Island from February 2017 to February 2018. .................. 8 Figure 4. Map of southern end of Dirk Hartog Island indicating proposed release area and actual release sites of banded and rufous hare-wallabies. ............................ 11 Figure 5. Example of Triodia-dominated community nominated as release location for rufous hare-wallabies (© S. Cowen/DBCA). ................................................... 12 Figure 6. Example of Acacia-dominated community nominated as release location for banded hare-wallabies (© S. Cowen/DBCA) .................................................. 13 Figure 7. ‘Drift-fence’ set up, showing aviary mesh and metal droppers semi- encircling a hare-wallaby refuge (© K. Grosser/DBCA). ...................................... 20 Figure 8. Left - release of a rufous hare-wallaby and Right - the release of two banded hare-wallabies (© K.Morris/DBCA and Richard Manning). ...................... 21 Figure 9. Box-whisker plot of weights of banded hare-wallabies during intensive monitoring period. Black dashes show median weights, error bars are maximum and minimums (NB. Recapture weights do not include weight of collars). ........... 25 Figure 10. Box-whisker plot of weights of rufous hare-wallabies during intensive monitoring period. Black dashes show median weights, error bars are maximum and minimums (NB. Recapture weight do not include weight of collars). ............. 26 Figure 11. Map of locations for banded (left) and rufous hare-wallabies (right) from triangulations obtained by radio-telemetry. .......................................................... 28 Figure 12. Map of utilisation distributions (95% MCP and KDE polygons) for six hare- wallabies fitted with GPS collars. ......................................................................... 30 iv Title Figure 13. Map of VHF collared hare-wallaby locations obtained from aerial radio- tracking efforts in December, January, March and April 2018. ............................. 31 Figure 14. Map of remote camera locations and observations of hare-wallabies (red symbols – rufous hare-wallabies; black symbols – banded hare-wallabies). ....... 33 Figure 15. Map of locations where tracks or scats were observed during post-release intensive monitoring period. ................................................................................. 34 Tables Table 1. Fix schedules used to program GPS telemetry collars deployed on hare- wallabies in August 2017 ..................................................................................... 16 Table