State of the catchments 2010 Native fauna Technical report series Monitoring, evaluation and reporting program Assessing the sustainability of native fauna in NSW State of the catchments 2010 Paul Mahon Scott King Clare O’Brien Candida Barclay Philip Gleeson Allen McIlwee Sandra Penman Martin Schulz Office of Environment and Heritage Monitoring, evaluation and reporting program Technical report series Native vegetation Native fauna Threatened species Invasive species Riverine ecosystems Groundwater Marine waters Wetlands Estuaries and coastal lakes Soil condition Land management within capability Economic sustainability and social well-being Capacity to manage natural resources © 2011 State of NSW and Office of Environment and Heritage The State of NSW and Office of Environment and Heritage are pleased to allow this material to be reproduced in whole or in part for educational and non-commercial use, provided the meaning is unchanged and its source, publisher and authorship are acknowledged. 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Published by: Office of Environment and Heritage 59 Goulburn Street, Sydney NSW 2000 PO Box A290, Sydney South NSW 1232 Phone: (02) 9995 5000 (switchboard) Phone: 131 555 (environment information and publications requests) Phone: 1300 361 967 (national parks, climate change and energy efficiency information, and publications requests) Fax: (02) 9995 5999 TTY: (02) 9211 4723 Email: [email protected] Website: www.environment.nsw.gov.au Report pollution and environmental incidents Environment Line: 131 555 (NSW only) or [email protected] See also www.environment.nsw.gov.au This publication may be cited as: Mahon P, King S, O’Brien C, Barclay C, Gleeson P, McIlwee A, Penman S & Schulz M 2011, Assessing the sustainability of native fauna in NSW, Monitoring, evaluation and reporting program, Technical report series, Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney. ISBN 978 1 74293 335 1 OEH 2011/0714 November 2011 Acknowledgements This work was funded by the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality/Natural Heritage Trust project, Accelerating Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Activities in NSW, and the Catchment Action NSW project, Trend Monitoring for Fauna. Trent Penman provided code and guidance for the calculation and mapping of alpha-hulls. Dan Lunney, Harry Parnaby, Mike Pennay, Murray Ellis, Andrew Claridge, Peter Ewin, Brad Law, Frank Lemckert, Trent Penman, Dave Scotts, Hal Cogger and Mike Mahony provided expert opinion on distribution loss of native terrestrial vertebrates. David Keith, Todd Soderquist, Mike Fleming and Berin McKenzie assisted with the interpretation and application of IUCN Red-List Criteria for assessing extinction risk. Andrew Claridge, Todd Soderquist, Brendon Neilly, Mike Fleming, Doug Binns, Rod Kavanagh, Trent Penman and Brad Law provided valuable comments on the design of monitoring programs to measure extinction risk. Numerous people assisted with field trials (see Appendices 5 and 6). The work was supervised by Jack Baker and Mike Fleming. Assessing the sustainability of native fauna in NSW Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Inclusions and exclusions.....................................................................................................................1 2. Historical declines of native fauna in NSW ....................................................................... 3 2.1 Estimating distribution loss from species records ......................................................................3 2.2 Reviewing estimates of distribution loss........................................................................................5 2.3 Results .........................................................................................................................................................7 3. The sustainability of native fauna in NSW ...................................................................... 12 3.1 Assessing sustainability using modified IUCN Red-List criteria............................................12 3.2 Data sources and analyses.................................................................................................................14 3.3 Results .......................................................................................................................................................17 3.4 Example assessments ..........................................................................................................................17 4. An index of fauna sustainability...................................................................................... 25 5. Options for monitoring .................................................................................................... 26 5.1 Establish no new programs...............................................................................................................27 5.2 Monitor selected species....................................................................................................................27 5.3 Establish non-targeted monitoring across species and areas ..............................................28 5.4 Establish systematic monitoring on a grid...................................................................................29 5.5 Establish passive monitoring of species inventories................................................................31 5.6 Monitor surrogates for fauna based on vegetation..................................................................31 6. A proposal for a new fauna monitoring program in NSW ............................................. 32 6.1 Motion-triggered cameras in eastern NSW .................................................................................32 6.2 Future expansion ..................................................................................................................................39 6.3 Targeted monitoring of threatened fauna...................................................................................39 7. Recommendations............................................................................................................ 41 8. References......................................................................................................................... 42 Appendix 1: Historic declines and sustainability of native terrestrial vertebrates in NSW..... 45 Appendix 2: Criteria to assess the sustainability of fauna species............................................ 80 Appendix 3: Regional assessment of sustainability ................................................................... 84 Appendix 4: Definitions of terms used in the IUCN criteria ....................................................... 85 Appendix 5: Trial targeted monitoring: long-nosed potoroo ................................................... 88 Appendix 6: Trial monitoring of amphibians, mammals and reptiles in the Western region...................................................................................................... 103 Appendix 7: Species richness derived from Atlas data ............................................................ 118 Assessing the sustainability of native fauna in NSW Figures Figure 1: Species distribution as measured by extent of occurrence (a) and area of occupancy (b)...........................................................................................................................................4 Figure 2: Distribution loss since European settlement of native terrestrial vertebrates in NSW and in each of the 13 NRM regions..................................................................................... 10 Figure 3: Estimation of distribution loss for the green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea) in NSW...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 4: Decision rules for assigning species to sustainability categories based on the 90 per cent confidence interval of the estimated change in population or distribution over 10 years ................................................................................................................. 16 Figure 5: Sustainability of native terrestrial vertebrates in NSW and in each of 13 NRM regions ..................................................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 6: Data sources for sustainability assessments of NSW native terrestrial vertebrates.............................................................................................................................................. 22 Figure 7: Cells in which the superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) was detected in two ha 20 minute surveys undertaken between spring 1997 and spring