Pre-management actions baseline report for Artemis Antbed Parrot Nature Refuge

Date: 28, Sep, 2021
Author(s):   Steve Murphy, Susan Shephard, Gabriel M Crowley, Stephen T Garnett, Patrick Webster, Wendy Cooper and Rigel Jensen

The Endangered golden-shouldered parrot has disappeared from more than half of its former range in Cape York since the 1920s. There are predicted to be about 1000 individuals remaining. It is thought that the parrots are declining because their habitats have become overgrown by woody native plants. This is largely the result of infrequent, low intensity fires, interacting with cattle grazing. Vegetation thickening has not only affected Golden-shouldered Parrots, but its co-dependent Antbed Parrot Moth. Over the next few years, habitats on Artemis will be restored to an open state by a variety of approaches. The work described in this report aims to build on the historical quantitative and qualitative vegetation work that work that will permit us to describe the changes in vegetation structure and floristics in habitats on Artemis over a 20 year period and monitor responses in vegetation after we implement management actions.