A Threatened Bird Index for Australia

Here, the national Threatened Bird Index (TBX) is shown (Figure 1A). In its first iteration, this index incorporates data from 43 threatened bird species and subspecies (Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered under the EPBC Act and/or as assessed by BirdLife Australia - see Table 1), which comprise about 28% of Australia’s threatened birds. More data will be added as they become available each year allowing the index to grow. The index shows the estimated yearly change in relative abundance of threatened bird species in relation to a baseline year, for which 1985 was chosen, where the index is set to 1.0. However, later baseline years are also available to support the specific needs of conservation managers and can be selected via the web-app. Changes in the index are proportional—a value of 0.5 indicates the multi-species relative abundance is 50% below the baseline value; a value of 1.5 indicates 50% above baseline. In 2015, the TBX value given the current data is 0.48. This suggests that the relative abundance of threatened birds for which we have information has decreased by 52% between 1985 and 2015. While the overall index value in 2015 is 0.48, individual species have TBX values between 0.31 (a 69% decrease) and 0.72 (a 38% decrease).