A program launched in Margaret River to protect the state’s precious birdlife is spreading its wings to Perth’s local governments – and it’s about time.
The Margaret River Owl-Friendly project was launched by ornithologist and former Margaret River Region Conservation Program Chair Dr Boyd Wykes to save owl species threatened by poisons and native predators.
While the program is receiving strong support in the Capes region, city councils such as the cities of Fremantle and Cockburn are now also participating in the project.
The program also extended to other regional districts, including the City of Geraldton, and served as a model for similar initiatives in other jurisdictions.
Speaking about the acceptance of the movement he started, Dr Wykes told The Times that his work was aimed at getting serious recognition of the threats to native owls posed by governments.
“The Owl-Friendly Margaret River group continues to advocate in our community for rodent control in a way that does not harm the owls and the many other wildlife that are weakened and killed by the so-called ‘one-dose’ anticoagulants that are sold without restriction in supermarkets and hardware stores,” Dr Wykes said.
“After consultations began in 2021, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Agency expects to finally produce some sort of report to address the rodenticide problem by the end of the year.
“Consultations began in 2021 and refused to impose a ‘precautionary’ moratorium on the sale, even though consultations lasted for years, despite mounting, overwhelming evidence of harm to wildlife worldwide.”
The pro-owl movement was also the subject of the documentary “Night Calling,” produced by Sue Taylor, which premiered last year and was subsequently shown across the country.
Dr Wykes recently returned from a Birdlife Australia-supported demonstration in Melbourne to further spread the message.
He expressed his enthusiasm about the acceptance of the program in metropolitan local governments and pointed out that Margaret River’s masked owls – the ambassadors of the initiative – were being found in ever larger areas, often as victims of poisoning.
The pro-owl movement has contributed significantly to pressure for action at the highest level, he said.
Last week, a delegation of the country’s leading environmental scientists gathered in Canberra to protest against inaction on rodenticides.
Lecturers Dr Robert Davis and Dr Michael Lohr from Edith Cowan University’s School of Science said the regulator had been too slow to respond to evidence of the impacts of these poisons on native wildlife and the knock-on effects on the food chain.