You are here

Malleefowl – drive with care

Posted in: 
Healthy Environments

The spilt grain on roadsides is a major temptation for native animals at this time of year.

Kangaroos and other large animals that can cause significant accidents will stop for grain on the road so be careful with your own safety when driving.  

The threatened malleefowl is no exception and it takes advantage of free offerings left behind by grain trucks.

Being large, ground-dwelling birds, malleefowl are under serious threat of becoming roadkill.

Monitoring in the Wheatbelt and pastoral areas of Western Australia suggests that the loss of adult birds through roadkill critically undermines the sustainability of Malleefowl populations (McNeill, 2014).

They are rare and likely to become extinct in WA so taking extra care to avoid hitting them with your car at this time when they might be attracted to roads is really important for the protection of this vulnerable creature.

 www.malleefowl.net.au/page19/page19.html

If you’d like to help with our citizen science monitoring of malleefowl throughout the region please download the survey 123 application (IOS or android) and use the QR code here www.wheatbeltnrm.org.au/what-we-do/healthy-environments/malleefowl-%E2%80%93-pick-litter .

We use this information to help inform where in the region we should be working on malleefowl.

This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter and keep up to date on current events, partnership opportunities and NRM in the Wheatbelt.