Birdman's lifelong quest to save threatened raptors

Mr Debus is an Adjunct Lecturer at the UNE School of Environmental and Rural Science, a bird expert, and an all-round animal enthusiast.

"The wind farm issue was something I've just sort of been pulled in on because of my work on the birds of prey," he said.

He has been helping some New England residents concerned about how proposed wind farms could potentially threaten native bird species, craft submissions in response to Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) from developers.

"Most of my work on birds of prey is studying them in the field, specifically their biology and ecology, and conducting surveys for Northern Tablelands Local Land Services in monitoring of the nest of threatened species."

In New South Wales, the framework for creating an EIS is outlined in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. The Act requires an EIS for projects classified as 'State Significant Development' (SSD) or 'State Significant Infrastructure' (SSI), such as the proposed wind farm at Winterbourne near Walcha.

The final draft of the Winterbourne Wind EIS was submitted in October of 2022. The current status of the project is 'Response to Submissions'.

In the project justification, it is stated the project will primarily be developed on agricultural land that has been previously disturbed and/historically cleared, however, Mr Debus notes that even though much of the area within the footprint is cleared, implying low habitat value, even small patches can have high conservation value.

Mr Debus acknowledges that renewables are important moving forward and said that something needs to be done concerning emissions and climate change, but that it's important to consider the scale of renewables projects and to be ultra careful as to how development potentially impacts native biodiversity.

"I'm certainly not against renewables, but we have to be careful where they go if it means nonsensical clearing of native forest or woodland, well that process effectively creates emissions, as well as removing storers of carbon [mature trees]. There needs to be much better planning to avoid biodiversity impacts, with forest and woodland being no-go zones," he said.

"Further habitat clearing and fragmentation for the turbines and other infrastructure [roads, powerlines] will be incremental, worsening the problem for threatened and other declining woodland birds and other fauna."

Through his extensive field surveying Mr Debus said the New England and Northern Tablelands areas are a hotspot for breeding Wedge-tailed Eagles and Little Eagles.

He said that raptor surveys conducted for the EIS were not at the optimal time for detecting nesting Little Eagles, which are listed as a vulnerable species in NSW.

"I think there is a danger that these one-off surveys of, you know, site inspections for assessments could miss things if they're there at the wrong time or not there for long enough," Mr Debus said.

"I actually showed an ecologist who was surveying a part of the Winterbourne footprint when I happened to be doing some reconnaissance, a Little Eagle nest in the patch of woodland adjacent to the proposed battery site.

"I was told there wasn't to be any clearing for the battery, but the ecologists had done a survey of that patch of woodland next door and hadn't seen the eagle nest."

Mr Debus said that land clearing, habitat fragmentation for turbines and other infrastructure [roads, powerlines] are incremental, worsening the problem for threatened and other declining woodland birds and other fauna, including increasing the impact of Noisy Miners, which competitively exclude other birds from small and linear fragments.

"The collision likelihood may be understated for the Wedge-tailed Eagle, and also for the Glossy Black-Cockatoo which can fly at turbine Rotor Swept Area (RSA height) when commuting across cleared or partly cleared," he said.

According to research done by a colleague of Mr Debus in Tasmania, Nick Mooney, turbine blade collisions and fatalities are under-reported.

"Nick looked at the profile of injuries to the larger eagles from various sources and his estimation was that turbine blade collisions are underestimated by about half, because some birds will get injured and die off-site eventually somewhere from injuries sustained, inhibiting their ability to hunt or making them more vulnerable to predation.

"By last estimate, I think when looked into it last, it's about 20 species of threatened woodland birds on the tablelands and their main issue is habitat loss and fragmentation.

"While there's ongoing habitat loss and loss of connectivity, those birds will keep declining unless we stop removal of native vegetation and start reconnecting the patches of woodland that are left."

Mr Debus is contracted to Local Land Services' (LLS) 'Bird of Prey Project', which started in 2017 and is funded into the next breeding season [on a year-to-year arrangement].

He is more than happy with the work he has done with LLS, but also in academia, and is excited about a new PhD starting soon.

"What that means is that even if the LLS project is no longer funded after this coming financial year, the student project will take it to 10 years of data, which is pretty good news.

"I'm really hoping these birds will get a higher profile."