Nectar-Loving Bird Makes a Great Big Comeback

More than 40 years after bushfires wiped out the helmeted honeyeater’s population in Victoria, Australia, the critically endangered species is returning to Cardinia with the release of birds bred in captivity, hoping to boost the bird’s population and genetic diversity.

“The location at Cardinia has some really good habitat features that helmeted honeyeaters require,” explains Dr Kim Miller, the manager of threatened species at Healesville Sanctuary. “It has the right vegetation structure and some of the food plants that they need. That combination is hard to come by.”

The energetic, curious, and gold and black feathered bird is endemic to the Australian state of Victoria. Twenty-one birds bred in captivity at the Healesville sanctuary were released into a Cardinia forest located in Bunurong Country. They will be monitored to see if they breed in the wild, establishing themselves as a new wild population. More birds will be released at the Cardinia site over the next few years to increase their numbers and improve their genetic diversity. There are fewer than 250 helmeted honeyeaters left in the world; there is a wild population at Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, where birds have been released every year since 1995; there is a second wild population at Yarra Ranges National Park, where helmeted honeyeaters have been released since 2021. “The recovery team has been working hard for more than a decade in finding suitable sites that can support a population of helmeted honeyeaters.”