The Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (ABBBS), a combination of the former Australian bird banding and bat banding schemes, is managed by the Department of the Environment, Australia.

History

The earliest banding of wild birds for scientific research in Australia began in 1912 with the banding of

short-tailed shearwater The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (''Ardenna tenuirostris''; formerly ''Puffinus tenuirostris''), also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in A ...

s and

white-faced storm-petrel The white-faced storm petrel (''Pelagodroma marina''), also known as white-faced petrel is a small seabird of the austral storm petrel family Oceanitidae. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Pelagodroma''. Description The white-faced ...

s by the

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and bird conservation, conservati ...

and the Bird Observers Club. Following the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

some state-based programs of banding short-tailed shearwaters and

waterfowl Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which in ...

began. From about 1949 the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentar ...

began banding short-tailed shearwaters (muttonbirds) in Bass Strait. This work, together with earlier banding of shearwaters, established that the birds migrate “in a long and regular cycle, spending the majority of their time in the northern Pacific and returning each year”, often to the same nesting burrow.‘Bird Banding’, ''North Western Courier'' (Narrabri), 28 April 1955, page 10. The organised banding of birds on a national basis started in 1953 through the

Division of Wildlife Research, with the bat banding scheme beginning in 1960. In 1984 the national coordination of banding was taken over by the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, a responsibility which has now been inherited by the Department of the Environment.

References

External links

Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (ABBBS)
Ornithology in Australia Ornithological organisations in Australia 1953 establishments in Australia {{Australia-org-stub