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-petrels by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union and the Bird Observers Club. Following the Second World War some state-based programs of banding short-tailed shearwaters and waterfowl 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