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Journal of BirdLife Australia
REVIEW

A review of flight-initiation distances and their application to managing disturbance to Australian birds

M. A. Weston A D , E. M. McLeod B , D. T. Blumstein C and P.-J. Guay B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Vic. 3125, Australia.

B School of Engineering and Science, and Institute for Sustainability and Innovation, Victoria University – St Albans Campus, PO Box 14428, Melbourne MC, Vic. 8001, Australia.

C Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606, USA.

D Corresponding author: Email: mweston@deakin.edu.au

Emu 112(4) 269-286 https://doi.org/10.1071/MU12026
Submitted: 23 March 2012  Accepted: 25 June 2012   Published: 28 September 2012

Abstract

Disturbance – the response of birds to a stimulus such as the presence of a person – is considered a conservation threat for some Australian birds. The distance at which a bird flees from perceived danger is defined as the flight-initiation distance (FID), and could be used to designate separation distances between birds and stimuli that might cause disturbance. We review the known FIDs for Australian birds, and report FIDs for 250 species. Most FIDs are from south-eastern Australia, and almost all refer to a single walker as the stimulus. Several prominent factors correlated with FID are discussed (e.g. body mass and the distance at which an approach begins). FIDs have not been used extensively in the management of disturbance, for a variety of reasons including lack and inaccessibility of available data. We call for standardised data collection and greater application of available data to the management of disturbance.

Additional keywords: buffers, human–wildlife conflict, human–wildlife interactions, escape, flightiness, response.


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