Fears new runway may mean end to endangered bird

The Sunshine Coast Airport extension is cutting straight through the middle of a rare eastern ground parrot population.

Rhys Chapman is concerned about the future of the Eastern Ground Parrot on the Sunshine Coast.

THE Sunshine Coast Airport extension is set to increase jobs, growth and tourism but it is also cutting straight through the middle of a rare eastern ground parrot population.

Being one of only five ground dwelling parrots in the world the endangered eastern ground parrot is thought to be getting dangerously close to extinction.

Rhys Chapman Wildlife Services owner Rhys Chapman said the council was not helping the situation.

"They've had environmentalist, who are meant to be just as passionate as I am, go out there, survey it and say 'yep, this will be fine, the birds will do fine with a runway through the middle', which to me doesn't make any sense," he said.

Mr Chapman said past development on the Sunshine Coast had been to the birds' detriment and the airport region was the only location where they had a long-term chance of survival.

"We went from hearing three to four different calls when we go out to absolutely none, so we suspect there is not really a Noosaville population and we aren't hearing anymore calls in the Marcus Beach, Peregian area and there was a population in Coolum, but we haven't heard to many calls in recent years," he said.

The bird's survival in the airport region is thanks to bush management and the fence around the airports perimeter that protects the 10-20 birds from foxes and cats.

But Mr Chapman said "a ground parrot pair will typically have 8ha as their area" and "the new airport extension splits straight through the middle" of the already small 9ha available, leaving only 5ha offset to the side for them.

"I personally don't like the chances of there being a ground parrot population on the Sunshine Coast in the coming years … its [runway] cut through the middle of the north and south populations and with the added plane activity, noise, human activity and everything that we have going on in between those two populations, I struggle to see a long-term population being able to strive there," he said.

A Sunshine Coast Council spokesman said preserving the eastern ground parrot populations and habitat had been a priority for the council and it "will continue to safeguard the population … beyond the duration of the airport expansion by creating an additional 5.84ha of wet and dry heath habitat".

"A robust environmental management and offset plan, which included close monitoring of the species, protection of active habitat and restricting vegetation clearing periods to avoid parrot breeding times, has ensured the local eastern ground parrot population has been preserved," the spokesman said.

"In fact, acoustic recordings during October 2018 provided evidence of recently fledged eastern ground parrot chicks."

Mr Chapman said if we weren't careful the overdevelopment would change the Sunshine Coast.

"I know we need infrastructure and jobs but there is a lot of other things that $200 to $300 million dollars could have gone towards that wouldn't have impacted on what I think a lot people proud themselves on living on the Sunshine Coast," he said.

"Sharing it [the coast] with nature having the bushland around and having the animals everywhere was the selling point of the Sunshine Coast at one point and we are seeing it disappear in front of us."

The wildlife warrior said it may be too late for the ground parrot but outsourcing the survey work done prior to new developments to locals could help save other species.

"Instead of the council and the environmental consults always being there's they need to start independently outsourcing it to businesses like myself," he said.

"There are people here that do the spotter work, which is the survey before construction so before they even get approved to do anything, they have people go out and check populations in the area."