A rare animal that is technically extinct

The Magpie Goose (Anseranus semipalmata) is a large, black and white water bird with strong legs, webbed feet and a prominent lump on the forehead.   It is found in open wetlands across lowland Victoria where it feeds on the corms and leaves of sedges, rushes and other wetland plants.  It is classified as near threatened in Victoria and is listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG).

In a book entitled 'The Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist' written in 1861, the author made reference to men who used to make a living from selling ducks and geese, which they shot in the South Melbourne swamps, to the Melbourne markets.  He was lamenting that by the time the book was written this was no longer possible as many of the best birds had vanished from the area.  One of these species was the Magpie Goose which in a very short time afterwards disappeared from all of its southern Australian wetland habitats.  By the early 1900s the Magpie Goose was declared to be extinct in Victoria.

The Magpie Goose has, these days, become a wildlife symbol of Australia's top-end and very few people consider it to be a southern species any longer.  Indeed most wildlife books will show the distribution of this species as entirely northern.  Nevertheless the map above shows that it is widespread in Victoria where permanent and seasonal wetlands are found.  The species has not made this recovery on its own but rather from an active breeding and release program started in the 1960s by the Victorian Government.  The source of the breeding stock is animals captured from northern Australian populations and it has been very successful.  Consequently, in 1984, government breeding programs for the species ceased.

In 1997 Magpie Goose was listed as a threatened species in Victoria under the now defunct classification of insufficiently known, indicating that not enough information had been gathered on the state populations to make a clearer determination of conservation status.  By 2002 the species was classified as endangered in Victoria, in 2005 this was downgraded to vulnerable and now it is considered to be near threatened, that is, almost secure.  

The conservation program for Magpie Goose in Victoria appears to have been successful but there are two matters which need to be considered before accepting such a conclusion.  The first is that there is doubt cast by some biologists that the species has been successfully established as a self-sustaining breeding population in Victoria.  The only known natural breeding population is in Tower Hill, western Victoria, and although the species range seems to be expanding (records for Magpie Goose, and new locations, have increased steadily over the past decade) it is argued that there is no solid data to back up the assertion that this is due to breeding within the state.

The second matter is one of provenance.  Biologists are usually quick to point out that any restoration programs for natural ecosystems involving the re-introduction of native species, must always seek to use local breeding stock.  That can't be claimed for the Magpie Goose in Victoria.  What we have is an apparently expanding population of a bird species that has been recruited from several thousand kilometres to the north.  Clearly these animals have found their way to places that Magpie Geese inhabited at the time of European settlement, and the expansion has the appearance of a natural process, but it is a moot point whether Victoria is now home to native Magpie Geese or whether the species is extinct in this state and its ecological niche has been filled by an introduced form.