RIP Goonta

I write this with mixed feelings - still thrilled with the addition of a second sat-tagged eagle to the eagle tracking project, but saddened by the bad news that was confirmed today. Bruce and Kaye Withnell, the caretakers at Matuwa, rang me to confirm that Goonta was recovered dead, found lying on her side in an open patch of spinifex shrubland, not far from her natal nest. This juvenile wedge-tail fledged only a month ago and had started to make longer movements away from her nest, as anticipated. At this stage we have no idea what the cause of death was, but fortunately there was no evidence Goonta's PTT had interfered with normal movement, or that the harness had caught on any vegetation. You can see in the above photo her feet are spread open and wings drooped, suggesting she died perched on the ground, probably in a very hot position. Being still dependent on her parents for food, Goonta's death may be an indicator of their capacity to provide prey, or suggest there was a sudden shortage of prey nearby, although the latter reason seems unlikely given this territory overlaps with the fenced enclosure containing a high density of boodies and bandicoots. Whatever the cause of death, the trend of low productivity and high mortality in an arid-zone population, as previous research has shown, seems to be continuing.


*POST SCRIPT. A postmortem carried out by Murdoch University in January 2017 found no conclusive evidence of a cause of death.