Australia’s critically endangered regent honeyeater has lost its traditional song in the wild as its population has declined. A study found that researchers taught captive-bred young males to sing the traditional wild song using live adult tutors. By the end of the study, the experiment helped 42% of the male zoo population learn songs that were statistically indistinguishable from the traditional wild song. Researchers conducted the work over three breeding seasons and found that live tutoring in small groups, with or without recorded songs, produced the best results.According to the study published in Scientific Reports titled ‘Rescue of the traditional song culture of a critically endangered songbird’, the zoo population had become the only remaining source of the traditional song culture, making conservation efforts important for preserving it.
How did captive-bred regent honeyeaters learn traditional wild songs
The study examined whether captive-bred regent honeyeaters could learn the traditional song sung by wild males. Researchers conducted experiments over three breeding seasons, beginning in 2020, at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.In the beginning, only two wild-origin males in the zoo population sang the traditional Typical Blue Mountains song and were available as live tutors. Researchers tested different approaches using recorded songs and live adult birds. By the end of the experiment, 32 males, representing 42% of the male zoo population, sang songs statistically indistinguishable from the traditional wild song.
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Declining wild populations disrupted the regent honeyeater’s song culture
The regent honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia) is a critically endangered Australian songbird with an estimated wild population of fewer than 250 individuals. Its decline has been driven primarily by extensive habitat loss and degradation caused by agricultural clearing, dieback and forestry practices. Climate change-related droughts and bushfires also threaten its remaining habitat.As the population became smaller and more dispersed, young males had fewer opportunities to learn songs from other regent honeyeaters. Many began copying other bird species or singing an abbreviated version of the traditional song, known as the clipped Blue Mountains song. This shorter version contains half the number of syllables.
Small groups and live tutors improved song learning in captive-bred birds
Researchers tested several tutoring methods to identify which helped young males learn the traditional song most effectively. Recorded songs alone did not produce the target song, whether the juveniles were housed in large or small groups. Live tutoring in a large group also failed to produce songs that matched the wild reference.However, eight juvenile males learned songs closely resembling the traditional wild type when exposed to both live tutors and playback recordings in small groups. In the third year, four males that had learned the song in the previous experiment became tutors themselves. Alongside the two wild-origin males, they helped another 19 juveniles learn the traditional song. These results highlighted the importance of live tutors and smaller groups.
Traditional song could help future regent honeyeater reintroductions
The traditional Typical Blue Mountains song had effectively disappeared from the wild population by the time of the study, with monitoring since 2020 showing that the shorter clipped version had replaced it. The zoo population became the only remaining source of the traditional song culture. Researchers said the tutoring approach could help maintain this culture through routine breeding practices.The findings also raised questions about how song differences affect breeding after captive-bred birds are released. The researchers noted that restoring traditional songs could help support future reintroductions, while noting that further research was needed on female mate preferences.
