Nature NSW Winter 2026

Gary Dunnett, Chief Executive Officer, National Parks Association of NSW

I love autumn. The oppressive heat of summer finally eases, and wildlife-watching shifts from glimpses of parents preoccupied with raising their young, to mass migrations of honeyeaters, waders and whales.

So it was that I headed out to Merries Reef to check out some of those migratory waders. The visit certainly delivered: flocks of Ruddy Turnstones and Red‑necked Stints feeding up for their trip across the equator, and a smattering of Double‑banded Plovers newly arrived to escape the New Zealand winter. Sooty Oystercatchers, a pair of Reef Herons and a huge flock of Crested Terns added to the crowd.

Perched on a convenient reef‑top boulder, my attention drifted to the antics of the Silver Gulls sharing the reef with all those migratory and threatened fauna. Immature gulls scrambled around the waterfalls cascading off the reef, while adults dozed one‑legged in reflection pools shaped by nature. Reviewing the 700‑plus images I’d snapped over the morning (thank goodness for digital cameras), the serene forms of the sleeping Silver Gulls emerged as firm favourites.

Now, Silver Gulls are not exactly a threatened species. They’re super abundant, the grubby denizens of tip faces and not above snatching food off a café plate (I once lost a precious falafel roll to a dive‑bombing gull). Yet common doesn’t mean uninteresting, dull or ecologically unimportant. It simply means they’re not perched at the brink of extinction.

The Silver Gulls brought to mind another common species that has loomed large in recent events. Once in a presentation to a legislative council committee on native wildlife management, and later in discussions about the biodiversity of Glenbog State Forest. The species in question was the Bare‑nosed Wombat- previously, and still widely, known as the Common Wombat.

Both presentations were delivered by passionate individuals who argued that their beloved wombats deserve far better treatment by community and government. While animal welfare concerns were front and centre, so too was the wombat’s role as environmental engineers and sentinel species for ecological health. The message was clear: a healthy, biodiverse NSW depends as much about looking after our common species as it does on protecting the threatened.

The strange thing is that, once you unpack it, this is an entirely obvious proposition. A healthy environment should be defined more by abundance and vigour than by rarity and decline. I can’t help thinking we’ve been captured by the twisted logic of our planning laws, where only the last remnants of species at the very brink are deemed worthy of protection. What a warped version of environmental custodianship!

So, what follows from taking a renewed interest in common wildlife? First, I need to stop treating wildlife encounters like stamp collecting. It’s not only the unusual that has value, but all the native fauna and flora that call our state home. When it comes to protecting nature, our current focus on the rare and threatened must be balanced by an equal appreciation of all the species and processes that support a truly healthy environment. Because if we don’t, even those Silver Gulls and Bare‑nosed Wombats might one day slide towards disaster.

All of which brings us to this issue of Nature NSW.  It is being published just as NPA launches one of our largest ever new reserve proposals, the Great Southern Forest National Park.  Yes, the proposal will protect a legion of rare and threatened species.  But even more importantly, it is a proposal that secures the future abundance of all the species that call the forests home.  An uncommonly ambitious proposal for a whole bunch of unashamedly common species. 

In this edition