Eastern Curlew Species Inventory for Gippsland Offshore Renewable Energy Area

A data inventory for the Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) was compiled as part of a rapid exploration of information on 15 priority species. The project, NESP MaC 3.21, identified and evaluated publicly-available occurrence data for species listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in relation to the Gippsland declaration area in Bass Strait. The inventory was published by the Australian Ocean Data Network and last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Assess potential species distribution conflicts for offshore wind energy development based on the collated occurrence data.
• Support regulatory processes for environmental approvals based on the inventory of publicly-available data sources.
• Identify gaps in accessible data for threatened shorebirds to guide future data collection efforts.

Strengths

• Focuses on 15 priority species identified by Australian government departments DCCEEW and NOPSEMA.
• Explicitly evaluates data utility for regulatory assessments required for offshore energy projects.
• Data inventory is part of a structured project (NESP MaC 3.21) with a defined methodology.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The inventory is specific to one species (Eastern Curlew) from a list of 15; full dataset requires a separate download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Rapid exploration involving dataset identification, source evaluation, and utility assessment for regulatory processes.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-19 21:34:19.166786; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Gippsland declaration area and adjacent areas in Bass Strait, Australia.