Northern
Masked
Owl
The Northern Masked Owl is one of Australia’s most elusive and least-studied raptors. It occurs in three broad and isolated populations across northern Australia: Cape York, the Top End and the Kimberley. The species favours mature woodlands in topographically complex terrain, riparian habitats and open woodlands where it hunts for terrestrial mammals in open ground. It appears to be in decline, and is listed federally as Vulnerable.
This research addresses three complementary objectives:
- Improve detection: predicting what Northern Masked Owl calls are likely to sound like across their range, and developing acoustic survey methods and a custom call recogniser to locate and monitor populations in remote landscape,
- Clarify trophic dependencies: quantifying diet at multi-year nest sites in the Kimberley to assess how reliance on small mammals may link the owl’s persistence to regional patterns of mammal decline, and
- Resolve taxonomy and conservation status: using genomic data to define evolutionarily meaningful population units, and critically reassessing distribution and conservation status across northern Australia.
Together, this work aims to provide a defensible platform for survey design, threat management and conservation policy for the Northern Masked Owl, and provides a template for improving outcomes for other elusive, data-deficient species.
Our Northern Masked Owl research is conducted in partnership with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and has been supported by Birds Queensland, BirdLife North Queensland, the BirdLife Australia Raptor Research Group, BirdLife Australia’s Stuart Leslie Bird Research Award, Owl Friendly Margaret River Region, and the University of Queensland.
