Distribution of Black-breasted Button-quail in the Fitzroy Basin. Stage 2, Dawson River surveys and habitat evaluation (Report to Fitzroy Basin Association)

The Black-breasted Button-quail (Turnix melanogaster) is listed as ‘vulnerable’ under the Regulations of the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992 and the Federal Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Historically, Black-breasted Button Quails occupied a range from Marlborough in the north, south to northern NSW and approximately 300 km inland including the Dawson and Fitzroy valleys in central Queensland (Bennett 1985; Garnett et al. 2011; Hamley et al. 1997; Marchant and Higgins 1993); corresponding to the South-east Queensland and Brigalow Belt Bioregions (Sattler and Williams 1999). However, as recently as the mid 1990s, this species was thought to be no longer present in the Fitzroy River basin with its northern limit at Inskip Point near Fraser Island (Marchant and Higgins 1993; Pizzey and Knight 1997). In the previous stage of this project, several new sites supporting Black-breasted Button-quail were found showing that Black-breasted Button-quail may be more common in the Fitzroy Basin than previously thought (Houston et al. 2011).