4 – The extent and adequacy of monitoring for Australian threatened bird species^51distributions) and a suite of visiting seabirds that range widely across the oceans
but are not assessed either at sea or at their foreign breeding sites.
Recovery plans inf luence both whether a taxon is likely to be monitored and
the quality of monitoring that occurs. Analysis of a random sample of recovery
plans suggested that recovery plans have had little impact, but the study
acknowledged that even a good plan is of little use if there is no recovery team (or
equivalent) to drive it, or if there is no will or resources to implement it (Bottrill et
al. 2011). Nevertheless, it was found that even just the presence of a recovery plan
(a)(b)Fig. 4.5. (a) White-capped albatrosses, SW Cape, Auckland Island. Photo: B. Baker. (b) Monitoring of the
number of albatrosses killed by longline fishing in the 1990s was instrumental in developing a global program
for their conservation. Photo: R. Gales.