Petition to Gladstone Regional Council:
Protect the Rainbow Bee-eater Nesting Grounds at the 1770 SES grounds.

Each year, the Rainbow Bee-eaters return to the 1770 SES Grounds to nest. These stunning, migratory birds dig delicate tunnels in the sandy soil to lay and raise their young. They rely on quiet, safety, and constant care that includes not just mum and dad adults, but helper birds too, that visit each nest up to 30 times an hour!

But again, Gladstone Regional Council is advertising a festival during peak nesting season...

Why..?

This isn’t just inconvenient for the birds. It’s absolutely lethal.
When festival infrastructure is built over the nests, parent birds can’t get in. The chicks go unfed. The tunnels collapse. The result is mass death—frazzled birds, abandoned chicks, and empty burrows.
All for the sake of a party.

Is this really who we are? Is this the example we want to set for our kids? That it’s okay to kill for the sake of entertainment?

Reporting rates for Rainbow Bee-eaters on the east coast have dropped by more than 50% since 2001.  Last year, when no festival went ahead, 144 active nests were recorded at the 1770 SES Grounds with drone imaging and on the ground counts. 

If the festival proceeds this year, many of those birds won’t survive. There are many other venues that can host festivals during the nesting season within the region. 
There is no good reason to hold the festival at the SES Grounds at this time of year.

The nesting area is officially closed from 1st September to 31st January. Yet, Council keeps telling event organizers they can apply for a Species Management Program (SMP). Their permits are designed to allow the trapping, disturbing, or killing of protected wildlife.
How insane!

That’s not leadership. That's not compassionate. That’s not listening.
And it’s not okay.

These birds don’t have a voice.
But we do!

Please sign this petition and tell Gladstone Regional Council:

"No more festivals on the 1770 SES Grounds during nesting season. There are other options."