Coastal development has shrunk the Eastern bristlebird’s habitat. The birds are feeble flyers, and so populations die out when their habitat patches become too small. Fewer than 2,500 Eastern individuals remain, spread across three locations on Australia’s east coast, including a 400-strong population that straddles the Victoria-New South Wales border at Cape Howe.
Massive wildfires early in 2020 wiped out the bristlebird habitat on the NSW side of of Cape Howe; that on the Victorian side remained unburnt.