Bushfires have cut a trail of destruction across large parts of South Australia and Victoria in recent weeks, destroying farm livestock and entire populations of threatened native birds.

Two conservation parks in South Australia's Mallee region were home to the state’s only remaining populations of the Mallee Emu-wren, a tiny bird with distinctive emu-like tail feathers. Both sites have been engulfed in flames, and ecologists now say they are not sure how many of the endangered population may be left.

Another fire in the Victorian mallee has burnt an entire 13,000-hectare reserve, one of two small populations of the endangered Black-eared Miner. Around 35 per cent of the remaining habitat in South Australia's Riverland Biosphere Reserve has been burnt as well.

“Birds like the Black-eared Miner and Mallee Emu-wren have little chance of ever naturally repopulating these burnt-out areas due to the highly fragmented mallee landscape, coupled with their limited dispersal capabilities,” says Dr Rebecca Boulton, Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Dr Boulton leads a decade-long recovery effort aimed at boosting numbers of the Black-eared Miner through captive breeding and translocation programs, the release of female birds into new colonies and habitat management.

“For our wildlife, adaptation to fire is a common life-history strategy. Yet with land clearance, isolating and restricting many species' distributions, large bushfires now seriously threaten many species' survival,” she said

Research partner, ecologist Dr Rohan Clarke from Monash University's School of Biological Sciences, says breeding and recovery programs are critical to protecting endangered species.

“Following the recent fires, the global population of the Mallee Emu-wren is now restricted to a single reserve system in Victoria - one big fire could render the species extinct,” he said.

“Where wildfire is a threat it is absolutely critical that our eggs aren't all in one basket. To better manage risk we need well-funded recovery programs where the establishment of separate populations is a key measure of success.”

A recent review of Australia's bird fauna lists 27 bird species as extinct since European colonisation, with a further 20 classified as critically endangered and 60 endangered.