[7] The regent honeyeater was once common in wooded areas of eastern Australia, especially along the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range.

A spokesman for BirdLife Australia said this was indicative of the current drought conditions in northern New South Wales placing pressure on the birds to find more favourable food sources.

[15] The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2010, compiled by researchers from Charles Darwin University, and published in October 2011 by the CSIRO, added the regent honeyeater to the "critically endangered" list, giving habitat loss as the major threat.

[19] A genetic study published in 2019 used hybridization RAD (hyRAD) technique on recent and museum samples from wild birds ranging over a 100-year time frame sampled throughout the historical and contemporary range, and assessing the impact of the decline on recent and current population size, structure and genetic diversity.

[20] The museum sampling showed that population structure in regent honeyeaters was historically low, which remains the case despite severe fragmentation of their breeding range.

A March 2021 research study warned that the rapid decline in the rare songbird means its young are struggling to learn mating calls as adults disappear, which could further strain conservation efforts and avoid extinction.

According to one of the authors of the study, this loss of song can reduced the birds' ability to find a mate, and, if they do, the female is less likely to lay an egg.

[23] A captive breeding program on a private property in the Hunter Valley released 20 birds – 11 female and 9 male – into the wild in June 2020.

Another of the birds was found and led the conservationists to a new flock of wild regent honeyeaters near Broke, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the release site, of which they had not previously been aware.