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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/02/australia-swift-parrot-extinction-fears-logging>
"“They’re really cute. They are very chatty. When they’re around you know
they’re around,” says conservation scientist Giselle Owens. “They make this
little flying call – it goes ‘pip, pip, pip, pip’.”
So fascinated was Owens by the critically endangered swift parrot, she is
writing a PhD on the bird, which is one of just two migratory parrot species in
the world, and the farthest flying.
The other is also a critically endangered Australian species – the
orange-bellied parrot.
Earlier this year, Owens led a paper with a group of researchers from the
Australian National University that modelled new population projections for the
swift parrot.
What they found was concerning. Based on years of extra population data, the
projections suggested the outlook for the parrot was getting worse.
They projected there would be fewer than 100 individuals in the population by
2031, with a mean population of just 58 birds, unless there was drastic
conservation intervention. They forecast a 92.3% decline in the population over
an 11-year period beginning in 2020.
“The rate of decline is faster and the timescale [in which it occurs] is
shorter,” Owens says.
She says the model is also unfortunately an optimistic assessment because it
excludes threats to the bird, except for sugar glider predation. The impact of
the key threat to the species – logging of its forest breeding habitat – will
be the subject of further modelling.
Samantha Vine, the head of conservation and science at BirdLife Australia, says
“we are watching extinction in real time for the swift parrot”.
“I’ve got a little boy starting school next year. This research says that by
the time he finishes high school it might be too late for this spectacular
bird,” she says."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
