24 December 2012

Message from Bob Brown

Bob Brown is a former Australian politician and parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens Party. Renowned as a great champion of environmental causes, he rose to national prominence in 1981/2 when, as director of the Wilderness Society, he helped galvanise opposition to damming of the Franklin River which lies in a particularly beautiful part of the mid-northern Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. (Melaleuca, the Orange-bellied Parrot breeding grounds, is situated in the same Wilderness Area, further south.)

After careers in both state and federal politics, Bob stood down from the Australian Senate in June 2012. He continues active campaigning for the environment and helps fund worthy causes through his Bob Brown Foundation.

In 2005, Bob brought a legal case against Forestry Tasmania in an attempt to stop logging in Wielangta Forest, an important habitat for four endangered species, including the Swift Parrot. These birds frequent his country property in spring and summer. He often wears a Swift Parrot lapel pin on his jacket.

Save the Orange-bellied Parrot is an unashamed fan of Bob Brown for his courage, tenacity and intelligence. His contribution to the environment movement in Australia is immeasurable. So when we spied him walking along Melbourne's Southbank in mid-November, we did what a star-struck teenager would do: we bowled up and said hi.

Bob was pleasant and down-to-earth. He listened to us gush, introduced his partner and met our friends. We had a thoroughly good time, talking about - you guessed it - Swift Parrots and Orange-bellied Parrots. When we parted, he promised to write something for readers of Save the Orange-bellied Parrot.

Two weeks before Christmas, it arrived - a hand-written card in a hand-addressed envelope. Here's what Bob wrote:

The Orange-bellied Parrot is as beautiful a creature as Earth's biosphere contains.
Yet we, who dominate, expand and displace, are about to extrude this delightful fellow species from existence here on Earth, unless we take decent stock.
My gratitude and congratulations to all those who are working to save the Orange-bellied Parrot from extinction.

Bob Brown, Cygnet 11.12.12 


13 November 2012

Fifteen Years Between OBPs


Karaarf Wetland, 21 July 2012


Over the years I have conducted dozens of Orange-bellied Parrot surveys at Karaarf Wetlands (the Point Impossible Saltmarsh), near Torquay, but more recently I have tended to conduct my regular surveys at other nearby expanses of saltmarsh instead.  

On 21 July 2012, having visited the nearby creek estuary to look at the wintering Double-banded Plovers, as an afterthought I decided to renew my acquaintance with the wetland, and tramped into the saltmarsh.  I simply wanted to see what birds were about, and watching parrots was the last thing on my mind.

The going is never easy at this site, as extensive sections are vegetated with tall Shrubby Glasswort bushes which are largely impenetrable, and so I kept mainly to the ‘creeks’ that meander through the area as well as the trails that are trampled by the resident kangaroos.

After I had trudged through the saltmarsh for some time, surrounded by the usual species — White-fronted Chats, Little Grassbirds, Striated Fieldwrens, Eurasian Skylarks and the like — I stopped and scanned across the canopy of the vegetation, and was surprised to see a Blue-winged Parrot in the very top of a shrub, only about 20 metres away.  I was even more surprised to see through my binoculars a couple of much brighter parrots among the foliage of the same bush — Orange-bellied Parrots! 

The longer I looked, the more parrots I could see clambering about among the foliage, but it was the two bright ones that held my attention.  I was able to creep closer to them, and tick off the characteristic features of Orange-bellied Parrots; they were easily compared with the nearby Blue-winged Parrots. 

After confirming my rare sighting, I tried to obtain a view from a different angle to see whether they were banded (their legs were obscured by the grey-green foliage from this front-on angle).  When I moved, I managed to flush all of the birds (a total of six BWPs and two OBPs).  As they flew off, the two Orange-bellied Parrots gave their characteristic buzzing call, something I had not heard for at least 15 years, but it was, nevertheless, instantly recognisable. 

Tellingly, the Blue-winged Parrots flew off to the south and circled around, quickly returning to roughly the same spot, while the two Orange-bellied Parrots flew off separately to the north-east, continuing in a straight line, gaining elevation all the while until they were lost to sight.

Subsequent searches of this and nearby wetlands over the next few days failed to relocate them.

Interestingly, my previous record of the species was also at this wetland, but in an entirely different section of the saltmarsh.  After that sighting, perhaps 15 years ago, I had always assumed that it was to be my last…

John Peter
Senior Writer, Birdlife Australia
  

19 September 2012

A message from Peter Doherty


Professor Peter Doherty is one of Australia's most respected scientists. Originally trained as a vet, he took a PhD in 1970 before beginning research into the human immune system and how immune cells protect against viruses. This work with colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, ultimately saw him awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was made Australian of the Year in 1997, is a National Trust Living National Treasure, a Companion of the Order of Australia, and has received countless prestigious international honours.

Based at Melbourne University's Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Professor Doherty lectures widely and has also commenced a writing career, beginning with The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize, published in 2005. 

A wonderful speaker, he combines great erudition with engaging wit. At the recent Melbourne Writers Festival, Professor Doherty spoke about his latest book, Sentinel Chickens. He also sent this message to supporters of the Orange-bellied Parrot.

Whether we look at the natural world and its avian inhabitants through the lens of the avid bird watcher, the concerned environmentalist, the religious believer who is obsessed with the magnificence of creation, or the data sets analysed by professional scientists, it is clear that the loss of any unique species is a matter of grave concern.

In the deep past, many such extinctions have occurred as a direct result of dramatic climate events causing habitat change, or rainfall loss, that made life untenable. Other extinctions have followed the introduction, or evolution, of predators (rats) or disease, perhaps (as occurred with avian malaria in Hawaii) as a consequence of human activities.

The orange-bellied parrot has become a symbol of avian species loss in contemporary Australia. We need to know how many survive, where these birds are and whether habitat (or other changes) that result from our activities are causing their decline.  That requires careful observation and analysis. 

If a cause can indeed be identified, that may well come into direct conflict with established economic interests. Changing that dynamic is likely to require broad community involvement and political action. The fate of the orange-bellied parrot is, in some senses, a test case for what is to come.

A number of threats to birds - and how birds help us discover more about our own health - are discussed in Peter Doherty’s 2012 book Sentinel Chickens: what birds tell us about our health and the world (Melbourne University Press). 

03 August 2012

The Accidental Sighting


It's not often anyone sees an Orange-bellied Parrot, especially when they're not really looking. But sometimes, mundane things like stopping for a cuppa can lead to extraordinary sights...


The little parrot looked unfamiliar so Lindy Frost snapped a few photos. She wondered, briefly, if it was an Orange-bellied Parrot. But no, she thought, ‘They’re just too rare’.

As it happens, the Port Macquarie school secretary, who was on a caravan holiday with her husband, had seen and photographed the first, documented OBP of the 2012 winter.

The Frosts were one week into their six-week trip through Victoria and South Australia. It was mid-morning and overcast as David (‘not a birder at all’) lowered the car’s tailgate and took out their camp stove. As he made morning tea, Lindy went for her customary stroll, looking for birds.

 Below the lighthouse at Airey’s Inlet on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Painkalac Creek runs through coastal scrub before meandering into the sea. Here in the gloom, an Orange-bellied Parrot was sitting in a dead tree, close enough for Lindy to see something on its leg. Later, it was discovered to be a juvenile bird sporting two leg bands.

‘It was fairly plain green and there didn’t seem to be much in the way of blue on its wings or other identifying features at all,’ she laughs. ‘The local bird brochure had Blue-winged Parrot in it, so I thought that must be it!’ Lindy watched the parrot for a minute or two before it flew off.

It wasn’t until the Frosts returned home that investigations began. Lindy’s father, Graeme Catt, and Alan Morris (NSW Birding-aus) sent the photos to Chris Tzaros (Birdlife Australia), and an identification was made in early July.


The bird – No. 351 on Lindy Frost’s lifelist – was seen on 11 April. It’s the inaugural OBP record for Airey’s Inlet, the first OBP sighting of 2012, and a rare find, she says, with understatement, she was ‘just really pleased to see’.

All photos digitally enhanced
Photos by Lindy Frost


27 July 2012

Orange-bellied Parrot population, Melaleuca, 2010-2012

                                                                
Arrivals and breeding data, breeding seasons 2010/11 and 2011/12 (Australian summer)

                                                                             2010/11     2011/12
Minimum adult males returned                                13                 14
Minimum adult females returned                              8                  8
Minimum breeding pairs                                           8                  8                        
Female breeding participation rate                         100%          100%                          
Fledglings from nest boxes                                      11                 11                
Minimum juveniles produced from natural nests    16                 3                         
Total juveniles                                                         27                14                     
Total known to be alive                                          48                 36                    
Founders collected                                                  21                  0                      
Total presumed to have migrated                           
  from Melaleuca in autumn                                  27                36    


The update states: 'These numbers are a minimum estimate because not all birds in the population are banded, and the numbers of unbanded birds are limited to the maximum observed at the same time'.                                 

30 June 2012

The Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team

Members of the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team, May, 2012:

Barry Baker (Birdlife Australia) - population and demographic science
Phil Bell (DPIPWE) - Threatened Species Section Manager
Peter Copley (DENR) - Threatened Species Ecologist, Recovery Team Chair, 2012
Jon Fallaw - Gippsland Regional Coordinator
Bob Green - Southeast South Australia Regional Coordinator
Jocelyn Hockley (DPIPWE) - Captive Management Species Coordinator
Mark Holdsworth - DPIPWE Tasmanian Program Coordinator
Jenny Lau  (Birdlife International) - Winter Survey Volunteer Coordination
Richard Loyn (DSE) - ecologist

The Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team, Adelaide, 2012

Michael Macgrath (Zoos Victoria) - captive management and metapopulation advisor
Peter Menkhorst (DSE) - ecologist
Craig Morley - Bellarine and Port Phillip Bay Regional Coordinator
Peter McGlone - Tasmanian Conservation Trust
Neil Murray (Latrobe University) - genetics advisor
Simon Nally (SEWPC) - Recovery plan development and implementation
Shane Pinner - Tasmanian Regional Coordinator
Rachel Pritchard (DSE) - Action Planning Group Coordinator
Jonathan Starks - Orange-bellied Parrot field ecologist
[Not in photo: Jenny Lau, Richard Loyn, Shane Pinner, Jon Fallaw, Phil Bell, Peter McGlone and Jonathan Starks]

***
Abbreviations: 
DPIPWE - Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water & Environment (Tasmania)
DENR - Department of Environment & Natural Resources (Commonwealth)
DSE - Department of Sustainability & Environment (Victoria)
SEWPC - Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population & Communities (Commonwealth) 


21 June 2012

Disturbing

There's something about rare and threatened species that makes people panic. Is it the thought that they won't get to see whatever it is, or get a good photo of it, or simply the nasty fact that sometimes, everyone else gets a good view of it but you don't?

Not far from Melbourne, three Orange-bellied Parrots have frequented a well-known location since late April. Every day, a steady stream of vehicles has sailed down the gravel roads with breathless birdwatchers inside, eager for satisfaction.

Judging by the photographs posted on social media, many have had their fill, and more. With views of the birds only obtained by long telephoto lenses propped disturbingly close, beautiful images showing the beautiful birds now exist. Is this a bad thing?

How those photos were obtained, and how much we are disturbing the birds, was the subject of a recent request by the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team. It asked that visitors to the site uphold the principles of ethical birding set out by Birdlife Australia in this document. Key words used were 'disturbance', 'flushing', 'call playback' and 'photography'.

I would add the words, 'bird hide'.


Given that the appeal comes on the back of numerous reports of bad behaviour, this seems rather mild. The birds have been exposed in this spot for decades; the fact that this year people are doing what they've always done and are now being asked not to, demonstrates the serious concerns held.

Trouble is, we all fear the worst. If these parrots go down the gurgler, then best see 'em while we can. It's a 'Last Chance to See' mentality, even though the BBC radio documentary that highlighted nine threatened species and the TV program ten years later found all nine still around. 


But you never know. Disease, predators or bushfire could kill all 36, known, birds. 


Back at the worst-kept secret place in Australian birding, new, temporary 'Road Closed' signs discourage access to a track that borders roost trees. They do nothing to stop walkers, and you could easily remove them to permit vehicle access. Given the serious problem, I can only guess that it's too late to build a new set of permanent gates for this year's season. What a shame that they're needed.


It's difficult and expensive to see the birds in Tasmania but that's the most ethical place to photograph them. There, the birds feed twice a day at a table which has a perching stick fitted above. It looks natural, and the birds sit up nicely on it; many photographs taken in Tasmania show OBPs on that not-quite-natural stick. 


It's impossible to approach one close enough for meaningful pictures without entering its discomfort zone. As for call playback, the less said the better. Unfortunately, now that a free app has been released, call playback will be even more prevalent.


So what's a recovery team to do? Instead of seriously limiting access, there are now signs. Here's how they look:




And here's what they say:
Please do not venture beyond this point
Each autumn critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrots (OBPs)  make the arduous flight from remote SW Tasmanian breeding grounds to the mainland. Currently ___ and surrounding habitat is the most significant winter feeding area for the species. To aid a successful return migration the birds must focus on building up energy reserves.
OBPs will abandon feeding areas if repeatedly disturbed. Please limit your impact on the birds during this crucial feeding period by:
  • Staying out of the saltmarsh
  • Not pursuing the birds if flushed

No one in their right mind could believe this will stop everyone. It's too easy to forgive yourself the odd transgression, especially if no one else is looking. The Recovery Team must be counting on the shame factor to a large degree.


What really guided my behaviour on a recent visit was nothing to do with other people. I could charge into the saltmarsh (and I'm not perfect; I've done this before), I could look for the birds in their favourite roost. If I found them, then what? 


They've been identified, photographed, noted, sexed, had their bands read, observed. Most have even had their blood taken (as chicks). On seeing one, I would add to my own small tally of mainland memories - pictures of stupendous beauty, horribly in the balance - that I'll likely have forgotten by next year.


Or, I could imagine them, small, bright-green, somewhere in a tree or hidden in the saltmarsh. Each time they thought danger was past, along would come another human. Until they left the place completely, unable to feed without bother. 


What I think about is the spring migration back to Tasmania: how difficult it will be, how important. If I did anything to disrupt them and threaten their arduous existence, it would be my turn to panic.


Am I judgemental? Of course I am. Most people think they behave pretty well, whether it's 'justifiable road rage' or looking for one of the world's rarest birds. I will never tire of seeing OBPs but I have come to understand I can do them more good by looking for them elsewhere than observing them where they are.


With any luck, one day, there will be hundreds of these birds. Until then, birders, please think and reconsider.








13 June 2012

Meet the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team: Peter Menkhorst


Peter Menkhorst was one of the original members of the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team. An ecologist with Victoria’s Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Menkhorst has a special interest in little-known and threatened species. Among numerous projects, he is working on a new field guide to Australian birds, due out in 2014. He continues to be the Victorian Government representative on the Team.

Menkhorst is married to Barbara Gleeson; they have two adult children.



What are your first memories of birding?

I grew up in the Wimmera, on the edge of the Little Desert. My father was interested in wildlife and one of his hobbies was photography. By the time I was seven, I was getting up before dawn and sitting in a hide beside a Malleefowl mound [breeding chamber of the shy, southern Australian bird], learning to be totally still and silent.

When he was 12, Menkhorst’s family moved to bayside Melbourne, where the first bird he identified was a New Holland Honeyeater. His father gave him a copy of What Bird is That? [Australia’s first birding field guide], which he studied closely. ‘I knew all those Neville Cayley plates off by heart!he jokes. After an ‘undistinguished university career’, Menkhorst graduated with a degree in zoology.

Could you tell me about your work?

My first job was in the mammal department at the Museum of Victoria. It was fantastic. I used the museum collection data – 40,000 mammal specimens – to try to understand the distribution of mammals across the state.

In 1976, I got a job at the Arthur Rylah Institute [the research arm of the DSE] doing fauna surveys. For about 15 years, I did fieldwork, trapping and spotlighting for mammals, capturing reptiles and amphibians and atlassing birds. Ten of us went out for two weeks at a time. Some years, we did 10 surveys.

At that time, we didn’t have any idea of the distribution of Victoria’s native fauna, so it seemed obvious to collate the survey data into the Atlas of Victorian Wildlife. Victoria was the first state in Australia to have an atlas of wildlife and it’s still going.

Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia

In 1995, partly based on his mammal surveys, Menkhorst became the principal author and editor of Mammals of Victoria, a guide still widely cited as a reference. Another best-seller followed in 2003 – A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia, illustrated by Frank Knight and now in its third edition.

How did you get involved with the Orange-bellied Parrot?

Until the late 1970s, it had always been a mystery bird. No one knew anything about it. We knew they turned up around the shores of Port Phillip in winter, and people saw flocks – sometimes up to 50 – in a few spots. There were old records of breeding in Tasmania but no one knew where.

My first sighting was at the sewage farm (Werribee) in the late 1970s. There were about a dozen.

World Wildlife Fund provided money for the Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service to investigate, and that stimulated a whole lot of work, including the formation of the Recovery Team.

We were asked if anyone wanted to go to a meeting about this [bird]. No one else put their hand up so I said, I’ll go! That was in 1983, with people from Tassie, Victoria and South Australia.

Joe Forshaw, a Commonwealth bureaucrat and parrot expert, chaired the meeting. He said, ‘Right. We need to form a recovery team like the Americans do. Who wants to be on it?’ It was the first recovery team in Australia.

From my wildlife survey work, I’d identified a number of mammals and birds that were very poorly known. I wanted to help initiate work on them – species such as the OBP.

Could you comment on the recovery effort so far and what you would like to see in the future?

It hasn’t gone the way we would’ve hoped but we’re still battling on.

In five years, we want a captive population of 400, spread over at least half a dozen facilities. We want a wild population persisting. And we’ll hopefully have started releasing captive-bred birds at Melaleuca again, while there’s still a wild population there.

If we have 100 captive pairs (breeding), we’ll be doing well. If we have 400 birds and perhaps 150 pairs breeding, we can produce 300 to 400 birds for release, which is massively more than we’ve ever had.

Half of them disappear within a year. Once you get them through that first year, survival is a lot better.


Some people wonder whether double-clutching might work with OBPs [technique where one clutch of eggs is removed to try to produce a second clutch]. Has it been tried?

We’ve tried but haven’t had much success. Partly that’s because they’ve evolved to breed on a fairly high latitude, where the summer is short. They’re not used to laying two clutches.

There isn’t time. Being a migratory species, they’ve a fairly short window in southern Tasmania to breed. So they’re not really wired to churn out lots of clutches like some other species, like the Helmeted Honeyeater. We’ve put [OBP] eggs under Blue-wing Parrots. But the female OBP doesn’t necessarily lay again. They just don’t seem to be geared for it.

What’s the most important thing the public can do to help?

Provide political support. And they can volunteer to search for birds.  And we desperately need money.

Finally, why the need for a new field guide to Australian birds?

There are four pretty good guides but they were all written in the 1980s and look a bit dated. We plan several products [such as an app] but initially it’ll be a book, with fabulous illustrations by three of Australia’s best bird artists, and scientifically accurate and up-to-date text. I am a co-author with Danny Rogers and Rohan Clarke.

26 March 2012

Come Fly With Me

Come Fly With Me

The Orange-bellied Parrot only makes headlines for two ominous reasons: either the species is blamed for threatening coastal developments (most recently a marina in Western Port Bay, south of Melbourne) or is labelled as threatened; a bird flying rapidly towards extinction. Deep in southwest Tasmania, however, Debbie Lustig and other volunteers are trying to give these parrots a fighting chance.


The plants are low and shrubby on the buttongrass moorlands of Melaleuca, in southwest Tasmania. On the sedge (a grassy plant) there’s a summer show of small, delicate wildflowers: white tea-tree, pink ‘fairies’ aprons’, trigger plants and lilac clusters of flowering swamp melaleuca that give the place its name.

But these pretty plants are of scant interest to my fellow birdwatchers and me. Late last year, we visited Melaleuca, in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area, and kept watch on patches of eucalypts that sprout in the gullies. In many of those trees, two or three wooden nestboxes are nailed. And in some of those nestboxes lie the future of an entire species: Neophema chrysogaster, the orange-bellied parrot.

This summer was decisive for the critically endangered bird, which is only found in southern Australia. While 180 parrots are kept under tight security in breeding facilities (in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and NSW), in recent years the wild population has nosedived. We’re now facing a horrible prospect: extinction-in-the-wild by around 2015.

Does anyone catch a whiff of the Tasmanian Tiger story in this? In 1936, the last thylacine perished in captivity: a wild animal, caught, alone and caged in the Hobart Zoo. Orange-bellied parrots could end up as museum pieces, too.
The birds at Melaleuca now number a scant 34 and the wild total is almost certainly no more than 50. With only eight females presently nesting at Melaleuca, it remains to be seen whether successful breeding has taken place.

By February last year, 27 chicks had fledged, which was judged a breeding success. It was certainly more than double the output from the previous two years, when it’s believed not enough females attempted to breed.

It’s not clear why this occurs. Scientists refer to possible ‘inbreeding depression’, a condition in which the ability to survive and reproduce is reduced by the mating of closely related individuals. Or is it something to do with degraded mainland habitats, where they migrate for the winter? Or perhaps the recent years of severe drought?

Last winter, several parrots were seen 26 times on the mainland in Victoria, between Werribee and Queenscliff. With the drought now over, it was hoped they had crossed Bass Strait in good enough condition to breed once they reached Melaleuca. But even in favourable conditions, a 45g bird flying across Bass Strait twice a year is the equivalent of an ultra-marathon. Compounding the population’s steep decline was last year’s decision to remove 21 juveniles hatched in the wild. These were sentto breeding facilities in order to bolster the captive flock’s gene pool.

Scientists aim to increase this captive flock as quickly as possible. When it reaches 400, large numbers will be released at Melaleuca. Will this succeed? Will there be enough genetic variation to sustain the parrots? Will there even be any wild birds left? Much is at stake for the bird the former Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett, once dubbed a ‘trumped-up corella’.

***

For two weeks, I volunteered at Melaleuca. Twice daily, my colleagues and I sprinkled sprouted canary seed on a stainless steel table laid with rubber mats (which stopped seed blowing away and gave the birds a foothold). Reading their leg bands, we noted each arrival. Danger was all around for the sociable, buzzy creatures, with swooping raptors and currawongs in the sky, and tiger snakes on the ground. The table’s legs were smeared with grease to repel the latter, while the observation point itself had been moved, partly to avoid proximity to chick-eating currawongs.


We sat for two hours, morning and evening, in a flimsy tent in the middle of the windswept plain, peering through a telescope. South was the quartzite-studded hulk of the New Harbour Range; to the north, Mount Rugby’s jagged outline. And before us, up to eight at a time, the bright green, blue, orange, yellow, aqua and orange-bellied parrots shoved their beaks into piles of small yellow seed.

Most birds sported the coloured and lettered leg bands, which help trace their breeding and migration. (Six were unbanded – which raises the question of where they came from.) We got to know them individually, like pets: Yellow Blue D’s sapphire forehead was patchy on one side; Silver Red M turned up with a female and, unforgettably, fed her, regurgitating his own meal into her upturned beak. Another unbanded female looked tufty and bedraggled, beginning to moult after two months in her nest.

We listened intently. Long before they flew in, they called their distinctive, metallic ziiitttt! then perched near the table before alighting, momentarily confident of their safety. Every day, their arrow-shaped silhouettes zapped clear across the plain.

The weather in southwest Tasmania is legendary. A day that begins with ribbons of mist snaking low above the creeks and rosy skies turning the mountains soft blue can change in an hour to squall, rain or sleet. Quartzy paths become streams and the cut-peat walking tracks become knee-deep mud. So why would a bird choose this habitat to breed?

The answer lies in the vegetation. Plants like paper daisy and dozens of grasses and sedges provide a reliable summer diet. The birds feed near the ground and nest in the hollows of peppermint gums on the edge of the plains and in valleys surrounding Melaleuca. Also, since the 1980s, in wooden nestboxes. When hungry, a free feed awaits at the feeding table – maintained by anxious, hopeful volunteers like me – throughout the summer.

The Commonwealth, Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian governments provide funding for orange-bellied parrot work. This year will see the release of a new five-year plan, in which scientists cost the work that’s needed. But since the first plan was produced in 1984, a proposed action-plan has never been fully funded. Without adequate funding, the team responsible for saving the orange-bellied parrot is unable to do its work properly. Moreover, the team’s members have other responsibilities; nobody works full-time on orange-bellied parrot conservation.

This bird doesn’t deserve to be blamed for being helped to stay alive, even if doing so means some developments are occasionally stalled. If the orange-bellied parrot disappears, another facet of what makes Australia unique will go with it.

Debbie Lustig administers ‘Save the Orange-bellied Parrot’ on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/savetheobp. The Wildcare ‘Save the Orange-bellied Parrot Fund’ will aid research and conservation: http://www.wildcaretas.org.au/programs?corporate_type_ID=9

Photograph of Melaleuca by Chris Tzaros; Orange-bellied Parrot photo by Debbie Lustig. This article first appeared in The Big Issue No 402 13-26 March 2012.