Aussie Finch Forum

jusdeb wrote:Big country with most of the population living in coastal areas ...leaves a whole lot of places for a little bird to live happily and unseen .

How many people see them and not being bird lovers dismiss them as just pretty parrots ?

How many property owners see them and keep quiet for the sake of the bird ?

That is a very fair point, and there have been alot of sightings or rare birds skipping being told to the public, and going strait to the government. I do think that most farmers would have a field guide or a book of Australian Birds, and that they would like to know what they have living on their property, so I would think that if there were any of them on farms, the farmers themselves would know about them. But yes, people could be staying quite for the sake of the bird. It has happened many times before!

NRG,
In that part of australia people have 80000 acker farms so they could easily go unseen or the farmers just not say anything the hole population could be on just one farmers land.

I think its highly likely Nathan that even on big properties in that area that the Paradise Parrot would have been seen by now. Surely the birds have to move around a bit to source food. I would love to be proven wrong but i fear this bird is long gone.

Desertbirds,
Why did we let it go extinct it was such a beautiful parrot they should of conserved it . And why did it go extinct so quickly and when they new it was rear why did they not conserve it?.


Thanks Nathan

Conservation wasn't a priority untill the mid 1900s. There were some efforts to conserve the bird, starting in 1916, but They were all too late.

Its decline was probably caused by a reduction of its food supply due to drought, overgrazing, altered fire frequencies and the spread of prickly pears, with disease, trapping and egg-collecting, predation of nests by introduced and native species and clearance of eucalypts by ringbarking also contributing.

NRG,
Well that is very sad that they let it go extinct it's such a shame .

Thanks Nathan

Nrg800 wrote:Conservation wasn't a priority untill the mid 1900s. There were some efforts to conserve the bird, starting in 1916, but They were all too late.

Its decline was probably caused by a reduction of its food supply due to drought, overgrazing, altered fire frequencies and the spread of prickly pears, with disease, trapping and egg-collecting, predation of nests by introduced and native species and clearance of eucalypts by ringbarking also contributing.

They also used the termite nests to build tennis courts. The few adults seen were also shot for museums and collectors.

I agree that the chances of them still being around are virtually nil- but you never know!!

The night parrot is likely to be out there, just sparsely distributed.

As well as Penny Ohlson's book- Paradise Lost- Stan Sindel mentions that Joe Mattinson, an old breeder from Woollongong, new of where some were held in captivity on a farm, but were lost in floods. Again unsubstantiated. Some were even advertised at a national avicultural convention at Gosford in 1987, but these were golden-shouldred/mulga hybrids being passed off as paradise parrots. They were interesting birds but didn't look at all like paradise parrots IMO.

Personally I would love to see both species still alive but I do highly doubt it (night parrot possibly due to it's habits) what worries me most is the fact that the orange bellied parrot is down to less than 50 individuals....I banded these guys 15 years ago and there were a good 150 recorded at that time, it's sad to see a species in such decline

what would the captive population of Orange Bellies be roughly ?

No idea to be honest, I know Healesville had a population going and the article I read said that there was another captive population in Tassie but it doesn't sound like either is doing well