The Swift Parrot was reclassified to “Critically endangered” category in the IUCN Red List

Conservation projects

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VIDEO IN – According to recent decrease of this species in the wild it was decided to reclassify it to a new category within the IUCN Red List.  That’s why the Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor) is not considered as “Endangered” anymore but as “Critically endangered”, the highest level. This news was announced on the official website of BirdLife Int.

Australian researchers and conservationists warn government about decline of this species within the few last years. Today, there is probably less than 2000 individuals in the wild. Dejan Stojanovic post-doctoral fellow at the Senner School of Environment and Society suggested that in the next 12-18 years the population is going to be reduced by 87% and will so vanish then.  “The models showed that in every scenario that we tested, swift parrots were on a trajectory towards extinction within three generations,” he said for ABC news.

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There are several factors which stay behind this bad situation. Firstly, Swift parrots similarly like Orange-bellied parrots (Neophema chrysogaster) migrate from South Australia to Tasmania for breeding which makes them more susceptible.

Secondly, Sugar gliders predate their nests very often. „And that predation was so severe that, on average across mainland Tasmania, only 17 per cent of swift parrot nests were actually successful and all of those failures were as a result of sugar gliders eating the swift parrot, either the females or their eggs or both,” explained Dejan Stojanovic for ABC News how deep impact have these predators on the wild population of the Swift Parrot.

The third cause is serious habitat loss. One of the campaign managers Warwick Jordan said for ABC News: “It’s got to the point where any areas of habitat that contain mature forest and are the type of forest that swift parrots nest in are important for the species.”

“What our modelling has shown is that you’d be looking at excluding from harvesting around 3 per cent of the total area that Forestry Tasmania manages for logging,” he added.

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Tasmanian government approved deforestation of the Swift Parrot’s natural habitat, contrary to researchers recommendation

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Title photo: (c) JJ Harrison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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