BrokenWing Chronicles
Paradise Parrot
Psephotus pulcherrimus
The Paradise Parrot is presumed extinct. Its demise highlights the need to recognise declines in populations before they reach critically low levels.
Although 26 species of Australian birds are classified as endangered, the spectacular Paradise Parrot is the only mainland species of bird to become extinct since white settlement. Paradise Parrots lived in dry open woodland and nested in terrestrial termite mounds. The processes that caused their extinction operated largely unnoticed.
Claims of the continued existence of the Paradise Parrot have failed to give any hopes for its survival. The presumed extinction of this bird has been variously attributed to over-grazing, clearing, changes in fire regime, choking of habitat by Prickly Pear and extended drought.
Solution:
There is no solution to extinction, but the processes that cause loss of biodiversity (such as habitat degradation) can be turned around in our lifetime. If they are not, the insidious and final process of extinction will continue.
Graceful bird
The Australian continent is so vast and sparsely inhabited, that once a species is considered extinct, one may always hope that it will be rediscovered. There is, however, little hope that the Paradise Parrot still survives. The decline of this species is well documented and may have started well before the Europeans invaded Australia. The introduction of cattle was fatal. The parrots fed on grass seeds, and livestock doubtlessly reduced this food supply. Many died as the ranchers deliberately set fire to the plains to stimulate the growth of fresh grass for the cattle, while rats had easy access to the eggs and young, which were hidden in burrows.
Man also posed a direct threat. This beautiful parrot was favoured as a cage bird, especially in England. In 1884 the British ornithologist William Thomas Greene wrote in his book Parrots in captivity: "No one can see it without desiring to possess so beautiful and graceful a bird, and large sums are constantly being paid for handsome specimens by amateurs; but alas! one in a dozen survives a few months and - dies suddenly in a fit." After the drought of 1902 the species seemed to have disappeared. A newspaper campaign led to its rediscovery, though the bird had become very rare. Since 1927 the Paradise Parrot has not been seen.
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http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47BrokenWing