Photo: (ray_turnbull/iNaturalist/CC-BY-ND) Retrieved from sciencealert.com
Over 80 critically endangered parrots have returned to their breeding ground in Tasmania – the highest number in 15 years.
Only 3 wild female orange-bellied parrots (Neophema chrysogaster) returned from their annual migration to the Australian mainland in 2016. The species was almost declared functionally extinct, despite decades of dedicated breeding programs and research into the colorful bird’s conservation.
And while their numbers finally seem to be heading in the right direction, there’s still a long way to go.
“It’s a huge team effort,” wildlife biologist Shannon Troy told Georgie Burgess at the ABC, explaining how volunteers have been crucial to helping researchers figure out how to aid these difficult birds that have seemed stubbornly set on becoming extinct.
For years, releasing captive-bred birds mysteriously failed to effectively boost the species’ numbers in the wild. Most youngsters have not been surviving the journey between their summer breeding ground in Melaleuca Tasmania, and their warm, winter foraging sites on the southern coastal salt marshes of mainland Australia.
“A lot of us spend the whole spring holding our breath waiting to see what’s going to happen,” says Troy, who is Program Manager at Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania.