Today, we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to protect swift parrots and two other Tasmanian birds: orange-bellied parrots, and forty-spotted pardalotes. All three of these birds are threatened by sugar gliders. We are tying to develop glider-proof nest boxes, and undertake urgent research to understand how sugar gliders may be affecting these endangered Tasmanian birds. To do this, we’ve teamed up with Australia’s leading political cartoonists to raise money to support our research.
Swift parrots are currently listed as endangered at state, federal and international levels. But our modelling shows that the parrots meet international guidelines for being listed as critically endangered, joining nearly a hundred other animals facing a similar threat of extinction in Australia.
Parrot conflict zone
Swift parrots are one of only three migratory parrot species (the orange-bellied parrot, also found in Tasmania, is also critically endangered), and they spend their lives following rich patches of flowering trees across the forests of south east Australia.
This lifestyle brings them into direct conflict with people, and as a consequence of deforestation, collisions with human made structures, and other changes to their habitat, the species is seriously threatened.
Consequently, swift parrots pose big problems for those trying to save them, and are a regular subject of controversy.
Migratory species such as swift parrots are vulnerable to habitat degradation even in relatively small parts of their range.
This is because the entire population of swift parrots converges on small patches of flowering Tasmanian forest where the right trees occur to breed. Bottlenecks like these magnify the effects of habitat loss and other threats like predation.
Swift parrot nesting habitat has been deforested for agriculture, urban development and logging. Birds looking for a place to nest are squeezed into remaining habitat where they are very vulnerable to other threats.
Sweet possums with a savoury tooth
Recent research revealed that on the Tasmanian mainland, sugar gliders (a species probably introduced to Tasmania) are eating swift parrots in extraordinary numbers. Gliders eat eggs, nestlings and adult female swift parrots, as well as several other bird species that are small enough to subdue.
Swift parrots are more likely to be killed by a glider when forest in the surrounding landscape is disturbed. In small patches of nesting habitat where deforestation is severe, gliders can eat up to 100% of swift parrot nests.
These astonishingly high predation rates have worrying implications for the viability of the swift parrot population over the long term. Deforestation in important swift parrot breeding areas is still happening despite the link between forest loss and predation, and is the focus of ongoing dispute.
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