Forestry Tas Shops For Green Credentials To Give Wings To Plan To Trash Swift Parrot

Swift Parrot. Imabe by Henry CookAn endangered bird, a government-owned logging corporation and a desperate plan to get better green bragging rights. Thom Mitchell reports.

Tasmanian Authorities have again been called out for failing to protect the endangered Swift Parrot, with three prominent environment groups yesterday slamming Forestry Tasmania for disregarding scientific warnings to make way for the logging of its last sanctuary.

Even as the government corporation seeks to be certified as a sustainable forester, it is reportedly fishing for a green group that will give wings to its plans to log in contravention of scientific evidence.

The outcry follows an earlier debacle, exposed by Environment Tasmania late last month, which revealed the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment ignored its own scientists’ expert advice and forged ahead with the logging of key breeding habitat.

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A Flydown Of Parrot Populations In Southern California

Red-masked parakeet in Ocean Beach, SD, CAIf you want to be the life of the party, chat it up about parrots in Southern California—but keep three things in mind: green doesn't mean much, “eBird” refers not to an avian email service but a parrot population tracker and a squawk is worth a thousand words.

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Tasmanian Swift Parrot is on Brink of Extinction, Finds News Study

Swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) on Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia. Image by JJ HarrisonThe critically endangered swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) could become extinct within less than two decades, says a new study published online in the journal Biological Conservation.

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Crowds chip in to save bird species

Swift parakeet with chicks. Image by Greens MPThree highly vulnerable birds species in Tasmania may find their numbers are given a reprieve from almost certain extinction after Australian National University researchers turned to crowdsourcing site Pozible to raise money for nesting boxes.

Dejan Stojanovic and Robert Heinsohn put their project to raise $40,000 to provide nesting boxes for the swift parrot, forty-spotted pardalote and orange-bellied parrot, all of which are being decimated by the sugar-glider possum which was introduced into Tasmania sometime over the past 50-100 years.

Forestry activity appears to have spurred possum numbers, which prey on adult nesting females and their eggs.

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Canberra's playful cockatoos and cheeky corellas ruffle a few feathers

Cheeky corellas just wanna have fun. Image by Jay CronanWith easy pickings of fruit, berries, nuts, bulbs and seed in Canberra, cockatoos and corellas have plenty of time left to play, a hallmark of their intelligence, according to avian experts.

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