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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Orange-bellied parrot chicks start showing true colours

The orange-bellied parrot chicks born at Taroona will be raised in captivity for most of this year.SEVENTEEN orange-bellied parrot chicks born at Taroona earlier this year have fledged.

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Tasmania’s endangered orange-bellied parrots are bouncing back

DPIPWE officer Jocelyn Hockley looks after some 15-day-old orange-bellied parrots at Taroona. Picture: MATT THOMPSON WILD and captive populations of Tasmania’s most critically endangered bird are growing as wildlife authorities continue to work to save the orange-bellied parrot.

Another 17 clutches of chicks have been born through a government breeding program at Taroona, and eight of the chicks have now fledged.

They will be raised and released next summer as part of a soft-release program which is bearing solid early results.

Under the program, the birds are taken to Melaleuca, in the remote South-West, where they are housed in open-door aviaries to help the birds ease their way into the wild.

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Orange bellied parrots' wild population doubles after scientific recovery program

Orange-bellied parrot, male. Researchers have seen orange bellied parrot numbers double after the release program.One of the world's rarest species, the orange bellied parrot, has bucked its long-term trend of decline and almost doubled its wild population.

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A highway, a sewage plant and an endangered parrot

Despite its name, the orange-bellied parrot is actually predominantly green (Steve Davidson)The orange-bellied parrot is unique: a migratory parrot that can survive on only the high-salt plants found in Victorian and Tasmanian marshes. Unfortunately, it’s also highly endangered—with just 75 individuals left in the wild. Ann Jones meets the people fighting for this little bird’s survival.

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