Swift Parrot in the news again

Posted on 2 June, 2021 by Ivan

Swift Parrots are one of the iconic species of our Box-Ironbark region. The Mount Alexander region is one of its favored mainland foraging locations and it is particularly well known from the forests of Muckleford. On the Australian mainland, it’s a migratory visitor during the winter months for non-breeding activities only. All Swift Parrot breeding occurs in Tasmania during the spring-summer months, and this is where the Swift Parrot has recently been in the news.

The Swift Parrot featured in the news again this week and for all of the wrong reasons. The news article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and highlighted some of the challenges this stunning parrot is facing in Tasmania with recent logging activities in core habitat areas. The article provides a detailed interview with Dr Matthew Webb, a conservation scientist at Australian National University who monitors the spatial range of the nomadic swift parrots during their breeding season.

Please read on for an extract of the article, courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald. You can also read all about Swift Parrots in our region – click here

‘Leave the forests alone’: Swift action needed to save endangered parrots

Late last year, Dr Matthew Webb arrived at a patch of forest on the east coast of Tasmania expecting to find swift parrots feeding on the creamy white eucalyptus blossom and flitting, with distinctive speed, to nearby nesting trees.

Dr Webb has been studying these birds – the fastest parrot on Earth – and their summer breeding sites in Tasmania for more than 15 years.

When he arrived, the swift parrots were there. But so too were large trucks and heavy machinery logging trees in the Eastern Tiers forest reserve, despite the presence of the critically endangered birds.

It’s not that the presence of parrots in this coupe was unexpected.

Dr Webb is a conservation scientist at Australian National University who monitors the spatial range of the nomadic swift parrots during their breeding season. And he routinely notifies the state forestry agency – Sustainable Timber Tasmania – and the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment about parrot habitat. Yet this keeps happening.

Swift parrots are critically endangered.

‘I still really enjoy the work but what’s not enjoyable is returning to places that I’ve been monitoring for years and finding really critical breeding or feeding habitat turned into a hundred hectares of clear-fell,’ Dr Webb says. ‘This means not only more habitat loss but also active nests being knocked over.’

Swift parrots are a critically endangered bird found only in south-eastern Australia, whose decline is largely due to loss of habitat through deforestation and predation by sugar gliders, an introduced species in Tasmania.

To read the full article in the Sydney Morning Herald, please – click here