Birdwatchers in Tasmania are hoping that the naming of the swift parrot as Bird of the Year in a national poll will boost the chances of its survival.
The “swifty” emerged winner in the contest earlier this month after seeing off competition from the tawny frogmouth.
The publicity afforded to the critically endangered species could not have come at a better time. It has been revealed in recent years that numbers of swift parrots are in freefall and there are concerns it could become extinct in the wild within ten years.
Alarm was first raised when an extensive survey in the parrot’s breeding grounds in Tasmania revealed that numbers were at less than 650 birds, from more than 2000 pairs a few years previously.
Earlier this year, researchers from the Australian National University modelled new population projections for the parrot. Based on years of extra population data, the projections suggested the outlook for the parrot was getting worse.
It has long been believed that logging of the parrot’s favoured blue gums was largely responsible for their demise but extensive monitoring of parrot nesting sites has revealed that predation by introduced gliders has become another factor in the population decline.
The sugar gliders have been found to kill up to 80 per cent of nesting swift parrots and their chicks in forests where the two species overlap. Conservationists still argue, however, that forest clearance is the main reason for the decline and if a moratorium on logging in known habitat came into play the swift parrot could be saved.
Predation by sugar gliders intensifies in areas where there is extensive clearing and the forest becomes more fragmented.
Swift parrots do not necessarily return to the same forests each year, depending on whether the spasmodically flowering blue gums are in bloom, and so saving known breeding sites with suitable nesting cavities is not a solution.
The swift parrot is one of just three migratory parrot species in the world, and the farthest flying. Another breeding exclusively in Tasmania, the orange-bellied parrot, is also critically endangered.
The swift parrots migrate to Victoria and New South Wales in the autumn. There the ironbark forests it uses as wintering grounds are also under threat.
The orange-bellied parrot came close to vanishing in the wild three years ago when only 12 birds returned to their single breeding ground at Melaleuca in the far south-west, but a comprehensive conservation program has built this number to a still precarious 70.
There are fears this situation may be repeated with the swift parrot.
As Samantha Vine, the head of conservation at Birdlife Australia, says: “We are watching extinction in real time for the swift parrot.
“I’ve got a little boy starting school next year. This research says that by the time he finishes high school it might be too late for this spectacular bird.”