The Australian government recently listed the Tasmanian swift parrot as critically endangered. That came after the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world authority on endangered species, also upgraded the status to critically endangered, counting perhaps 2,000 of the birds left in the wild.
Alarm bells started ringing last year after researchers at the Australian National University concluded that the swift parrot could be extinct by 2031. Scientists said the population of the birds could halve every four years and 94.7 per cent would be wiped out over 16 years.
Sugar gliders, recently introduced predators, as well as habitat destruction are to blame for the decline, according to experts.
“The next goal for our research group is to figure out what needs to happen to turn the swift parrot trajectory around, because they are only one step from extinction,” Dr. Dejan Stojanovic of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, said in a statement released this spring.
So, it was little surprise this week when researchers posted their outrage on social media about wood thieves chopping down trees that are home to their feathered friends.
We just stumbled on wood thieves cutting down a swifty nest tree an stealing our cameras pic.twitter.com/a67ifIWJen
— SWIFT PARROT (@teamswiftparrot) July 27, 2016
These guys literally just cut down a swifty nest tree and stole our cameras pic.twitter.com/a9aSSfs9Dg
— SWIFT PARROT (@teamswiftparrot) July 27, 2016
Do you buy your firewood from wood thieves? These guys just felled swift parrot nest trees and pinched our cameras pic.twitter.com/DkDfj0vdMc
— SWIFT PARROT (@teamswiftparrot) July 27, 2016
Researchers reported the thieves to police and voila, within a day, arrests were made.
.@TasmaniaPolice did a great job- they’ve come straight out and I think they’ve found the culprits already!! pic.twitter.com/vQ90aIeDl4
— SWIFT PARROT (@teamswiftparrot) July 27, 2016
So, in sum:
If you do this.
Then, this happens: These guys are left homeless.
So, don’t cut down trees and don’t buy wood from roadside vendors. There is actually a national firewood certification scheme, but only two suppliers in the Tasmania are signed on.
Make sure these little birds have a fighting chance to beat extinction. Because this shouldn’t be happening.
We interrupted them at the nest tree -the half cut tree collapsed when a gentle breeze nudged it 15 min later pic.twitter.com/UNWZFM7gZe
— SWIFT PARROT (@teamswiftparrot) July 27, 2016
Photos Team Swift Parrot/Australian National University/Twitter
