Well, I think that agriculture, as opposed to pastoral, takes up only
a small part of their habitat. Their decline was due to clearance of
riverine woodland, and woodland generally (loss of nesting hollows)
and the replacement of natives grasses with non-native grasses that
they find less palatable. I imagine that clearance for agriculture was
less of problem for them than habitat alteration for pastoral grazing.
It may be that despite the fact that many SPs are killed along the
roads, the fact that grain spills are found along roads all through
their habitat may enable survival of a greater number of young each
year. It's difficult to think how you might test this hypothesis.
However SPs seem more common in the 2000s than they were in 1990s in
the area north west of Canberra, at any rate.
John Leonard
2009/1/6 Paul Burcher <>:
> I thought the reason they are listed as threatened was loss of habitat -
> mostly to make way for agriculture.
>
> Paul Burcher
>
> John Leonard wrote:
>
> Except that if the grain trucking industry didn't exist there might
> not be as many Superb Parrots in the first place!
>
> John Leonard
>
> 2009/1/5 bob moffatt <>:
>
>
> Grain haulage could be nominated as a key threatening process under the
> Threatened Species Conservation Act (?)!!!
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