Politicians, media and developers beat-up Orange-bellied Parrots

[Andrew Taylor <>]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 10:18:40AM +1100, Simon Mustoe wrote:
> A genuinely important birding issue for this list-server:
> http://bird-o.com/2012/02/09/obp-no-emotional-fairwell-from-aussie-media/

I think these pieces and the birdo article have the OBP world
population numbers wrong ("dropped from just 35 to 21 birds").

Isn't 21 the number of adult OBPs seen around Melaleuca this year?
Which is the same as last year and down from 23 the year before?

And this year's offspring are now part of the world population - I think
I heard they'd banded 10 and hopefully there are a few more.

Plus there might be some breeding elsewhere.  Or do the recovery
people think there are none left apart from the surrounds of Melaleuca?
You'd need a lot of helicopter time I'd have thought to check out all
the suitable habitat in the SW wilderness area.  I guess the proportion
of unbanded wintering birds gives you an idea of what if any breeding
is happening elsewhere.

Definitely agree with Simon about letting your MP know.

Andrew