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| Night Parrot |
It bounces among spinifex clumps in the desert like a wound-up
toy, puffs itself up to look like a green-and-gold echidna, and bangs its head
on the ground when excited. The night parrot, one of the world’s rarest and
most enigmatic animals, has not disappointed.
Bushman and naturalist John Young has generated enormous
interest with his discovery of the night parrot at an undisclosed location in
south-west Queensland. A conference hall at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane
this week was packed as Young revealed to the public the first photographs and
video footage ever taken of a bird that has confounded experts for more than a
century.
Where to now for this remarkable creature? Amid the
excitement surrounding Young’s extraordinary find - which involved him driving
325,000 km and spending 17,000 hours in the desert over several years – debate
is emerging about what should be done to seize an opportunity to protect a
critically endangered species.
Young is not notifying state or federal authorities of the
identity of the private grazing property where he found the birds. He insists
that the conservation of the night parrot is his primary concern and he intends
to raise at least $2 million so the property can be managed privately. Rights
to his photographs and video footage are up for sale. However, bird experts are
urging Young to back down and co-operate with government agencies.
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| Road-killed night parrot found near Boulia |
Young photographed the bird in the general region where two
dead night parrots were found 16 years apart – one near Boulia in 1990, the
other in the Diamantina National Park, 200 km away, in 2006. Other than those birds, the last confirmed
report was a century ago when a night parrot was collected at Nichol Spring,
Western Australia, in 1912.
A handful of sightings are the only other reports. Brisbane naturalist
David Stewart saw a night parrot along the Canning Stock Route, Western
Australia, in 1967. Scientist Shane Parker and tour operator Rex Ellis flushed
four birds from camels in 1979 at Lake Perigundi, South Australia. Environmental
consultants Rob Davies and Brenden Metcalf saw three birds at Minga Well, Western
Australia, in 2005. Some authorities question one or more of these reports.
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| John Young - Picture ABC News |
The spread of feral cats is a major factor in the demise of
the species. It was once common around Alice Springs, for instance; in 1892, it
was reported that “numerous” night parrots were killed by cats at the town’s
Old Telegraph Station.
Young was able to throw some light this week on how the bird
has evaded attention for so long. It calls sporadically and softly. The parrots
do not emerge from spinifex clumps in which they hide during the day to forage
until well after sunset. They appear to have no need of water, defying
expectations that they fly to watering holes at dusk. They do not flush from
daytime roosts if disturbed and generally are as cryptic as it is possible to
imagine.
Six weeks ago, Young lured a male night parrot into view
with a tape recording of its distinctive whistle and captured his magical
images. In 2008, he first heard the bird calling on the property near the
Queensland-Northern Territory border where he was to later photograph it. Although
he knew then that he had cornered the Holy Grail of the birding world, it was
five long years before the proof was in the bag. Said Young this week: “I understand why nobody ever found one
because it is so secretive. We were over the top of it most nights and it would
not call.” His recording of the call is the only one in existence. He does not
intend to release the recording, although some in the birding community argue that
its use across the parrot’s once vast inland Australian distribution would help
locate more parrots.
Young located a parrot’s roosting site as well as a nest; he
said he could hear the nestlings calling – proof of successful breeding. He
sent parrot feathers he collected for DNA analysis to the Western Australian
Museum. Nests are generally full of feathers but Young insists he did not
disturb the nest. Young said in one interview this week that the feathers were
collected from the roosting site, but in another interview he said they were “at
the road side”. Young says on his
Facebook page that a female bird was sitting on the nest but he does not
explain how he became aware of her presence; historical records show that night
parrots build nests deep within large spinifex clumps that are not easily
visible or accessible.
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| Spinifex of inland Australia - Night Parrot habitat |
WA Museum senior vertebrates curator Ron Johnstone tells Inquirer: “John indicated there were
feathers everywhere at the site. He says he’s got a heap of feathers.”
Australia’s leading authority on parrots, Joseph Forshaw, says he is puzzled at
how Young was able to collect a substantial quantity of feathers from either a
road verge or a roosting site.
Young is a controversial figure. He has admitted to
colleagues that he collected clutches of eggs from the nests of rare birds over
many years but insists that he stopped doing so long ago. In 1980, Young
reported a discovery even more exciting than a night parrot. He claimed to have
rediscovered the paradise parrot, the only bird believed to have become extinct
on the Australian mainland, but visits by ornithologists failed to find any
birds.
In the mid-1990s, Young claimed to have photographed a
Coxen’s fig-parrot, a tiny parrot on the verge of extinction, but no conclusive
evidence emerged. In 2007, Young claimed another spectacular discovery when he
said he had photographed a previously unknown species, the blue-browed
fig-parrot. The claim was challenged by revelations in The Australian about doubts by experts concerning a photograph of
Young’s parrot published in The Courier
Mail.
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| Paradise Parrot |
In her acclaimed book, Glimpses
of Paradise- The Quest for the Beautiful Parakeet, zoologist and parrot
expert Penny Olsen said Young had on several
occasions “claimed a sensational find, shrouded in secrecy, which divided the
birding community and ultimately came to nothing”.
This time the evidence is incontestable, but divisions in
the birding community have resurfaced. Melbourne photographer Geoff Jones suggested
on wildlife online forum birding-aus that Young’s critics would “grovel and eat
humble pie”; Tasmanian birder Ian May said doubts about Young had been
generated by “slurs” published by The
Australian. Others countered that
the night parrot find and Young’s previous claimed discoveries should be
regarded as unrelated.
When revealing his find exclusively to The Weekend Australian last week, Young addressed his critics
publicly for the first time. He said he had lost the negative of the
blue-browed fig-parrot photograph. However, the image was digital and one of a
series. Young offered a different explanation about the photographs in a later
interview: “I lightened them, darkened them, did my own sort of stuff and I was
criticised and probably rightly so.”
Young has locked government authorities out of his night
parrot discovery, declaring this week: “I’d rather go to jail than tell anyone where I
found it... The site is going to stay protected. I want to look after this
thing at all cost.” Young believes
government agencies would mismanage the property and that its whereabouts cannot
be disclosed because it would be invaded by intrusive bird-watchers,
threatening the survival of what is probably a tiny remnant population. Another
concern may be egg-collectors; avicultural industry sources say a clutch of
wild night parrot eggs could fetch as much as $1 million on overseas black
markets.
Joe Forshaw says it is essential that Young co-operate with
government authorities: “You need a cat
reduction program, you’ve maybe got land acquisition, all manner of management
issues. John won’t have the resources. What happens if he gets run over by a
bus? It all goes down the gurgler.”
This article was published in The Weekend Australian of 6-7 July, 2013
